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India still makes news for
Dalits entering temples
WSN Network
For a picture of
21st century India, please browse through sarkari brochures,
abumdantly distributed and dished out by Indian embassies and
consulates around the world. For a feel of the real thing, please
gio visiting its most pious places, its temples.
But then India
was not shocked by such things even when it won
Independence
from the British. Dalits in India are still struggling to simply
enter the temples. The resistance is forceful, and even violent. The
government's response is almost criminal silence and passive
by-stander.
Dalits entering
the temples is still making headlines in a country that wants a seat
at the high table of UN Security Council, and harbors aspirations of
becoming a super power. When a group of Dalits had previously tried
to enter the Ekambareshwarar temple in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam
district, they found it locked by the temple management. After many
rounds of negotiations with the village panchayat, a group of Dalits
reattempted entry — this time under police escort — only to have
stones hurled, and the situation spiralled out of control.
There has been
little noise in India over this scandalous development. The
opposition did not explode in any rage, and the ruling party did not
rush its top brass there. As it is, as far as the minorities and the
marginalised groups stand, the Indian Constitution is in shreds.
Temple entry for Dalits had galvanised early social reformers in
much the same way school desegregation galvanised the American civil
rights movement. But the extremely imperfect and regrettable
circumstances continue.
Last week, a
group of 80 Dalits, under full police escort and accompanied by
district officials, finally entered the temple and prayed but will
prayers be enough?
4
November 2009
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