Swaha: RJD students' wing deifies Laloo

PATNA: Friday was the day of deification of RJD supremo and railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav. It had ingredients of subservience and humour, and was a pointer to new mindswing taking place in the students'' wing of the RJD, the Chhatra RJD, or its adherents.
On the auspicious Guru Purnima Day on Friday, when devotees arrange "havan" (ceremonial fire) and chant "mantras" to honour their gurus, top office-bearers of the Chhatra RJD organised Guru Purnima Utsav to honour Laloo on the Law College campus of Patna University, close to the bank of the Ganga.
He had been associated with the college as students'' leader of Patna University in the early 1970s.
The organisers had arranged a "vedi" (altar) and used cowdung cakes for "havan" in front of a life-size photograph of Laloo. The air had fragrance of incense sticks, but nothing more to resemble a religious ceremony.
Beside the "vedi", organisers jointly chanted mantras like "Om guru devaya namah", "Om Laloo devaya namah", and "Om guruwaya namah" soberly.
They did it even before the camera of a private TV channel, but one of them, Mithilesh Yadav, from commerce faculty of Patna University, chipped in like an alien with his "Om Laloo swaha". The organisers appealed to the photographer to erase the atheistic mantra in Laloodom.
Asked why Laloo, a human being, was being transformed into a deity, president of the organisation Hira Lal Pal said, "He has given us everything we had asked for -- honour, economic upliftment and social dignity."
The participants included students from history and science faculties, even non-Yadavas.
Chhatra RJD general secretary Pawan Kumar Yadav, who played the priest, said: "We are doing it as RSS honours Guru Golwalkar." During the June 1992 rally, Laloo was hailed as Krishna avatar. "That is for the larger society to think. For us, Lalooji is our guru," Pal said.
But Mithilesh Yadav, who had tried to play spoilsport by chanting "Om Laloo Swaha", told TNN: "I can''t be blind to the state of affairs. There is flight of capital. People are afraid of kidnappings and killings. Education has been robbed of all glory. Students and youths are at the crossroads. What is there left to hail the leader?"