Sunday, August 2, 2009

Jain community opposes naming nuke submarine INS Arihant

ins arihant

Bangalore: Members of the Akhil Bhartiya Shree Jain Swetamber Murtipujak Yuvak Mahasangh today took strong exception to naming the Nuclear Submarine commissioned by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Visakhapatnam recently as 'INS Arihant'.

Seeking Karnataka Governor Hansraj Bharadwaj's intervention, in a letter, Mahasangh Vice President Devkumar K Jain said, ''We are highly perturbed since the Submarine has been named after one of the important Jain Teerthankaras (Gods) whom we hold in a very high esteem.'' '''Arihant' is the very foundation of our Jain Philosophy and our Navkar Mantra begins with it. In Sanskrit, Arihant means a destroyer of enemies. In Jainism, the word Arihant has a very profound meaning-the destroyer of the inner enemies like greed, lust and anger,'' he added.

''Knowingly or unknowingly, the Union Government has committed a serious blunder by naming the Submarine as Arihant and this has hurt the sentiments of our community at large. Jainism strongly believes in the philosophy of Ahimsa and consequently a Nuclear Destroyer cannot be named after one of our Religious Supremo God,'' he charged.

Mr Jain informed the Jain community in Karnataka has launched a signature campaign to register its protest and also plans to call on President Prathibha Devsingh Patil and seek her intervention.

He said, ''We fully appreciate the Goverment's move to commission a Nuclear Submarine in safeguarding the interests of the country and we have nothing against the programme of the Indian Navy to develop and deploy warships including the submarine.''

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