A 13-year-old girl died of cardiac arrest this Monday after fasting for 68 days. This even as public events were organised to celebrate her ‘baal tapasvi’ status. The glorification seemed to continue even after her death as a massive funeral procession, called shobha yatra, was organised, in which some 600 people participated.
Ironic for a religion that advocates non-violence and does not allow for accidental killing even for small insects and microbes. Community members, in fact, wear masks so that they don’t accidentally inhale small organisms in the air. Whereas the 13-year-old, we are told, did not have even water, leave alone any fruits or food.
Aradhana Samdariya was not from an uneducated family. She was a class 8 student at St Francis in Hyderabad, but she stopped going to school after starting upvaas or fasting ritual. Her father and grandfather are in the jewellery business and own a shop in the Pot Bazaar area of Secunderabad. Her two aunts are doctors, one a paediatrician and the other a gynaecologist.
Aradhana’s father Lakshmichand Samdariya is now being accused by Balala Hakkula Sangh, a child rights organisation, of allowing his daughter to die in the hope of bettering his business prospects.
