‘Odisha Is The Land Of My Love…’: Know What It Taught Gandhi About Pilgrimage

Cuttack: Mahatma Gandhi visited Odisha on several occasions because of his love for the state, Chief Minister Mohan Majhi said during a event at Swarajya Ashram at Telengapentha in Cuttack on Wednesday.

“Odisha was the land of love for him. Gandhiji’s life was a constant experiment with truth. It’s time to work for those who are at the bottom of the society and this will be our best tribute to Gandhi ji,” Majhi said.

Gandhiji had put up at this ashram on the night of May 15, 1934. The Mahatama had also mentioned that Odisha was the land of his love in India.

“Odisha is the land of my love in India. Ever since I landed in India I began to hear of Odisha’s poverty and famine. Thakker Bapa came in connection with it and organized famine relief, and also realized that if I could serve Odisha somewhat I would by so doing, serve India. Later Odisha became for me a place of pilgrimage— not because the temple of ‘The Lord of the World’ was there (for it was not open to me, as it was not open to the Harijan)—but because I thought of a novel way of touring the country for the sacred mission of the abolition of untouchability. I had heard that the so-called Sanatanists were enraged at my mission and would try to frustrate it with violence. If they were really so minded, I said to myself, I should make their work easy by discarding the railway train and motor car and trekking through the country. Pilgrims don’t go on pilgrimage in cars and trains. They walk to the sacred place, with the name of God on their lips, forgetful of the fitful fever of the world and mindful only of offering one’s homage to the Lord—the homage of service. And if there was trouble in Puri because of the anger of the Sanatanists, we could not flee from the wrath. We must face it. I could not do all this in a car or a railway train, and so I decided to perform the rest of the Harijan pilgrimage on foot.”

“The temple of Jagannath (the Lord of the World) has the reputation of being the most famous in India, for there all human distinctions are supposed to vanish, and Brahman and Pariah brush shoulders with one another vying for the darshan of the Lord and even eat His prasad out of one another’s hands. But evidently it had outlived that reputation and the description had become a fiction, for Harijans would not be suffered to enter the great temple. I said to myself that so long as these distinctions were endured before the very eyes of the Lord of the world, that Lord was not my Lord, that He was the Lord of those who exploited His name and kept Harijans out, but certainly not the Lord of the world. My ambition of restoring its old reputation to the temple is yet unfulfilled and you have to help me in fulfilling it,” he was quoted as saying in Odisha Review.

Gandhi used to give example of Lord Jagannath while preaching on unity, much before he visited the pilgrim town. He cited the example of ‘nondiscrimination’ inside the 12th-century shrine while addressing Indians at a conclave in South Africa and called upon them to discard any kind of discrimination (region, caste and class) and unite as Indians, according to evidence-based research by writer Gouranga Charan Parida.

In an article published in ‘Indian Opinion’ on August 29, 1904, with title ‘The Uses of Adversity’, Gandhi also described the Lord as the epitome of cultural integration.

His made a trip to the pilgrim town on March 26, 1921, during his first visit to Odisha after the famine in 1920 in Puri district brought the state to limelight in the country. He along with his wife Kasturba and other family members had darshan of the sibling deities in the shrine on March 27, 1921, and expressed how he felt immensely blessed in the Daskati (family dairy) preserved with the local priests of the Gujuratis.

Gandhi, however, was stopped when he took an entourage of Muslims, Harijans and Dalits to the temple in 1934. He could not accept the fact that Dalits were not allowed to enter the temple during Harijan Padayatra. When he expressed his discontentment over the ‘discrimination’ at Srimandir, a senior servitor of the temple attended a conclave held at Beraboi village in Puri district and told him that he was misinformed about the temple, stating that Harijans (dalits) were also in the service of the Lord.

However, Gandhi never got an opportunity to visited the shrine again.

Mahatma at Telengapentha 

“On May 15, 1934, Gandhiji left Balianta at 5.30 pm and arrived at Telengapentha at 7 pm. About 2,000 people shouting. “Gandhiji Ki Jai” followed Mahatmaji on his route. Near Telengapenth a touching scene was witnessed when an old woman of 80 embraced Mahatmaji and presented him a cloth spun and woven by her. Mahatmaji was much impressed and the cloth was auctioned for Rs.7. Nearly 7,000 people from various villages gathered at a meeting addressed by Gandhiji after prayer. He requested the audience to work whole-heartedly for removal of untouchability. He said that he saw appreciable change in the minds of the people. Much work could be done if change remained permanent and he would thus think that his march had borne fruit,” according to Odisha review.