The parents of a 13-year-old girl in Hyderabad have gone into hiding fearing arrest, but they continue to be under the spotlight along with the Jain ritual of ‘tapasya’ which allegedly claimed their daughter’s life.
Friends and relatives of Lakshmichand and Manisha — the parents of Aradhana Samdariya — say they have “gone out of town in search of peace” ever since for homicide amid allegations that they had coerced the girl to undertake the hazardous ritual. They have also moved the local court seeking anticipatory bail.
Many Jain leaders, meanwhile, have , saying they are being targeted and the community deliberately maligned. They say the ritual of ‘tapasya’ that Aradhana undertook is the first of the nine steps (nav-pad) aimed at attaining salvation, and is not the same as the more controversial Jain ritual of ‘santhara’, whereby the elderly or the sick abstain from food until they die.
The other eight steps towards salvation include charitra (character), gyan (knowledge), darshan (faith) and arihant (one who has vanquished all inner enemies and is still within the body).
“There are various forms of fasting as part of tapasya — one can do it on alternative days, or two days, four days, 18 days, 34 days and 68 days or even more, depending on the capacity of individual. But there is no pressure on anybody to do it and it is purely voluntary,” insists Maangilal Bhandari, an influential Jain leader of Hyderabad.
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