Temples Freed Of Gender Bias

In a laudable move, the Tamil Nadu government has allowed women to become temple priests and will give them training in Hindu rituals

- Shivam Sharma

TAMIL Nadu recently gave the go ahead for appointment of women as temple priests. Hindu Religious Endowments Minister PK Sekar Babu, whose department runs many temples in the state, said that Chief Minister MK Stalin had given the ok for it.

Applicants will be provided training in Hindu rituals to enable them to become priests. Archanas or rituals will be conducted in Tamil on request at all the major temples. Tamil archanas are already being conducted in some temples in the state. Women serve as priests in some Shakti peethas, such as the popular Melmaruvathur temple and the Isha centre near Coimbatore. The minister said the government would take measures to provide appointments to qualified priests before the newly elected DMK government completes 100 days.

Earlier, the minister had said that people from all castes would be able to become priests under the state government’s “all-caste archaka” scheme, aiming at implementing the 75 recommendations made by the Madras High Court recently.

In 2008, the Madras High Court directed that a woman priest, who was the only legal heir of her father, be allowed to perform pooja in a village temple where the presiding deity is Goddess Durga. It observed that the “altars of God” must be freed from gender bias. Justice K Chandru of the Madurai Bench allowed a petition filed by Pinniyakkal, the only legal heir of the temple priest, and rejected the plea of a male cousin of the petitioner that only he should perform pooja on the grounds that only a male member can be a priest.