Acts of faith

The DMK government, in engaging with the Tamil Hindus, is trying to undercut the BJP’s hindutva ploy

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

ON AUGUST 14, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin handed over appointment orders to priests, 24 of them non-Brahmins, in temples that come under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department. Posts for othuvars (hymn reciters), poosaris, mahouts and garland stringers were also filled.

“With these appointments, the wish of our leader Karunanidhi—who sought to fulfil Periyar’s dream of making people of all castes archakas (priests)— has been realised. It was achieved after drawn-out legal battles,” said HR&CE Minister P.K. Sekar Babu.

Periyar E.V. Ramasamy had held a meeting on the issue a week before his death in 1973. Karunanidhi had, in May 2006, passed a special government order facilitating the appointment of qualified archakas of all castes. A decade and a half later, Stalin has gone a step further with the appointments. “This has been a long battle and the new appointments are a triumph of Stalin and the DMK, who follow in the footsteps of Periyar,” says political observer and academic P. Ramajayam.

A week after the appointments, a series of writ petitions were filed in the Madras High Court assailing the appointment of non-Brahmin priests. Stalin had challenged the domain of the rightwing groups, particularly the BJP, which had been trying to “liberate temples from the clutches of the government”. The party’s manifesto for this year’s assembly elections had promised to curtail the HR&CE department’s powers. It proposed handing over administration of Hindu temples to a separate board consisting of Hindu scholars and saints.