Two Shankaracharyas on Sunday said the Centre should not have taken a “one-sided” decision on the new farm laws without discussions with the farmers, one of them adding that the NDA government’s habitual unilateralism was a “bad sign for democracy”.
Shankaracharyas, heads of the four monasteries established by Adi Shankaracharya, are among the most venerated of Hindu monks and the two pontiffs’ remarks are particularly significant since they rarely comment on political subjects.
“The government took a one-sided decision on every issue, including the (2016) demonetisation and the farm laws. It’s a bad sign for democracy,” Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, pontiff of two of the four monasteries Sharada Peeth in Dwarka, Gujarat, and Jyotir Peeth in Badrinath, Uttarakhand told reporters in Allahabad.