Secular Threads

                                           Tamil Nadu: religion

                                         Secular Threads

      Non-Brahmin priests fight for their rights

 Religion, and the passionate partisanship it can inspire, colours every aspect of life in India. In orthodox Tamil Nadu, during a heated debate in the state assembly last week over the appointment of atheists as temple trustees, CPI(M) MLA A. Sounderarajan said, “Faith can be an individual affair. But the government should remain secular.” It’s a question of particular import to the 207 non-Brahmin students who were trained as archakas (priests) three years ago and are still waiting for jobs in the 36,000-odd temples administered by the HR&CE (Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments) department of the state government. The previous DMK government had taken the radical step of trying to do away with the caste barrier in appointing archakas, but did nothing in the last six years once the Supreme Court gave an interim stay on the appointment of the 207 students after it was challenged by an established order of priests. The students do not expect the Jayalalitha government to stick its neck out for them either. “Tokenism is what the DMK indulged in, not a sincere effort of trying to change the social order,” says Raju, an advocate representing the non-Brahmin archakas.
The training of the students was a sequel to Karunanidhi promulgating an ordinance on July 14, 2006, declaring that suitably trained and qualified Hindus, without “discrimination of caste, creed, custom or usage”, would be appointed as archakas. Predictably, the ordinance was challenged in a batch of petitions by the Adi Saiva Sivachariyargal Sangam, Thennindia Thirukkoil Archagargal Paripalana Sabhai and others, contending that it was unconstitutional and violative of the shastras, custom and usage. The petitioners argued that the ordinance, purportedly a step towards social reform, had reversed the settled law (an attempt in the ’70s to promulgate a similar law was rejected by the SC).

Various priests’ bodies said the attempt to abolish the caste barrier in appointing priests reversed settled laws.

V. Ranganathan, state coordinator of the Tamil Nadu Government Archakar Training Students Association, who impleaded himself in the case in 2009, is at the forefront of the archakas’ protests, including fasts. “We want the stay vacated and jobs,” he told Outlook. Ranganathan, based in Tiruvannamalai, passed the course in 2008. The course was an offshoot of the recommendations of the Rajan committee, set up to decide on training and qualifications of archakas, and led to the starting of the archaka training centres. The 207 included 76 students from backward classes, 55 from most backward classes and 34 from scheduled castes. “I became a pujari as I am a devotee,” says Ranganathan. Adds K. Venkadesan, a scheduled caste student, “I want to perform rituals.” P. Ganeshan, near Sattur in Virudhanagar district, quit his job at a textile mill to enroll. “My family is proud that a scheduled caste boy can recite the mantras,” he says. The archakas say they have faced threats from the Hindu Munnani, Brahmin priests and others. “At the ayudha puja last year, some alleged RSS elements intimidated us,” says Ranganathan. Even during the course, Ramakrishna Jeeyar, who taught them the agamas in Sanskrit, was reportedly assaulted. A source conversant with temple affairs explains, “Devotees believe that only Brahmins can enter the sanctum sanctorum.”
The case of the Shankaracharya, an accused in a murder case, has come in handy for the students: “If there is no defilement when the Shankaracharya touches idols, how can the power of the idols dissolve if we touch them?” The archakas can take comfort in the wounded grumble of a Brahmin priest: “If Karunanidhi indulged in this so-called social equality for political purposes, Jayalalitha, known for her drastic steps, may also intervene on the archakas’ behalf to further a political agenda.”