Caste segregation skips scrutiny under the guise of status quo in temple managed by HR and CE at Paapireddipatti in Dharmapuri
A pregnant woman’s wish to make a personal offering to her village deity was allegedly marred by Caste Hindus vocalising caste segregation in a temple managed by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) Department at Irulapatty in Paapireddipatti.
Anitha (31), employed as a manager in a nationalised bank in the Western zone, along with her family reached the Kaaniamman temple at Irulapatty to offer ‘annadhanam’ on Monday.
“I had not conceived four years into marriage. In 2022, my husband and I came here on Magameri Utchavam of Kaaniamman temple and promised to feed people once we had a child. On Monday (August 19, 2024) we went to the temple as a family to perform an individual offering that had nothing to do with our Kuravan community (a Scheduled Tribe here),” says Anitha.
Vegetables to feed over 2,000 people were cut and ready, 375 kg of rice soaked, tamarind soaked, and the stove was waiting to be lit to cook food to feed people, when men from Kongu Vellalar community stepped in to stir conflict, said Anitha, who is seven months pregnant.
In a video captured by her family, a Kongu Vellalar community man is heard asking Anitha, where was she from, and deducing her caste from her village, the man objects to her presence saying any other caste can offer food today, but not they (Kuravan community).
“At 9.30 a.m, Kongu Vellalars there objected to us being inside the temple and said, we cannot serve food and that was an RDO’s order. Police came, they were very aggressive, and would not even wait for my husband and father to return. They were rude to me, my mother and the cook, threatened to book us all, and asked us to vacate the temple. They did not even wait and forcibly removed all the cut and prepared groceries on to a random vehicle,” she said.
As a backup if it rained, the family had booked the “Kalaignar Arangam” a wedding hall abutting the temple. “I had prayed that I would spend ₹ 1 lakh worth of food to feed people if I bore a child. That morning, we had arranged to feed as many people till the police threw us out,” she said. The family then moved to the nearby Kalaignar Arangam, where the cooks started to cook.
“That was when the Sub Inspector, Gaikwad, of A. Pallipatti police station came and switched off the stove. We failed to understand this aggression. We were inside a private hall that too named after Kalaignar. Police stood there, blockaded the lane between the temple and the hall with their vehicles and harassed us,” she said.
Simmering tensions over Kuravan community’s claims to participate in the annual festivities beyond decorating the presiding deity, a duty ordained to the community, has been ongoing.
“They (Kongu Vellalars community is the dominant community here) say, ‘we brought you here only to decorate the Gods, but you stake claim to other privileges,’” said Surya, cousin of Anitha.
However, the Kaniamman temple’s elderly chairperson, also from the Kongu Vellalar Gounder , wanted to help out Anitha. “He was a kind elderly man, who said, there should be no divisions to feed people in the temple and gave us permission to cook, but he was overruled by the others who threatened to boycott the temple if he allowed,” said Anitha.
“The panchayat president, a Vanniyar Gounder, gave us the hall. There were these good people too,” she said.
On August 16, the RDO, R.Wilson Rajashekar, headed Peace Committee had ruled with a caveat that on the said day, the Kuravan community could only decorate the deity as per the traditions on the main day of Magameri Utchavam and any other claims can be appealed to the HR and CE, Salem. The tone of the order was that the status quo will have to be followed.
The Hindu spoke to the RDO. “It is indeed not right to have separate days for each community and goes against the spirit and HR and CE should take over the festival or this will persist each year,” Mr. Rajashekar said.
However, on the peace meeting, he said it was based on consensus and was not an order. Each community including the Kuravan community was given a day to mark their events.
Mr. Rajashekar was also unaware of this incident of a woman being denied space to cook and feed citing “RDO’s order”.
Writer Aadhavan Deetchanya, who has been part of earlier peace meetings in other cases in Harur, questioned the allocation of different days for castes. “HR and CE is to unify a society that is stratified along caste lines. Instead of questioning segregation, they are reinforcing,” said Mr. Deetchanya, who is also the general secretary of Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association.
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