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Bridge for Harmony: Narendra Modi 241

can be perceived even in this. Now, final rites are performed in
any cremation ground in the village, and a few drops of the
Ganga water are sprinkled, and this is considered just right.
There is no issue whether you can get sandalwood or not; a few
pieces of sandalwood are considered enough for the purpose.
The change has occurred to the extent that if wood is moist due
to rainfall, even a tyre is burnt for the purpose. The people have
shown the courage to undertake electric cremation. An effort
has been started in Vadodara. The Hindu community is alone
in the world that considers this type of change after death. If all
this is accounted, you will find that a community requires great
courage to accept the change.

Who can bring about change in the basic defects that mar
the society? Why should we continue to accept what our
forefathers told us, why should we accept them as they are?
Even today, we find people having different views about
untouchability; it is our ill-luck. Just imagine the condition that
prevailed 400 years ago, and just think of Narsingh Mehta who
fought against his own community for eradication of
untouchability. What a great thing this is! How capable a man
he was! How committed he was! This community, which calls
Aham Brahmasmi, the community which accepts the meeting
God, the community that feels God whenever it utters the word
‘Namaste’ – how long this community will continue to suffer
from this thinking that you are different from us because you
have been born from the womb of a Dalit woman; how long
will this deformity continue in our community? A number of
great people have raised their voices from time to time in order
to eradicate this deformity. Two hundreds years ago in
Saurashtra, a girl of a Rajput family wrote and sang a song; she
recited. In one stanza of her poetry, she tries to culturise the
society saying:

Jatipanun chodi ne ajati thaure, kadhvo varan vikar re,
Jatine bhanti nahin, harikera deshama re, avi rite reu nirmal.
(Give up your caste and become casteless, and throw out
the deformity of caste from your heart, in order to become as
pure as the Ganga).