Don’t Deal With Treta Yug’: Rights Body Junks Plea on Ravan Effigy Burning
‘We don’t deal with Treta or Dwapara Yugas,’ says the commission while dismissing the plea.
Raipur: Chhattisgarh State Human Rights Commission (CSHRC) has dismissed a bizarre petition seeking discontinuance of the age-old practice of burning the effigy of Ravan, a key feature of Dasara festival, for violation of fundamental rights of the demon king, saying that ‘We do not deal with cases of Treta or Dwapara Yugas’.
The CSHRC deals with only cases of the present age, not of Treta or Dwapara Yugas (two of four world ages as per the Hindu religious scriptures)’, the commission noted, while dismissing the plea.
Sources said that the human rights body had received a four-line petition seeking the commission’s intervention in the matter, arguing that the practice of burning of Ravan’s effigy during the Dasara festival amounted to infringement of the fundamental rights of the mythological demon king.
The petition argued that if Ravan’s effigy is burnt as a symbolic destruction of evil during the festival, then it should be Kaurav prince Duryodhan, of epic Mahabharat fame, whose effigy should be inflamed since Duryodhan is eviler than Ravan (of epic Ramayan fame).
“The petition is dismissed since the issue does not come under the jurisdiction of the commission. We deal with cases of the present age, not of Treta or Dwapara Yugas”, the outgoing commission chairman Giridhari Nayak, who dealt with the petition, told this newspaper on Tuesday.
The commission deals with issues concerning human beings and not mythological figures such as Ravan, he said.
The bizarre plea was among around 74,000 cases that have landed before the commission between 2,000 and 2026, according to him.
The commission has found around 4,000 cases frivolous or completely offbeat, he said.