Priest evicted for dalit wedding
Sandesh Prabhudesai
26 August 2002
Within a year, Goa has witnessed yet
another incident of caste discrimination, with non-Brahmin
OBC community people exhibiting their anti-dalit sentiments
in a crude manner. In fact the immediate victim is a
Brahmin priest, who has been driven out for performing
a dalit wedding.
Last year in August,
villagers had prohibited cremation of a dalit in a public
crematorium, meant for Hindus, in the Bardez taluka,
comprising of Goa's famous tourist beaches like Calangute
and Baga, where locals run behind the white foreign
skin but still consider their own dalit community as
untouchables.
Incidentally, the same organisations
like Samata Andolan and Goan People's Front, have once
again succeeded in resolving the issue
amicably, this time in the northernmost Pedne taluka
of the state, near Maharashtra border.
Shambhu Kale, a mid-age priest along
with his old mother, wife and two children, was forced
to give in writing that he is quitting the temple job.
He was also forced to vacate the house his father had
built, after they migrated from the neighbouring Sindhudurg
district of Maharashtra four decades ago.
Incidentally, the tiny Khajne village
predominantly consists of Bhandari - a toddy tapping
community - which is also included in the OBC list.
But the neo-wealthy educated lot of the village appears
to have exercised their power, to victimise the poor
priest as well as the dalits, who are living equally
in a pathetic condition there.
The issue became public when a local
daily exposed the news that the priest was evicted in
July, after the temple committee came to know about
the wedding he had performed in May. It appears that
the wedding incident was exploited skilfully to evict
the priest, whom the committee wanted to get rid of
anyway. Unfortunately, the move boomranged.
"This is a political ploy and the quitting
of the priest has nothing to do with the dalit wedding.
In fact our temple represents all, from a Brahmin to
a Harijan, as the 'mahajan' (member) of the temple committee",
claims Damodar Sawal, president of the temple committee.
Their approach of 'progressive orthodoxy'
however came to light when local dalits disclosed that
they are still prohibited in the temple beyond certain
limits, not allowed to bring home-made 'prasad' for
the pooja and even not allowed to draw water from the
public well.
To the good fortune of the priest as
well as the dalits, the move was opposed by some of
their own villagers, while Kale was provided total protection
and even shelter by the neighbouring village of Poraskadem,
part of the same panchayat, including the sarpanch.
Following the issue also getting echoed
in the Assembly, chief minister Manohar Parrikar personally
summoned the priest to verify the facts while the sarpanch
personally went to hand him over his house. The CM is
yet to make a statement in the House in this regard.
Meanwhile, bowing before the public
pressure and intervention of the NGOs, the temple committee
has now publicly assured not to prohibit the priest
from visiting dalit houses. But in spite of this, Kale
still gets scared to go and stay in the village, which
says it all.
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