Dynamic seer who always stood for religious harmony

CHENNAI: In the passing away of the 69th acharya of the Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, Sri Jayendra Saraswati,  at Kanchipuram at around 9 am on Wednesday, at the age of 82, after a brief illness, the country has lost a many-sided, dynamic, if at times even controversial seer who constantly strived for inter-religious harmony. Much as the Hindu-right would like to appropriate him as an ‘activist avataar’ from the down South, as a correspondent having covered the events of the acharya for nearly two decades, one could state with all humility that it would be too superficial and unfair to read the life and times of Sri Jayendra Saraswati as that of a ‘Hindutvavaadin’, despite his proximity to several RSS and VHP leaders. Significantly, Sri Jayendra Saraswati had been maintaining that the resolution of the Ayodhya issue was better left to religious leaders, and politicizing the dispute would do no good. I do not think he changed from that position, though in recent years he had relapsed into a profound silence in the wake of the Sankararaman murder case, in which he and all the other accused were absolved of all charges. Interestingly, Sri Jayendra had taken up the high-profile initiative to resolve the Ram temple issue in the year that marked his 50th year of ascension of the pontifical seat of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, a revered seat of spiritual power with a tradition spanning centuries and drawing inspiration from the great preceptor of the ‘Advaita (Non-dualism)’ philosophy propounded by Sri Adi Sankara.

After the outbreak of the communal riots in Gujarat post-Godhra incidents in 2002, Sri Jayendra Saraswati was one of the first religious leaders to personally rush there and appeal for calm, in a bid to bring back peace and communal harmony. That was even commended by the DMK president and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi who then said it made him “proud that someone of stature from Tamil Nadu had taken the initiative to bring back peace in Gujarat.”

Born on July 18, 1935,  in Irulneeki (in composite Thanjavur district, the village name literally meaning ‘dispelling darkness’), the acharya in his ‘poorvaashrama’ was named Subramaniyan by his parents Mahadevan and Saraswathi. And nobody then thought that Subramanian would ascend to the seat of the Kanchi mutt, to succeed one of the greatest sages of modern India, the late senior acharya, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati and whom Mahatma Gandhi revered. 

One of Sri Jayendra’s biographers tells us that his father Mahadevan had set up an organisation, ‘Amara Bharati’ to inculcate Sanskrit learning among children. It was in that environment that the young boy Subramanian encountered his early spiritual vibrations. Even as Subramanian had his early training in the Vedas, in mid-March 1954, his father got a call from the Kanchi mutt on the senior acharya’s intention to initiate Subramaniyan into rigorous monastic order. Thus, began a long and arduous new journey for the lad when Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati performed the ceremony in Kanchipuram on March 22, 1954, initiating him into the monastic order, giving him the sanyasa name, Sri Jayendra Saraswati.

Sri Jayendra Saraswati tried to find a middle path and then launched two movements, ‘Jan Jagran’ and ‘Jan Kalyan’ in the late 1980s. With those two initiatives, the focus of which was to reach out to society, the needy and under-privileged sections like Dalits, Sri Jayendra Saraswati was responding to his times.  

 A series of activities that included renovation of old temples, attending to the educational needs of poor students particularly Dalits, seeking to reverse the earlier poor state of finances of the Kanchi mutt, helping to renovate the ‘Adi Sankara Keerthi Sthamba Mandapam’ at Kalady in Kerala that was close to his guru’s heart, in all these, Sri Jayendra used to say he was only responding to an ‘inner call’.  The importance he gave to education was further reflected in his efforts, with then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s and then HRD minister Arjun Singh’s helping hand, to set up the Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Vishwa Mahavidyalaya, a deemed university, near Kancheepuram.

Many a time, his views on issues like Ayodhya, cow slaughter, widow remarriage, besides his support for the anti-conversion ordinance brought by an earlier AIADMK government headed by J. Jayalalithaa (that ordinance was later allowed to lapse) have provoked fierce controversies. Yet, Sri Jayendra Saraswati always believed in resolving issues through “mutual dialogue and discussion”.  He also clearly disapproved of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.

Made fervent efforts to resolve Ayodhya issue
Sri Jayendra’s high point, as a pontiff donning a political role, was when he was former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s “unofficial ambassador” to re-initiate a dialogue process to resolve the Ayodhya issue in 2003. Vajpayee had thought that Jayendra Saraswati’s charismatic, moderate, middle-path affirming persuasive abilities could bring all contentious groups on board, including the Sangh Parivar, VHP and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to a discursive wavelength that could pave way for a resolution during his tenure.

For weeks together, Sri Jayendra Saraswati’s “formula” to untangle the Ayodhya dispute was kept in wraps. And in early July 2003, when it was first made public, on a stunning new aspect of that proposal- “Muslims could gift the disputed land at the site of the Babri Masjid”-, the seer said its acceptance “would elevate Muslims to the position of Mount Everest.” That was a testament to his faith in the need for Hindu-Muslim unity, in an already polarized post-Godhra scenario.   

Though the AIMPLB outright rejected the seer’s “formula”, even as the VHP and other Sangh outfits - barring RSS leader Ram Madhav and then RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan trying to bring about a rapprochement at the 11th hour those crucial days -, had begun to go hammer and tongs against the Kanchi seer for his ‘unilateral’ moves that even drew flak from New Delhi-based philosophers like Pratap Bhanu Mehta that the Sankaracharya’s approach lacked consensus, Sri Jayendra himself said at one point to reporters in Kanchipuram then: “In a democracy, people are free to express their views. This is only my initiative and we are hoping for the best.” More than what the Hindus felt about the proposal, the Acharya said, “it is the acceptability by Muslims that is very crucial at this stage.”  That once again demonstrated his concerns for inter-religious harmony.