Tolerance of discrimination towards Hindu spiritual leaders, How long?

Tolerance of injustice is a bigger sin than doing injustice. Today, there has been a spate of events in which spiritual leaders, venerated by millions of people worldwide, are facing blatant discrimination in India. Kanchi Jayendra Saraswati's arrest and defamatory allegations by Jayalalitha government, Swami Narendra Maharaj's Dand incident at the airport and frisking of His Holiness Sant Shri Asaramji Bapu on Jet Airways flight on the pretext of security check. Again on July 8, 2006, at Mumbai airport, Jet Airways officials purposely refused admission to Sant Shri Asaramji Bapu on a connecting flight to PUNE.

We are signing this petition to strongly protest against this kind of insensitive and irresponsible behavior of the Jet Airways officials. We are urging airline companies to respect saints and religious leaders and take religious sentiments of the people into consideration. Please keep in mind that a religious leader is not an individual but an institution that represents the spiritual faith of millions of their followers.

Pujya Bapuji was traveling from Nagpur to Pune via Mumbai to attend a religious function where about 200,000 people were waiting for his arrival.The Nagpur-Mumbai Air Deccan flight was late by an hour and his connecting Jet Airways flight was on time. Still, there was ample time between the two flights. As soon as the Air Deccan flight reached Mumbai, their flight staff informed Jet Airways officials that Bapuji was coming to board the flight. Boarding pass from Bapuji was given to Jet Airways staff members. After passing through the security check, Bapuji came to board the flight. To show respect and reverence towards Pujya Bapuji, Air Deccan and Central Industrial Security Force staff escorted him till the gate. The Jet Airways staff personnel came back after 15-20 minutes,only to deny boarding by saying that the plane doors were about to close. The Jet Airways ground staff already had Bapuji's boarding pass in their possession 20 minutes before the doors were scheduled to close. Instead of making Bapuji wait at the gate, they could very well have rushed him to the plane. So the question is, 'Does it take 20 minutes for the ground staff of a reputable airline, with walkie-talkies in their hands, to find out if the doors have closed or not?' A case of horrible service as it is, the whole episode has a sense of total discrimination towards His Holiness.

As a mark of customer service, many airlines announce the names of their delayed travelers several times and wait some time till they board the plane. A situation like this could have been avoided if the Jet Airways ground staff were sensitive to the stature of the person traveling and had allowed Him to board the flight. It is really unfortunate that for the second time in a row His Holiness Shri Asaramji Bapu has faced hardships on Jet Airways flights. This has hurt the feelings of many of his followers. Have we Indians forgotten even our basic humility towards saints and religious leaders that we have to face such issues?

His Holiness Shri Asaramji Bapu is a spiritual leader who has dedicated his life to the upliftment of society, irrespective of caste or creed. Pujya Bapuji preaches the existence of One Supreme Conscious in every human being; be it Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Christian, Sikh or anyone else. Today, he has followers in over 160 countries around the world with the total number exceeding 25 million. He is one of the few self realized saints today and it is the duty of the society at large to be of service to such great souls.

Every follower of Pujya Bapuji has resolved that they will never board Jet Airways flight in their life time AND DIVEST THEIR HOLDINGS IN JET AIRWAYS SHARES. We do not want to take the service of a 'public' company who is so insensitive to public feelings and their beliefs.

We demand government take stringent action to avoid this kind of discrimination and treat our saints and regious leaders with respect and dignity. We also request the government and airline companies to issue a directive to all the officials on the ground that any kind of ill behavior will not be tolerated in future.