It will be a sentimental journey for Congress president Sonia Gandhi when she arrives in Mangalore on October 18 to inaugurate the ‘people’s Dasara’.
It will be a sentimental journey for Congress president Sonia Gandhi when she arrives in Mangalore on October 18 to inaugurate the ‘people’s Dasara’. She will visit the Gokarnanatha temple at Kudroli, which was inaugurated by her late husband Rajiv Gandhi after the temple was renovated in 1991.
The temple has also been the only one in Karnataka to be sanctified by reformer, philosopher and religious leader Narayana Guru of Kerala in 1912 and this year happens to be its centenary.
Sonia Gandhi will address a conference of all Congress MLAs, MLCs, MPs and members of zilla panchayats, taluk panchayats, nagar panchayats and urban civic bodies like city corporations, town municipal councils and city municipal councils.
“The occasion was fit for somebody of the stature of the Congress president and chairman of the ruling United Progressive Alliance to inaugurate. The temple itself was a symbol of secularism as it had opened its doors to people from all communities in as early as 1912,” said B Janardhana Poojary, former Union minister and a leader of the Billava Community, which administers the temple.
One of elders of the Billava community, Sahukar Koragappa, was pained to learn that the Billava people were not given entrance to the temple and started one of the earliest movements in the country towards opening the places of worship to all communities. He brought the 18th century philosopher Narayana Guru from Kerala to Mangalore to consecrate the Shiva Lingam, which he brought from Kerala along with him. The kshetra was named ‘Gokarnanatha’ by Narayana Guru.
Thanks to the Kudroli Gokarnanatha temple, Mangalore Dasara has been hailed as a common man’s Dasara. There is no royal halo nor the government patronage and it is not even a tourism event. It is just that the people of the city and Dakshina Kannada district have been organising it every year for the past 19 years. On the last day of Navarathri, the grand procession includes a 5-km-long line up of tableaux (more than 100 of them) coming from all over the state and some from outside and more than 30 troupes of folk dancers from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Idols of Navadurga, mounted on truck platform with dazzling display of lights, are taken around the city with folk dancers.
The managing trustee of the temple, HS Sairam, grandson of Sahukar Koragappa, says: “During the nine days of Navarathri, we receive over 2.25 lakh people from all over the southern peninsula. All the nine days, Anna Prasadam (mass feeding), in which more than a lakh people partake, we get devotees from Muslim, Christian communities and even foreign countries.”
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