I’ve never been to Orissa and in general I don’t know much about eastern India outside of Bengal, so sorting out what has been happening in Orissa over the past few weeks is difficult. As I attempt to address this issue, I’m not interested in pointing fingers or arguing with religious zealots; rather, I’m interested in getting a balanced perspective on what is actually happening. (Take a deep breath. Now begin.)
Let’s start out with the New York Times, and focus on some of the basic facts. First, there has been a wave of anti-Christian violence following the vicious murder of a prominent VHP leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four associates. Swami Laxmanananda had been an advocate for local Hindus, and had worked against Christian missionaries and conversion in the area. Here is some of what’s followed:
Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze. (link)
There has also been violence between Christians and Hindus in five other Indian states — suggesting that what started in Orissa has the potential to turn into a communal bloodbath at the national level.
A local Bajrang Dal leader is quoted in the New York Times as saying that the violence is just a “spontaneous reaction” to the killing of a locally beloved leader, but whether or not that is so it is unclear whether Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s murder was motivated by Christian anti-Hindu feeling or a more generalized hostility towards organized religion associated with Maoism and Naxalism, or some mixture of the two (see this). Adding to the confusion, the Times and other news agencies have reported that local Maoists have claimed responsibility (see the Times of India), but last week three Christian tribals were arrested for the killing. According to the Indian Express, the three were in fact Maoists (as I understand it, the majority of Maoists in the area come from Christian backgrounds.).
Not that all that should matter now — the focus should obviously be on stopping any further violence from occurring, and in rectifying the wrongs that have been committed against people on both sides. The murderers of Swami Laxmanananda should go to jail, as should all those who have participated in recriminatory violence against Christians subsequently.
Another vitally important factor is the local element. This is not just a matter of Hindus vs. Christians. According to the Times, there is a pronounced local and tribal element to the polarization of the communities:
Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.
Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.
Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.
The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.
Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda. (link)
Knowing about the longstanding hostility between the Kandhas and the Panas in this district changes how we might think of this conflict in certain ways. For one thing, the particular configuration of the tribal relationship to “formal” religion means that it’s unfair to say that the Christian Panas are involved with a “foreign” religion, while the Hindu Kandhas have a “local” religion. In fact, both communities have changed, and tribal religious practices before the entry of formal Hinduism may not have looked much like Hinduism at all (I do not know the specifics here, but this is a common observation by anthropologists who have studied tribals; see Kancha Iliah, for starters).
Given all that, in an ideal world, the conflict would remain a local one, sorted out by local police and the courts. Unfortunately, it does not look like that is going to be the case.
Finally, the Times describes one of the most egregious incidents of recriminatory violence that has followed the murder of Swami Laxmanananda, the murder of a priest and gang rape of a nun:
Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.
The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.
Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.â€
He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex. (link)
That last bit just takes the cake.
In my opinion the best route to peace regarding many of India’s religious woes are to stop foreign money and missionaries as well as banning bajrang dal.
Why stop the foreign money ?. It amounts to 7700 crores per year and it is a lot of money. If it helps in building schools / hospitals it should be welcome, although i believe there is a lot of corruption in the distribution of that money. Quite a number of fraud Bishops are getting busted in Tamilnadu these days..
9 · Amardeep said
This is somewhat ingenuous, probably deliberately so. Hinduism is far more agglomerative; in that what is considered outside the pale today is slowly absorbed into the mainstream. Durga, for example, has very strong tribal elements in her. And even more “central” gods, like Vishnu, and Mahadev has “tribal” elements. Consider, for example, the identification of Krishna and Vishnu.
This is not to say, Christianity does not absorb local pre-Christian culture and rituals. But apparently that process mostly worked in pre-Christian Europe, when Christianity was very much the less powerful religion.
I definitely consider bajrang dal a nuisance and menace to society. its main activity is barbarism in the name of judgement ( of hindu values) be it on hindus but mostly on minorities. Can u imagine such a grp in a developed countries ?
But rest assure I am not confusing swami laxmananda’s work with bajrang dal. I know he ran orphanages with the scanty sum and no foreign money or inducements.
But there will still be Muslim children and men to slaughter in mass pogroms and murderous persecutions and Muslim women to rape and dismember to save the nation, the honor of the nation, Mr Moornam, because what goes around comes around and all that kind of thing.
840,000,000 Hindus have to be saved from a few hundred Christian evangelists, and the army of patriots has to protect them. Even if the collapse of the Western economy slows down their nefarious ways, overseas patriots living in and sucking the teat of the West like you must maintain global consciousness of it all. Don’t go soft on them sir.
This is not true.. my people are tribal, my parents converted to Christianity before I was born. My grand parents told us stories of creation that are completely different from any Hindu mythology, five thousand years of Hinduism did not absorb or assimilate our culture. In short our pre-Christian belief centered around two stone formations near our village and the names of our (ex)gods if you could call them that, are not in any Hindu mythology. I’m am now an agnostic and don’t believe in any god(s) or religion.
But this still is a deeply personal issue for me. I’m quite accustomed to being at the receiving end of all sorts of humiliations from my Hindu colleagues, even here in the US. As soon as my origins are disclosed, I mysteriously loose friends and acquaintances. My ex-class mates and collage mates wonder aloud, what I’m doing in the US. Somehow the US seems to the prerogative of the high caste Hindus only, the attitude is that they alone are deserving of this privilege and I’m an inconvenient abbreviation that needs to be put in it’s place. Graduating from IIT did not do a thing for me, in their eyes, I’m still a tribal.. subhuman and not deserving of any dignity.
The ironic thing about it all is that I have friends from every country in South Asia except India. My best friend is a Pakistani. I’ve Afro American, Latin, Asian and Caucasian friends but Indians (hindus) behave very strangely with me.
Hindus love to spread the belief that tribals are somehow inherently hindus. Laxmanananda Saraswati was a thug who intimidated and threatened tribals into coming into the Hindu fold.. and that too at the lowest level.
In all the debate that his killing generated, I’ve only found one well written article by Biswamoy Pati that finds resonance with any semblance of my reality. This article nails it. read it here
Ironically, the activities of the VHP correspond to what they accuse the Christian missionaries of doing in western Orissa. Both work to attract and convert people to their respective faiths – something that is allowed under the Indian Constitution. Moreover, both have access to resources � internal and external � to be used towards the uplift of the poor. But then how does one explain the way in which the term ‘conversion’ appears to be synonymous with Christian missionaries? This might appear to be a profound question. But this is precisely where the Sangh parivar’s hegemonic hold needs to be loosened.
The VHP and it’s various organizations follow what they accuse the British of doing – Divide and rule. They’ve successfully divided the tribals and the dalits – the two groups that were outside the hindu religion and brought them to war. This in an effort to keep them in their place at the bottom of the hindu social order.
I’m sure hindus from every background will bristle at the very suggestion of such a thing. But I’m a tribal who was born into Christianity, it was the best thing that happened to me. I escaped the hindu caste mindset. I now have friends from every background except hindus who still persist in considering me subhuman, all my other friends relate to me, invite me home and are warm and welcoming. This is probably what VHP and the Hindus fear the most… me becoming a fully functioning and happy individual, capable of independent thought and recognizing them for who they are.
Briggette Gabriel, ever been to Puri? To the Jagannath Mandir? I have. At least to it’s gates. What I wrote holds true to date. There is much debate about it in the international Jagannath worshipping world.
Now that Laxmanananda Saraswati is dead, do you think there is some other swami (i mean thug) who is intimidating and threatening tribals to indulge in violence?. it looks like it is the tribals who are indulging in revenge attacks. Also how did the swami intimidate?. I’ve read that he was gunned down in a girls school that he helped create in the area along with four others that included a woman too. Do you think constructing schools for tribal welfare is a wrong thing to do??.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience.
Are you sure?. I don’t know about the Puri temple. But I have been to plenty of temples in Tamilnadu. First of all, other than villages it is close to impossible to figure out who belongs to what caste in the towns / cities. Along with my Dalit friends and even a Christian friend we had been to quite a few temples including the Madurai Meenakshi temple and some temple in Kodaikkanal.
It is surprising to see that a famous temple is following such a policy and if it is true how do they determine a caste of a person.
example of tribal goddess in hinduism : vandevi ( goddess of jungles depicted with stones), mansa ( snake goddess) are also considered other forms of durga. We still have many of tribal practices of our region. I think experiences differ by person , region and also religion.
Yes, I have been to jagannath temple and no one asked any questions.
Thanks to Siddharth and Kiran in particular for their comments at various points on this thread.
Some more accusations are made against Swami Lakshmanananda by Shabnam Hashmi here, for alleged involvement in attacks on churches dating back to the 1980s. Shabnam Hashmi is admittedly a liberal/leftist activist, and I do not have independent verification of the statements made.
A new Jagganath Mandir has been built not far from Puri itself for the dalit and tribal hindus that are not allowed into the Puri Mandir, as well as non-hindus and non-Indian hindus. This article sums it up but I’m currently searching for the youtube interviews with this man and his Indian wife where it is explained more how they are accomodating the actual Indian hindus who are not allowed into Jagganath Mandir due to their scheduled caste and scheduled tribe status. This link emphasizes the foreigners more, whereas the actual youtube piece from Indian television newscast emphasizes the Indians more and you see them bustling around the grounds.
Appearantly the temple has been such a success that a bigger one is in the works now.
Orissan folk culture is so centered around Jagannath that it is considered a curse not to be able to enter the temple. However, once a year on Rathyatra the deity of Jagannath is brought out onto the streets and that is the time for Patitpavan, or God as “purifier of the impure”, when those who are not allowed entrance into the Mandir get their once a year chance to view God.
Isn’t that a famous temple that attracts all kinds of visitors from all over India ?. I’d be surprised if they ask questions and allow only non-tribal and non-scheduled caste Hindus. Maybe ‘Soca chutney mix’ is confusing this with a different village temple.
Yes Briggette, I am sure. Not all temples in India follow the Puri policy, in fact, most do not. But Puri does very strictly. Puri is a very orthodox and traditional town with customs dating back thousands of years, they say. It is not hard to distinguish caste status among the locals there because they have their symbols in clothing, jewellry, tattoos, etc. However, amongst the Indians that come from outside of Puri or Orissa, I do not know how they determine, but they do. Recently the entire temple was closed down and cleansed from top to bottom because an Indian muslim had entered with his hindu friends. When interviewed for news report the poor guy actually apologized to the temple staff for the inconvenience they had to endure due to his violating rules which he was unaware of.
Puri is a beautiful seaside town with much to offer culturally but you got to see it to believe it.
soca:
I find nothing in the link that says Jagannath mandir prevents Scheduled caste Hindus and tribals from entry NOW.
I agree that it could have been the policy decades ago before Independence. But I don’t think it is the case anymore.
Kiran,
I am saddened by your post. But I am glad I came across it. Too often the discussion is about “those people” that converted but sadly there is very little discussion with people that converted.
And yet I involuntarily bristled at your comment. I think it is unfair of you to say Hindus of all backgrounds regard tribal converts as subhuman.
To be honest it bothers me that discussions around conversion invariably revolve only around negative aspects of caste&Hinduism. The unquestioned assumption being, that, Hinduism is somehow not quite on par with Christianity. I think even a mildly capable debater would be able to make all religions look bad. I think this is what causes some of the bristling.
And now for the argumentative part : ) How can you say that all Hindus would like to keep others down when the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh the largest state in India is a Dalit. And her base consists of Brahmins & Dalits. Exactly how deep then is this castism thing? And the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh is a Christian a fairly large state with Christians comprising no more than 3% of the population. Exactly how deep is the disdain for Christians among Hindus in India?
An Indian friend of mine was interrogated at Singha Dwar (the Lions Gate, the Mandir has four big main gate entrances) because the guards said he looked “parsee”, even though he was a hindu born and bred in India without ever having crossed her pure shores into the land of the apavitra. After the group he was travelling all vouched for him (I guess they looked more “Indian” than he did), they finally let him in. Millions of people visit the Mandir every year, in fact it gets thousands of visitors a day so the slip ups are not infrequent, but when they come to light the temple closes down and purificatory rights ensue, as described above. Many books have been written about this interviewing even the local hindus who are not allowed in. Not all of them feel bad about it. In addition to all this, Indian christians also follow caste system so the idea that converting will somehow afford them a “higher status” is incorrect in many cases. But if it will feed and educate hungry kids I’m all for it.
are you talking about this?.
in the above case there was a badge and we know that non Hindus are not allowed (which is stupid BTW), but that doesn’t prove your assertion that Scheduled caste Hindus and tribals are not allowed.
It is surprising that the temple authorities can figure out who is a local and who is a visitor and have two different entry barriers, they must be very intelligent to do so. 🙂
Not decades ago. The last time I was in Puri was 5-6 years ago and the policy was still in order. Just go there and talk with the locals, that’s all it takes. There is one tribe though that is allowed to do some type of seva to Jagannath at certain times and that is the tribe that originally worshipped Neelmadhav (the deity’s form before metamorphasis) in the forest before he was discovered by a king and a temple was built. Jagannath was originally a tribal deity. There is along folkloric history there.
You mean the policy of restricting entry to Scheduled caste Hindus and tribals. It is good for propaganda purposes, but I don’t think there is any truth behind it.
No I’m not talking about the soldier. I think the guy I’m talking about was a college student with friends. I’ll look for the link.
Yeah tell me about it! It’s relatively easy to distinguish societal status in Puri because each group has it’s symbols, but with the non-Puri Indians I don’t know how they do it, but they do. However I have heard of some African American hindus pretending to be Indians and getting away with it. This works during rush hours especially. What really bothers me is the policy against outkast Indian hindus.
So you think chamars and bhangis are now allowed in the Mandir?
Sure.. Out of 20 MP seats in parliament for Orissa, 8 are reserved for Dalits / Tribals. If there is any discrimination in the famous temple regarding entry restrictions based on caste, we would have heard about it by now.
When was the last time you were in India? Politics is one thing, caste another. Just like in USA you got people voting for Obama and calling him n*gger at same time.
I can only relate to you my experience on this matter and that is that 5-6 years ago they were not allowed in the temple, no matter how many of them had seats in parliament or whatever. Believe it or not, it really doesn’t matter to me since I have no power to change things for the better anyway. The government has to give them seats because that’s the law. The Mandir is not required to allow them through the gates. You can go yourself and take a group of local bhangis with you and see what happens.
I’ve been intimidated so many times in India, it does not surprise me that the killing of an alleged swamy and 4 other people resulted in the killing of many innocent people, the cleansing of a community and attacks on the community in other parts of the country.
I’m tribal.. and I’m not supposed to speak out against hinduism and it’s degrading view of my people. Hindus have been brutalizing my people for thousands of years, but it’s the way of life there, they are above the law.. and dare you call them on it, they will kill you.
Laxmanananda’s sole purpose was to continue this social order so we (tribals and dalits)remain at the bottom of the hindu social structure. The schools he started preached hatred for Christians. Teach hatred to the young and they will do your bidding in adulthood. They equated the British rule to Christian rule and all manner of colonial brutality to Christian brutality, some real most imagined. Ironically, during colonial times, the British treated the tribals with more dignity than the Hindus ever did. Ironically still, it follows naturally that the Americans are more accepting of me here in the US than fellow hindu Indians.
If you are interested in Laxmanananda antics, google him, once you get past the usual pile of hindu literature you’ll see him for who he is. He was a VHP – BJP sanctioned thug. As with everything hindu in India, you attach the swami moniker to any old thug and give them legitimacy to spread hatred. Dara Singh the killer of Stains and his kids was made a local hero.
What rankles the likes of Laxmanananda and his cohorts is tribals and dalits educating themselves. Only a very small percentage of funding by Christian organizations is used to spread the work of Christ. Most is spent on Infrastructure – Schools and Hospitals. Suddenly the tribals and dalits have education and health care, in some cases better than what the Govt provides. It’s unthinkable that these subhumans have the same access as the caste hindus. I’ve been asked so many times in righteous anger.. “How can you have someone who is below my shoes now sit on my head”? It was important for Laxmanananda &Co to keep the tribals and dalits in place and kick the Christians out. The schools and books demonizing Christians were very important in the scheme of things.
Also the murder of one or 5 individuals is given as the justification for cleansing a community. This also I’ve come to accept as the hindu mindset. There is always an indigent dichotomy in their world view. I haven’t seen much outrage at these events from the Hindu community.. just a smug pride at what has happened.
March 2008.
The Congress party that spearheaded the Independence movement in India introduced temple entry legistations in the 1930s even before we got Independence. I think in most of the states, temples are indirectly controlled by the government through Hindu endowment departments and I believe Orissa is no different. I don’t think the temple run by an organ of a government can deny access to someone based on caste. I have frequented many temples in Tamilnadu along with my Dalit friends when I was in college.
Is it possible that the schools run by missionaries do the same thing in reverse?.
139 · razib said
I was talking about the association of those features with aspects of ‘caste’ – not with violence per se. Read Jonathan Parry’s Two cheers For Reservations about how public sector employment reduced ‘casteist’ practices against a sanskritized chamar jati in Chattissgarh whereas among the private contract employment at the same steel plant it operates (among many many other intersting things that come out of that and other ethnographies).
You always lose sight of broader picture stuff in localized looks and verbal description and it takes more words to describe things, but I think this is where we’re at right now (at least outsiders) because we simply have poor understanding of ‘caste’ in India because of the intellectual legacy, state policy, and our own propensities to not adequately scrutinize our generalizations. So that’s all I’m asking for – scrutinization – I’m not offering an alternative all India explanation of caste because i”m not sure that one can adequately be made that meets a level of completeness that would be useful- I know at minimum that I can’t make one and I’m distrustful of explanations like that because so many have been made and so many have been inadeqate.
Soca chutney mix, thanks for your comments – these are really really helpful.
Not to escalate hindu bashing (I am one myself), unless you stay in orthodox religious towns for a considerable amount of time, you might get the impression from the Mumbai coffee shops that India is a shining and workable example of multiculturalism, which it is, in many places. But the attitude Kiran describes above is alive and thriving in many pockets as well. Scavengers still exist there. People are paying other people pennies to carry their feces in baskets on their heads daily. Then these same people who are told it’s their god-given lot in life to do such “work” are then discriminated against in all ways. And it’s not just the “upper castes” keeping these people down for they themselves know their place and perpetuate it. Why? Because “”When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.” Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro.
Indira Gandhi and dalits as of 2007 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1040404.cms
77 · najeeb said
Minor point, I know; but I don’t recall this from my school civics class. In fact quite the opposite. Articles 26 thru 30 of the constitution explicitly grant rights to “minorities” to establish and run their educational institutions. I think “minorities” is not defined, but some enumeration have been made: religious, linguistic etc. Ramakrishna Mission, which run their own schools actually went to court in the fifties and declared themselves “minority”, a perfect illustration of the effect of targeted laws on the subject population.
141 · Ponniyin Selvan
The ‘social reform’ movements of the British are well known. As are the subsequent backing off of them in light of the 1857 insurrection, among other things. But you’re only looking at one side of this picture – my point, which I phrased perhaps inaptly – is that Christianity, as an identity and social institution, and Buddhism and dalit liberation struggles have been tools of anti-casteist work, to the best of my knowledge (which, again I have already said is limited). You can make the opposite argument as well, and that’s perfectly fine, but you can’t ignore this side of it. Converts have agency too. On the other hand, upper-caste Hinduism as a political identity (the way its mostly discussed today) has not been, to the best of my knowledge, been used as an anti-casteist tool. If anything, it’s been used to reinforce casteism (see Poona Pact). Even SC and ST reservations were one way of ‘saving’ Hinduism, imo.
Ugh Ponniyin! I just found an essay that attributes the discrimination at Puri Mandir to the government and NOT the local priests (before or probably while you were writing your comment about that, how ironic). I just skimmed through it so can’t say how exactly the author came to that conclusion but it had to do with money and control over the property. Let me see if I can find it again. The author argues that the Puri staff of sevaits is pretty eclectic in background (even Parsee priests for Satya Narain, but then why was Indira denied entrance because of her husband?) and therefore not opposed to even foreigners gaining entrance but for some reason it works in the governments favor not to allow them. Yet at the same time we know bhangis and other dalits are forbidden entrance so I don’t know if the assertions the author makes are 100% correct.
Dude, a temple denied entry to Indira Gandhi because they thought she was married to a Muslim (he was Paris, not that it should matter). Your arguments about what is and is not ‘permissible’ based on the law are not serious ones, I hope – something like the smoking ban is a farce, that ‘the right to food’ is an ideal not a justiciable reality for all Indians, and that the law in general is not something that is universally practiced or enforced in India – that is how law works in India. Sometimes it is for stating an ideal, sometimes it is for educative purposes, sometimes it is for resolving political disputes (like the civil code related laws), sometimes, rarely, it is actually just a law in the way that we understand them in the West (thouhg I think we should take note of hte indian reality and underestand that our own systems are not nearly as complete or impartial as we frequently like to think they are ;).
It is also clear from local studies that other codes of what is okay and not okay take over where the law doesn’t dominate – so it might just be implicitly understood or enforced through deference and goondas that there are casteist practices at temples and other places. This is, in fact, the evidence that ‘casteism’ continues to exist in INdia – even if it has changed in the way that it works.
I think you are making a lot of assumptions. I have spent considerable time in orthodox religious towns (Kancheepuram of Tamilnadu). Ofcourse, India has a number of religious towns and each one could be different. I never claimed India to be a shining example of multiculturalism and never said that people with attitudes described by Kiran don’t exist.
I just questioned your assertion that Dalits are not allowed inside Puri Jagannath temple NOW to be far fetched and untrue. The link you provided talks about a different Jagannath temple (at kerdagarh) in Orissa, not the famous one at Puri. and also completely negates what Kiran says Hindutvadis are doing.
I don’t know how Christianity works in East and Northeast of India but in South India where it’s been present for 2,000 years, the Christians follow a caste system to the point of building separate churches for the low castes. I’m going to assume this is because back in those days a significant number of brahmins converted. Anna, do you know anything about this???
89 · Soca Chutney Mix said
This would indeed be correct in the absence of explicit state patronage of “minorities”. Think reservations.
Dude,
And Ambedkar was kicked out of some temple somewhere some time in India, and Gandhi was kicked out of a train in south africa.
I’m interested in the things that are happening now.
Right now, Sonia has made trips to the famous Tirupati temple quite a few times in the last five years. No one denied Sonia entry into Tirupati.
Ponniyin you are right. That was not the Puri Mandir, my bad. However my experience 5-6 years ago was real, maybe since then the policies have been tweaked. According the Indian TV news (still looking for that damn link!) they have not and that is why that foreigner built a Jagannath Mandir not far from Puri where he specifically said low caste and tribal hindus as well as foreigners would be allowed entrance, unlike at Puri.
Not all Hindu groups are bad and perpetuate caste discrimination. That is not my argument here. I think there are plenty of organized hindu groups in India that are officially open to all and work for the upliftment of the downtrodden. However, you will certainly find some members of even those orgs who won’t sit down next to a dalit member and to have a meal. I’ve experienced that even in one such liberal group.
The Puri Mandir threw away almost $7,000 dollars worth of food due to purity concept http://www.hare-krishna.org/articles/1308/1/Puri-Temple-Priests-Purify-Temple-Following-Non-Hindus-Entrance/Page1.html I hope they didn’t actually throw it away but gave it to poor people.
Dr. Anon, not because her husband was thought to be a muslim but because he was indeed a parsee. Parsees are not hindus and their origins are from Iran.
187 · Ponniyin Selvan said
Well, 30 years ago is not a long time, but here you go from 2004. Your deniability is getting less and less plausible 🙂
In defense of Puri culture, I am not allowed entrance to the Mandir but it doesn’t bother me personally because I’m not big on crowded temples and the Puri Mandir is always crowded. We are allowed to purchase prasad outside and it’s some of the best cooking I’ve ever tasted. In keeping with purity concept they only use indigenous vegetables so would you believe NO CHILLIES!!! And they use only locally made clay pots and when they are done with them, throw them out so everyday there are new pots needed so that keeps the chakra dharis gainfully employed. There is also a small deity of Jagannath visible to outsiders from the street called “Patitpavan” (there’s that purity concept again!) and his darshan is enough for me. I’d rather hang at the beach anyday than fight off crowds. The Puri Mandir is the main source of employment for like half the town. Between that and tourism, Puri is doing pretty well for itself. There are plenty of other temples in Puri too where we are allowed entrance, though a few we are not.
I think you too joined the list for making assumptions about what I said. 🙂 I could point you links from last week that some X caste group got offended because Dalits wanted to use the temples of the X group in Tamilnadu. In my initial comments I said, other than the villages where everyone seems to know everyone else’s caste, this denial of entry into temples is not practised anywhere else. It is close to zero in towns / cities and Puri being the famous one I suspected if it had this policy.
123 · razib said
This is a good point. A better metric, though, might be how much money is raised outside the country and brought in.
Outright banning of conversions, even by non-citizens; is probably counter-productive; just like banning shorts is counter-productive in financial markets. I think a better case can be made for tracking and taxing all foreign money coming into the country, whether used for religious purposes, or other charity work. This is also help in clamping down on the real problem: support for secessionist movements by some of the foreign funds (this is orthogonal to conversion).
@Ponniyin Selvan You should step into my shoes and live my life. There is no place for my kind in India. You will live in a world where you are considered unclean and inferior for ever, so much so that you begin to believe it, indeed the hindu doctrine has most of the ST/SC’s believe they are unclean, inferior and have been punished for life to live outside of society. Random people will quote random verses from hindu books and literature to insult and put you in your place at random times. Your teachers will insult you in front of your class every chance they get. Your classmates will mock you every chance they get. You’ll be expected to fail and drop out. If you do good in any subject, you’ll be accused of copying and cheating. You will never win a debate or argument because you are irrelevant. You will be expected to know you place at the bottom of the totem pole and brutally put in place if you air your opinion on anything. You will be hounded everywhere.. random people will go out of their way to insult you and remind you of your place. Even a change of religion will not stop the hindus from hating you. You will receive veiled threats all your life.
You are arguing about entry into temples and affermative action… you soooo don’t know us or our lives.
My people were never hindus, they worshiped trees, animals and boulders. The hindus considered us outside the hindu religion and caste system. My grandparents never set foot in a hindu temple. My ancestors going back thousands of years never set foot in any temple. They worshiped a rock outside the village. They were illiterate and considered the hindu gods.. gods of the high caste hindus… they never worshiped hindu gods. My grandparents celebrated tribal festivals. My father converted to Christianity when he was young and got an education. I’m here in the US because of the choice he made. When we (tribals or dalit)choose a religion, we are hounded and killed for it.
You seem to think all’s well, walk in my shoes and you’ll know fear every minute for your life in India. Only in the US I’ve found a measure of safety and peace.
It always get me when people who have no idea who I am and what our life has been like argue and talk for us. If you are not tribal or dalit.. don’t even think you have in insight into my world. You and me share the same planet, but we live in different universes.
191 · Ponniyin Selvan said
I think Kiran responded to you pretty effectively. I’d just note in addition that you’ve a) dismissed 80% of the population of India here and b) you haven’t considered that there are myriad other ways that casteism plays out bsides temple entry, even if you’re right. How it plays out in cities and big towns is an interesting question. But I’m pretty sure that oppresson of dalits and adivasis doesn’t end in the countryside, particularly when a lot of the policies that affect the countryside come from the city 😉
@Corporate Serf
You are way behind the curve.. it already is being done, google it and you’ll get the exact figures on how much money comes into india for Christian charities and how it’s spent.
What is not tracked is the money fascists like IDF – VHP and the likes raise from the US and else where. This too needs to be tracked. Money ostensibly raised for “charity” by these hindu organizations is diverted in terrorizing minorities. It’s used to buy the support of local thugs during election times and now to attack Christians. In the past these funds were used to attack Sikhs and Muslims too.
There always seems to be one standard to measure Hindus and another a more discriminatory one to measure everyone else in India.
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/news/07-08/news2127.htm Committee under guidance of current Puri Shankaracharya to decide which Hindus will be allowed entrance to Jagannath Mandir in 2008
175 · Ponniyin Selvan said
This might not be a relevant data point. In most of these places, people are picked up by looks. If your friends looked and dressed in the standard college kid fashion, and did not look like a black Nigerian, or a white Finlander, they would not stand out.
Though, I haven’t heard about Dalits / SC / STs being denied entry before. They do stop non-hindu/Jain/Buddhists; if they can actually determine that…
Here it is! The link Ponniyin waited for but damnit! I can’t get it to come up so I copy and pasted the google so if someone can make it work………
Jagannath Temple Priests to Purify Temple following Dalit Worship … Dalits Threaten to Convert After Being Denied Temple Entry …
22 · Ponniyin Selvan said
Who in the hell really cares about the upperclass Hindu resentment? They dont have much reproductive power as their middle/lower class brotheren. It is about votes, not about the number of threads on your armpit thingie.
That is what I am talking about. Convert at your will, not seven but seventeen times seven. The religious conversion should be treated like coverting a low class worker democrat to a southern baptist plantation republican
Kiran:
Sorry to hear about your experiences buddy. I myself belong to a low caste and I have got close Dalit friends and I have a Dalit relative (my cousin married her Dalit classmate). So I can’t agree with you that I have no idea of Dalits.
If you think about it, You and Mayawati live in a different universe too.