Orissa temple bars Dalits' entry

batistuta

Nomad,at this rate you will be the person with Most Fatwa's around,You are putting Rushdie to shame .
It is a change for the better and i hope the dalits succeed in this and also that these temples allow foreigners to enter as i knw Krishna devotees who are debarred entry from Puri temple just because they were not born In India.

Nick-H

Well said, Nomad.

When it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter a fig what understanding or what misunderstanding of what document, ancient or modern, is responsible for caste discrimination.

What matters is that it is inhuman to consider another person to be fit only to clean your shit, and not fit (despite sharing your religion) to enter your temple.

And I have never heard a good reason to deny entry based on skin colour. The only sort-of-logical reason I have heard is that one can only be born Hindu, which means being born Indian.

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

greenchutney

why keep the reservation debate away?..should i scream that i dont get access to colleges and schools anymore? with the way things are going, thats a legitimate argument much as these dalits have against them granted entry into a temple? 50 years of reservation nearly, and nobody even has a decent census figures to support this quota....go and look at the latest projection (rediff) that 40% of the country is claiming to be other castes..SC, ST, OBC, OC, BC..and all remaining permutations and combinations of this...come to tamil nadu where 69% of seats are reserved for so called backward castes and you can tack on another 10% possibly that mr.karunanidhi and his hoodlums are recommending for religion based reservations.

bull crap about mayawati. laloo's goons were terrorizing the people of bihar with booth capturing what not. we have enough appeasing politicians who have done quite a bit to suit their own needs... there is still a lot to be done but given the indian political environment, they are nothing but a vote back as with any other community or grouping in this country is....community, caste, linguistic, religion..all vote banks....when karnataka fights against maharashtra for belgaum, its all kannadigaas against maharashtrians....

reservations are central to this debate as much as this crap that happens in villages like this. all this idiocy has to stop.

greenchutney

nick, if you are coming from the white man color angle, the last whiteman hundred years ago looted our heritage, our temples..... like i said earlier, there are legitimate reasons for non-entry of non-hindus in the temples. like with so many other customs, some of these things need to adapt to times.

you have to accept that it will take time, its already happening and there is no shortage of progressives within the community that support this.

keep in mind that around every corner in indian, different faiths, different religions, different places of worship coexist peacefully to a fair extent. to prevent nuisance from trouble makers, some of these rules were put in of who to allow in or who not...

cyberhippie

Easy answer get rid of the caste system and there's no need for reservations!!
Someone once said that caste only works in one direction anyway, people are readily aware of the castes that are below them in the chain though few would agree that those above them hold any importance!!

The flip side of reservations, GC as you well know, is nepatism, I hope you'll be singing from the roof tops to ban that too!!
Where would India be without the resevations that made it possible for some low caste Indians to attain jobs, probably in civil war or at least in an even more lop sided society than exists now!!

Like or lump it you've got a massive human resource with nothing positive happening in their life, reservation may well be appeasment and vote grabbing but in the context of India I see nothing wrong with that, at least it's no worse than the tampant nepatism that see the righ folks getting the right jobs!!
As for grabbing votes this way well so what, the the way politicians attain votes from the lower classes is a joke period, no point homing in on the reservations for votes scenario, The whole thing is a distasteful game!

I do feel for you though, I'm guessing you don't have access to reservation or Nepitism the same as many others that must be hard to take sometimes.
India badly needs to reinvent itself, this social advantage, nepitism and corruption isn't going to work forever!!

greenchutney

CH...i am for time based reservations. i am for reservations on economic basis. its hard to take away a priviledge once given...and hence time based reservations will be hard to implement in a democracy like india...

and we dont have leaders with vision, strategy, that broad thinking anymore. its all about daily survival here and which coalition to form in case somebody slips the rug under my feet this evening.

what stats and the census were the reservations and quota system based on?..you tell me?..pre-independence figures? who knows what the real situation is on the ground ...census in india is a joke.

its time for a change. unfortunately we dont have leaders with balls....if i have to put succcintly.

cyberhippie

GC it may have to get a lot worse before it gets better, tha'ts my fear!!

You know I talk to so many smart Indians from all walks of life, how on earth did you let the poltical paying field get so muddy!!

Is it the day to day corruption that just makes people give up and say oh well thats' just the way Indian politics works!!

Back on subject I think that banning Dalits is rediculous, but I'm betting the Priest feels confident in the backing of his community in issueing this declaratrion. Here lies the real problem but we've agreed on several occasions that is the kind of grassroots mentality still apparent in India that needs to change or be stamped out!!

greenchutney

is china succeeding? what all does it hide?...no to diverge from this topic. but democracy may not be the answer for a population this diverse and this big. democracy may be great for the population of switzerland...but i dont have hope for it in india...

if we had good kings, the kingdoms flourished. and then went through bad periods with bad ones. hopefully someday a good king arises. its all cycle as with everything life is.

.....at this moment on a mellow contemplative friday, i believe in karma...(sometimes there is nothing (nothing left) else to explain some circumstances..)...oh well...

Nick-H

That is a pretty bad reason, and pretty bad reasoning.

I don't think that the thinking has anything to do with anti-colonialists, or what happened a hundred years ago. It may even be to do with a deep anti-christian thing.... remember the fuss (might still be going on, I don't know) where the priests of Sabarimala had some Sri Lankan bigwig there who might have been a Christian! Oh! All the rituals ever since would have to re-done! Unclean! Filth!

Yes... I sympathise with the Dalits (I don't have the knowledge to use other than what I assume to be a collective name...), because, at that level, us foreigners, on account of the assumption we are christian, are unclean too.Well it should happen a bit bloody faster! No, seriously, I do recognise this, and I also recognise that the inner sanctum of a temple is not a place for tourists to tramp over. But that is not what I perceive as the reason for the exclusion.Long may it be so So, who's going to be the trouble maker? someone who looks like me? I wouldn't have thought so. it's a bit like the anti-IRA 'ring of steel' security cordon around the City of London spent its time stopping and searching cars driven by black guys. Oh sure, very likely to be Irish terrorists.

capt_mahajan

For Hinduism, a philosophy more than a religion, to exclude anybody from temples seems meaningless.

People are usually excluded from religious or social setups for only one reason, and that is because they are different.

That does not make it right.

The problem is that often blinkered, corrupt, power hungry and narrow minded priests interpret all this, with the sole view of perpetuating their own hegemony.

Business as usual.

greenchutney

sorry..i dont agree..it has to do with that as well..along with a myriad reasons...there were not many white people in india for while. india has just opened up in and what is now happening now is different than sometime when these rules were put in place. about not allowing white folks in. (which is a different issue than with the dalits). if you want to do how our temples were looted, destroyed and raped by the invasions by who not..including the colonists, historically it makes sense.....

you still can go if you carry an arya samaj certificate (about your conversion/belief/understanding to sanatana dharma.....if that is requried...which is totally another discussion....about its relevance and what not) . i could have taken my non-hindu friends to padmanabaswamy temple in trivandrum if we had enough time in our itenary to attend the interview/discussion with the ramakrishna mission prior to that,..just a screening process for genuine interest and no malicious intent.

you can always cite extreme cases and make that as if its happening everywhere. and if ayappa temple in sabrimala has its rules, so be it... regarding trouble makers, oh common dont be so naive...need i say terrorists inside the varanasi temple not too long ago...this issue is more complex than what i am trying to explain..its not that simplistic.

try going to medina, mecca or kerbala by being a non-muslim..

i am sorry if the pace of change is not fast enough for you. as long as the number of progressives are increasing in numbers over the number of conservatives, thats a sign of hope towards that things will change. you will not agree to my dictatorship views ...with indian style democracy..you just have to be patient then....

cyberhippie

He he I'm always getting invited in to the inner sanctum, must be my face! The sad thing is I'm not really that interested, old Philistine that I am!!
I find watching the faithfull do puja and realise the power of their faith far more interesting!!

Nick-H

or any other money they can get their hands on

As you say: business as usual!

crvlvr

In some ways, the caste system in India is exaggerated. There is a this caste -- its called people with money. None of the caste discrimination typically applies to them.

cyberhippie

Something I've noticed myself crvlvr.
Is it from here we may see the demise of the social inpediments of caste (bearing in mind it's not just the super rich who evade the caste stigmas, many modern working families also seem to fare well) Or do you think we are merely seeing the emergence of a new "caste" or worthyness based on wealth??

Now wouldn't THAT be the final insult???