It looks like Rajan Zed, the Hindu leader from Nevada is on a self-promotional spree. Rajan Zed has been in news quite often these days. First It was when he had been invited to read prayers to the US Senate. The news got widespread international attention when the prayers were disrupted with shouting of some fundamentalist Christians in the senate gallery. Since then Mr. Zed has been trying to be in the news consistently and project himself as the leader of Hinduism in America. But this has not been warmly welcomed by other Hindu leaders in the USA.
Leaders of three Seattle-area temples said they knew of Zed from news accounts or not at all.
“I don’t know how he advertises himself or how he gets access to these things,” said Shyam Oberoi, secretary of the board of trustees of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell.
Swami Bhaskarananda of the Vedanta Society of Western Washington in Seattle said Zed sounds like “someone ambitious” whose appearance might be “politically motivated — he wants to be known.” [Via]
Zed again came to news when he demanded that a special screening of The Love Guru (a comedy by Mike Myers) be allowed to the members of Hindu community before it was released in June (the movie had full promotional support of the new-age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra). As a result, the Hindu American Foundation was granted a pre-secreening of the film prior to the release.
It looks like Rajan Zed (or it could be his P.R.O or a fan) is doing a lot of self-promotional work these days. I got two emails, which was sent to an email group that I am part of, that seemingly came from Rajan Zed. He sent two articles which titled “Hindus urge European Union to formally apologize to its Roma population for centuries of abuse” and “Hindu statesman Zed inaugurated & blessed a Christian church in Nevada” and both of them had a “For favour of publication” note in the beginning. Then I got another email which was meant for me (because it is about music), which titled “Famous American band releases groundbreaking album on ancient Vedas and presents to Hindu statesman Zed” and for my convenience he had also attached a photo of the event. All three of these articles had mentioned Rajan Zed’s name in almost every paragraph with decorations such as “Acclaimed Hindu and Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed” or “Zed, who is the president of Universal Society of Hinduism” etc.
From what it looks like, there is a self-proclaimed pope-in-the-making for Hindus in America. Watch out for more publicity stunts from Mr. Rajan Zed in the coming days.
Details of the picture above (As given by Mr. Zed in his email):
Andrea (left) and Sara Forman (right), lead singers of Shanti Shanti rock band, presenting the first copy of their new album “Veda” to acclaimed Hindu leader Rajan Zed (center) in Nevada (USA).
Picture by: Roger Bowen Weld
