Remembering Swami Lakshmananada Saraswati Ji: His Legacy and Lessons

Today on 23 August 2023, it would be fifteen years since Swami Lakshmanananda ji was assassinated by fanatic Christian Missionaries and the Maoist Gangs in the Kadhamal District of Odisha. Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati ji, a Hindu monk devoted to the cause of awakening Hindus against Christian evangelism was seen as a big stumbling block in their activities to covert the innocent Hindus taking advantage of their ignorance and poverty.  They killed him in alliance with Maoist gangs of the Kandhmal district on the auspicious day of Janmashtami. There have been many such killings and numerous attacks on Hindu saints and monks. What’s appalling is that these brazen acts against Hindu monks and people adhering to Hinduness have either gone unreported or brushed under the carpet. Moreover the state and central governments of those days coined terms such as Hindu terror, saffron extremism and so on and did not leave any stone unturned to further malign Hindus. Therefore, while we remember Swamiji on his fifteenth martyr day, we also need to know the deeper conspiracy that’s brewing in the country. 

Swami Laksahmanand Saraswati deicided to be a Sanyasi at the age of 25 and he went to Himalayas. There he performed tapasya for 12 years and then he came to Rishikesh. There he started studying Hindu scriptures and he became proficient in Vendanta. Therefore the other Sadhus in Risheksh named him as Vedant Keshri Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati.

In 1968, Swamiji had come back to Kandhmal in Odisha and made the district his karmbhumi. He came to the Kandhmal district as per the suggestions of other Sadhus at Rishikesh and after consultation with the leaders of Rashtriya Swayasevak Sangh. Within a year of his coming to the district, Swamiji set up an Ashram at Chakapada in the Kandhamala district.

Kandhmal District even today is a remote district populated mainly by two major communities. The Kandhas, who are Scheduled Tribes, constitute 53.6 percent of the total population of the district. The other major community is Panos, a Scheduled Caste Community constituting 16 percent of the total population of the district. The Panos have largely been converted to Christianity.

Seeing the deplorable condition of people in the district, Swamiji decided to work for the all-round development of them. He started imparting Sanskrit Education to the poor tribal and Dalit community students in the ashram that Swamiji had set up in 1969. Today the School that he ran in the Ashram has turned out to be a well-known college in the area.

Swamiji was committed to the cause of the Hindu awakening of people in the Kandhmal district. With the help of people from surrounding villages, he repaired Birupaksha Temple, Anandeshwara Temple, and Jogeshwara Temple in the Kandhamal district.  Swamiji believed education of young boys and girls in the district can help them realize their original fold and also help them explore promising opportunities for a brighter future. With this in mind, he established a separate residential school for girl students at a place called Jalespata in 1989. Even today hundreds of girls study in this School and many have settled well in their lives.

Along with setting up Ashrams and Schools, Swamiji also kept working for the spiritual development of people. Therefore he started organizing Jagannath Rath Yatra from Kalinga in which thousands of people participated overwhelmingly. He also organized Satsangas and other religious celebrations in order to inculcate good Sanskaras and to raise the bar of the socio-cultural outlook of people. Such initiatives not only imbibed spiritual development in people but also ensured liquor-free villages.

People started realizing what they had missed by converting to foreign religion as Swamiji’s spiritual initiatives exhorted them to respect their deity ‘Penu Basa’-their sacred place and ‘Darni Penu’-Goddess Earth. Swamiji encouraged the local inhabitants to re-invoke their deities and various ways of worship. Importantly Hinduism celebrates diversity of ways of worship whereas in Christianity such indigenous faith and practices are decried. The enthused people then embarked on carrying out Ratha Yatras in the area and set up Bhagwat Tungis or the place of religious discourses.

Swamiji was an ardent worshiper of mother cows and he worked relentlessly for the prevention of cow slaughter. For that, he carried out several campaigns, agitations, and demonstrations for a legal ban on the slaughterhouses that killed cows. It’s also important to remember that in 1966, when Hindu organizations launched a major campaign to demand a ban on the slaughter of cows in India, Swamiji also took part in the agitation in Delhi. He was arrested along with many others and spent 18 days in Tihar Jail.

Swamiji believed that the Christian Churches were involved in the fraudulent conversion of the simple-minded people and were uprooting them from their great traditions and culture. He also propagated that such wrongful conversion was creating a serious threat to India’s internal security and sovereignty. He was determined to stop such illegal and immoral behavior on the part of evangelical organizations. He actively protected poor Hindus in that area from falling into the trap of Christian evangelists.

Swamiji's activities had infused self-confidence among poor tribal and Dalit people in the area. The Church-led intrusion into the practices that they had been following inherited from their ancestors had also created disenchantment about Christians in the minds of people. Therefore the re-invoked respect for their age-old culture and tradition started drawing them back to their original fold. It was a major irritant for the intolerant Christian zealots and they conspired to remove Swamiji from their immoral path.

They made an alliance with Maoists active in the area and made eight attempts before they became successful in assassinating Swamiji on 23 August 2008. The barbarous incident of killing of Kalpvriksha Giri Maharaj (70) and Sushil Giri Maharaj (35) in the Gadchinchale village in the Palghar district of Maharashtra on 16 April 2020 also hints at the same kind of unholy alliance.

The divisive forces in collusion with Christian missionaries mostly active in poor, tribal, and Dalit areas and localities are creating havoc. Therefore, as we remember Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati ji on his 15^th Martyr Day on 23 August 2023, we must also understand the wildfire of the conspiracy that’s spreading in such areas of India thereby posing serious threats to India’s unity, integrity, and sovereignty.