Acharya Tulsi - A Peacemaker Par Excellence: Naya Mod (A campaign...)

A campaign for the eradication of effete, orthodox and harmful practices

It was in 1960 when Acharyashree was having his chaturmas at Rajsamand. The Terapanth bicentenary celebrations were organ­ized on a massive scale. Acharyashree presented a plan of Naya Mod before a huge gathering. This programme generated a new wave of enthusiasm among the people. A big campaign was launched to rid the Terapanth community of the evil practices like purdah system, mrityu bhoj (a feast held on the occasion of the death of someone), weeping aloud in the event of someone's death as an obligatory social custom, compelling widows to wear black clothes and subjecting them to insults, exhibitionism, dowry (strik­ing a bargain and displaying dowry articles publicly) and certain harmful social functions held at the end of tapasya (observing long fasts). In the course of this campaign the people were made to realize the harmful effects caused by these evil practices in social and religious life. In less than a decade the campaign evoked unprece­dented response from the people. One could see its encouraging results in all the activities of the community.

Thanks to this constructive programme that we find some of the evil practices replaced by a set of Jain rules to be observed on these occasions.