Karthik's musings

Caste reform in TN

Amidst all the heated debates and agitations on reservations, Karunanidhi has brought in a significant reform by permitting people from all castes to become priests in Hindu temples. It is unfortunate that it has taken us more than half a century after Independence to have such a reform. And amidst all the sound-bytes and pages allocated to discuss the merits or otherwise of reservations, this - that has the capacity to do more to the oppressed classes more than reservations - has almost been relegated to the inner pages of the media. I also hope that the TN Govt does more than lip-service to this reform encouraging more vedic schools to recruit students from all castes so that in another 5-6 years, we have truly secular temples.

It stuns me that mainstream media has not debated the highly condemnable caste discrimination in the temples in India. The recent Ramayana Mahasatra at Ramachandrapura Matha, that was attended by dignitaries like the CM, deputy CM and Governor of Karnataka, saw a glaring caste discrimination when people from the perceived higher castes were served food separately from people from other castes. The media, especially the Kannada media, gave extensive coverage to this 7-day program, but nowhere was any mention of this caste discrimination. Have we accepted that the perceived forward castes have a right to be treated differently? The media that goes ga-ga when a Laloo does not stand while national anthem was played and when a minister attends a mass marriage ceremony where there were some under-aged couples, seems not to care when there is a program like this that practices explicit caste discrimination.

In fact most of the famous temples in Karnataka like DharmasthaLa, kukke subramaNya, uDupi, etc - all have this practice of serving food separately depending on your caste. And the leftists who rabidly support reservations to "undo centuries of oppression" have no gumption to raise their voice against this. Neither does the right, who do not want movies to discredit Hindu religion, but do not mind the moral-bearers of the religion themselves discriminating their own people.

PS: The famous GokarnanaatEswara temple temple at Mangalore was built and run by people from Poojari caste, one of the oppressed classes, inspired by Narayana Guru. A refreshing initiative!

Give up all desire for enjoyment in earth or heaven.
-Swami Vivekananda