Bhagwat unveils Dilip Singh Judeo’s 12-foot statue at Jashpur
The statue of the former scion of Jashpur State and son of Raja Vijay Bhushan Singh Deo, he was the last ruling prince of Jashpur. He was elected to the Lok Sabha as a BJP candidate and was given a cabinet portfolio in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. However, a sting video circulated during that period forced him to resign from the cabinet.
The 12-foot statue was sculpted by Ram V Sutar, the man behind the 108-foot statue of Bengaluru founder Nadaprabhu Kempegowda, unveiled Friday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s famous Statue of Unity in Gujarat. The image shows the Chhattisgarh leader twirling his mustache, as he often did during his prime. It was commissioned by the BJP government in 2013 and was completed in 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a delay in the inauguration.
RSS Chief Bhagwat unveiled this statue on the occasion of Janjati Gaurav DIwas, which marked the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, a janjati freedom fighter revered as ‘Dharti ka Aba’ by the numerous janjati people.
He said that the late Dilip Singh Judeo and Birsa Munda had immense love for Bharat. He described Judeo as ‘fearless, courageous, and extraordinarily humble even when he had great education, money, and power’. Serving janjati people was a pious thing for him, Bhagwat said.
Sounding a warning bell for the innocent and simple janjati people, the RSS Chief asked them to be alert and should not allow anybody to take disadvantage of them. “We don’t have to think who is big or small; we don’t have to think who has what and what not. We must walk together, with courage, for our own country, our religions, our culture, our society, and for our self-esteem. We shall rise together”, Bhagwat said.
Prabal Pratap Singh Judeo, the only son of Dilip Singh Judeo assured the RSS Sarsanghchalak that he would continue to tread the legacy of his late father and serve the janjati people standing with them in times of happiness and distress as well.
He is now state secretary of the BJP and heads the ‘Ghar Wapsi Abhiyan’ of the RSS” Dharma Jagaran. He said that incidents of religious conversions of the janjati people are increasing in Chhattisgarh under the tacit support of the Congress government headed by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
Recalling his father on conversions, Prabal Pratap Singh Judeo said that his late father used to say that conversions of janjati people is the easy way to defeat Bharat as our roots belong to the janjati area. We will not allow this to happen, he said.
BJP MP from Rajnandgaon Santosh Pandey said that unveiling the statue of Judeo was long overdue as it faced many hurdles in the past. He further said that Judeo’s stature and influence in the state are such that even now many janjati people greet each other with “Jai Judeo” instead of ‘hi or hello’.
According to his Lok Sabha profile, Judeo worked on “tribal uplift, preserving Hindu temples and shrines, monitoring tribal conversion and the Ghar Wapsi program of Hindus. He put his weight behind the controversial ‘ghar wapsi’ campaign, which saw the state’s indigenous people ‘reconverted to Hinduism’. He famously washed the feet of tribes that had converted to Christianity as part of a ritual for their “re-entry” to The Bharat Express News religion.
“I know the tactics that missionaries use in many countries. It’s not just conversion, it will change the character of the country…I’m not against Christians, just against conversion,” Judeo said during his 2009 Lok Sabha election campaign in Bilaspur district, according to a report by The Bharat Express News.
He graduated from a mission college, St. Xavier College, Ranchi, but was critical of those who converted tribes to Christianity.
(With input from agencies)
