India advocated its secular notions until recently when political parties relentlessly provoked the citizens to stand up against each other in the name of religion for their own avaricious agendas. While back in March the entire community of minorities was held responsible for spreading the virus in India even though the cases hadn’t taken up the surge, now when COVID 19 positive priests are offering sweets laced in their infected saliva calling it “God’s Prasad”, no one’s batting an eye.
Whether this has become the “new normal” or not hasn’t been revealed yet.
This is the incident involving the preposterous actions of a Hindu priest named Shree Purushottampriyadas, a part of the Maninagar Shree Swaminarayan Gadi Sansthan in Ahmedabad who died of coronavirus, very few days after he held a “celebration” on the occasion of his “birthday” amid the social distancing rules in the country as the nation is struggling with controlling its number of cases.
This extremely bizarre occasion is in the limelight as the devotees who came in to seek his blessings on his birthday received “saliva-enveloped” sweets as ‘prasad’.
It is uncertain as to how many of the devotees who ate the coronavirus infected sweets are now affected by the disease.
The ritual of “jhooteladdu” is very much prevalent in Ahmedabad and is a yearly affair; however, this year’s celebration was uncalled for as it is a matter of life and death for people who think about holding such events and for those who attend it as well.
IndiaTV’s video has got viral on the internet which shows the now-deceased priest taking each piece of the sweet in his mouth, lacing it with his saliva, and giving it as a “blessed” prasad to the devotees. Other priests can also be seen dancing after receiving the sweets.
The incident took place nearly 3 three weeks back, yet, the exposure and coverage it required were nowhere to be found. No new agency highlighted the urgency of the situation which has put dozens of lives at stake.
While the Prime Minister did speak on it, one might expect him to have ordered a probe, a detailed investigation or a tweet regarding the contact tracing for the devotees who attended the gala event. Contrary to this, PM Narendra Modi got vocal about his deep sadness regarding the death of the priest in question here.
“Acharya Shree PurushottampriyadasjiSwamishreeMaharaj was blessed with immense wisdom. His emphasis on community service, education, and women empowerment will always be remembered. I will never forget my many interactions with him. Om Shanti,” Modi tweeted.
The priest, Swami Purushottampriyadas, tested to be coronavirus positive and admitted to CIMS hospital in Science City on June 28th. Due to the extent of the virus’s infection, he was shortly being treated on a ventilator. Along with that, he was served two dosages of plasma retrieved from recovered COVID-19 patients which is extremely difficult to get for ordinary people due to its value. After all these efforts, the priest, unfortunately, died as his health did not see any ray of improvement.
At the same time when Swami got admitted, ten other priests of Ahmedabad also got admitted to different private hospitals in the city as they had tested positive for the virus as well. They are speculated to have been a part of the event.
