After the Muslims issued a fatwa against the use of AAP caps, it is now the Hindu priests who have termed the AAP cap “anti-Hindu”. The AAP cap carries a photo of a broom — the party symbol — and this seems to have irked Hindu priests.
Acharya Aditya Krishna of Varanasi says, “In Hindu mythology, the head is the most sacred part of the body and the broom is associated with garbage and, therefore, cannot be put on the head. In Varanasi, most of the Hindu men wear ‘tripundi’ (a three-line horizontal mark on the shivling) on their foreheads and wearing an AAP cap with a broom over it is sacrilege.”
Another priest in the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Acharya Girijesh Tiwari, said that they were planning to ban the entry of AAP caps in the temple.
“If they have to don the party symbol ‘broom’, they can wear it on T-shirts and on badges. Putting a broom on one’s head, as it is, is considered ‘unclean’ and inauspicious,” he said.
Another priest in the same temple said that when Mr Arvind Kejriwal came to offer prayers at the temple, he came without the cap but his supporters in the holy city insist on wearing it all the time. Mr Kejriwal has also irked the devotees in Varanasi when he addressed a rally earlier this week wearing a “tripundi” and then went on to wear a skull cap that is usually worn by Muslims.
“This goes to prove that Kejriwal is no better than other politician when it comes to promoting religious sentiments for the sake of votes. He should learn to respect every religion and not mix them up for electoral gains. Kejriwal is yet to understand the sensitivity level of people in Varanasi on such issues,” said Dr Ayodhya Prasad Misra, a retired BHU professor. Significantly, some time ago, Muslim clerics had issued a fatwa against the AAP cap and asked members not to wear the same. The mufti board secretary, Maulana Haseen Ahmad Habib, said: “After much discussion, it has been decided the AAP cap is anti-Islamic and Muslims must not wear it.”
