Vadodara: Temple plays national anthem to ‘infuse nationalism’
According to an elderly visiting the temple, the idea is to “infuse the feeling of love towards the nation in the hearts of youths”.
Freedom fighters share space at the temple. (Bhupendra Rana)
Every morning, sharp 6.45, a stretch of the VIP Road in Vadodara city resonates with the national anthem, which is played on a loudspeaker at a temple situated on one end of the road. This has been in practice for the last four months at Omkareshwar Mahadev Mandir where every morning the national anthem is played before the morning aarti.
According to an elderly visiting the temple, the idea is to “infuse the feeling of love towards the nation in the hearts of youths”. “Many schools have stopped making students sing the national anthem daily and they only sing it on specific occasions. But this should be a daily practice.”
“It was a unanimous decision to play the national anthem every morning,” says 30-year-old Jignesh Patel, a public relations executive at a private hospital who had come up with the idea. While most of the residents in the temple’s vicinity consider it as a welcome move, a few remain relatively ignorant, while few consider it as a disregard of the national anthem itself.
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