Since the beginning of the year, three incidents at Belur Math, the headquarters of Ramakrishna Math and Mission, have triggered alarm among some of the followers and devotees of Ramakrishna. These are the visit of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Belur Math on January 12, the decision to send sacred soil from the Math for the foundation laying ceremony of the Ayodhya Ram temple in August and a social media rumor in recent weeks that Kripakarananda Maharaj, a senior monk of the Math might join the Bharatiya Janata Party and be its face in the 2021 state election in Bengal.
Given the trajectory of events, it is increasingly getting difficult to ignore the Ramakrishna Mission’s claimed involvement with the BJP. Has the political party, bent on saffornising the nation, finally roped in the saffron-clad representatives of Bengal’s most respected spiritual organisation,…