Sambalpur: Like past years, this year too many visitors thronged the only Gandhi temple in Odisha at Bhatra area in Sambalpur district to offer tributes to the legendary freedom fighter Friday.
October 2, the Gandhi Jayanti, is the only day when some people throng the temple to offer flowers to the bronze idol of Mahatma Gandhi. Then, for the rest of the year, the temple is hardly visited by anyone except for a priest.
That said, Mahatma Gandhi along with several other freedom fighters get worshipped in this temple every day. From a distance, a visitor to the village is sure to mistake it for a temple of any god or goddess.
However, in sync with Gandhi’s principle, the person engaged at the temple is not a Brahmin but a Dalit. And inside the temple, there are symbols of all religions on the temple walls. And at the entrance, there is no ‘Aruna stambha’ or ‘Garuda stambha’ but an ‘Ashok stambha’. Sounds of gongs and ‘Ram Dhun’ at the temple during worship can be heard from a distance.
In 1972, the then Redhakhol MLA Abhimanyu Kumar took the initiative to construct this temple. Two years later, the temple was inaugurated by Nandini Satpathy in 1974.
Owing to lack of maintenance, this 45-year-old lone Gandhi temple of the state is in a state of despair with its plasters having come off at places, outer wall developing cracks and trees growing from the cracks. About the surrounding, the lesser said, the better.
Local people who always take pride in having the state’s lone Gandhi temple in their area rue over the administrative apathy in maintaining the temple. They have urged the administration to take steps for restoration of this piece of history.
PNN
