It has been more than a decade since Nagamuthu has been climbing the hill to perform pooja at the Kailasanathar temple in T Kallupatti village in Theni district. No one raised an objection to a dalit performing pooja at the temple till it got a facelift four months ago. On May 5, 2012, non-dalit members of the temple committee told Nagamuthu not to come to the temple as some devotees were unhappy with the pooja being performed by a dalit. When Nagamuthu questioned the decision, he was allegedly beaten up. For Nagamuthu, the issue in fact began a couple of years ago.
"A couple of years ago, the committee members had called me and said not to perform pooja on auspicious and festival days. They hired a Brahmin priest for those days. I didn't object to this because I was getting the opportunity to perform pooja on normal days. Now, they have asked me not to enter the temple because some devotees don't want a dalit performing pooja. They even slapped and abused me when I questioned this," said the 23-year-old priest.
Even though Nagamuthu approached the police, they didn't take any action. With the help of some activists, he filed a writ in the Madurai bench of the Madras high court, which eventually directed the police to do a proper investigation into the case. Based on this, the Thenkarai police registered an FIR (420/2012) on August 2, but no action has been taken so far. "We can't take immediate action in these matters considering the casteist angle in the case. The temple is maintained by a trust and it has the power to terminate a priest. At the same time, investigation is on whether Nagamuthu was beaten by anyone or not," said a police officer, who didn't want to be named. Full story...
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"A couple of years ago, the committee members had called me and said not to perform pooja on auspicious and festival days. They hired a Brahmin priest for those days. I didn't object to this because I was getting the opportunity to perform pooja on normal days. Now, they have asked me not to enter the temple because some devotees don't want a dalit performing pooja. They even slapped and abused me when I questioned this," said the 23-year-old priest.
Even though Nagamuthu approached the police, they didn't take any action. With the help of some activists, he filed a writ in the Madurai bench of the Madras high court, which eventually directed the police to do a proper investigation into the case. Based on this, the Thenkarai police registered an FIR (420/2012) on August 2, but no action has been taken so far. "We can't take immediate action in these matters considering the casteist angle in the case. The temple is maintained by a trust and it has the power to terminate a priest. At the same time, investigation is on whether Nagamuthu was beaten by anyone or not," said a police officer, who didn't want to be named. Full story...
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