Will popularise Sanskrit during my tenure: Laxmi Kanta Chawla
Amritsar, August 1
Newly elected president of the Durgiana Committee Laxmi Kanta Chawla has announced that she will popularise Sanskrit during her tenure.
She is the first-ever female head of the committee that also runs a Sankrit institute and an Ayurvedic college.
A Cabinet minister in the erstwhile Parkash Singh Badal government, she said, “I had vowed to fight the election to the temple committee the day when members of the committee had stated that a woman cannot head the religious body as per the norms of the Sanatan Dharma. They forget that we also pray to goddesses in this ancient religion.”
I had vowed to fight the election to the temple committee the day when committee members had said a woman cannot head a religious body as per the norms of the Sanatan Dharma. —Laxmi Kanta Chawla
During her public career spanning nearly five decades, she led campaigns against bride burning, undertook underground activities on behalf of the sangh during the Emergency period, worked for empowering women and drug de-addiction in slum and under-develop areas of the city.
She had entered the public life as a worker of the ABVP and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Honesty and simplicity have been her twin pillars ever since she first became a councillor in 1972. She had lost her maiden election by 218 votes. During her three terms as an MLA, she chose to stay at MLA Hostel rather than a flat. She bid adieu to active politics in 2012.
Her simplicity and claim of never spending money in elections except depositing security fee earned her goodwill of people. She is a rare politician who is someone difficult to fit into any slot. She knows Punjabi, but does not use it officially. She does not hold back to criticise, even her party leaders.
A teacher in BBK DAV College in Amritsar, a job from which she took leave from 1992 to 2000, before retiring in 2001, she had both the RSS as well as Leftist influences in the beginning of her career.
Communal clashes during the Partition had left an impact on her family, which moved towards the RSS. She had a deep impact of sangh ideology in her growing years. She was exposed to the communist ideology while studying from eminent Communist leader Vimla Dang in her school days.
