Kanpur: Samajwadi Party leader and former MLA Swami Prasad Maurya, on the sidelines of attending a marriage funnction at Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, on Monday, offered a clarification on his views and remarks on religious book Ramcharitmanas.
Maurya said that people belonging to tribal community, women and dalits were always looked down upon by the society. "But we took up the cudgels fighting for their rights. Majority of the people have been supporting our cause. But a handful of people were opposing our efforts. Otherwise, intellectuals and people belonging to villages at the grassroots level have no problems with us. In fact, they are backing our cause," he said.
Read: OBC Mahasabha members burn copies of Ramcharitmanas in support of SP leader Maurya
Regarding the call for ban on Ramcharitmanas, Maurya said, "My remarks on banning Ramcharitmanas were distorted. I never spoke about banning the book. I was misquoted. I said that a few stanzas in the book projecting tribal community, women and Dalits in a poor light should be deleted or removed."
Elaborating further, the Samajwadi Party leader said, "Those words or lines having caste connotations or slurs must be taken out. I asked for removal of those lines in Ramcharitmanas wherein lower caste people were called Neech or Adharmi (non-religious), women were treated as an object of physical abuse or assaulting. Otherwise, I am a religious person and taught to give respect to all religions."
Giving reply to a query, Maurya said, "As I told you (reporters) that I respect all religions. But using unparliamentary language (in Ramcharitmanas) could not be called Dharma. That's why, I was opposing those offending lines in the religious book." Maurya said that the purpose of religion is the welfare of humanity and religion should empower women, Dalits and Adivasis. Those offending lines in Ramcharitmanas cannot be a part of the religion, he summed up.
