HR&CE (Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department) and Traditional Community Rights over Folk Temple
The Dravidian movement’s social justice began by striking the religious sphere of Tamil society and thereby bringing equality of opportunities and accessibility. The formation of the South Indian Liberal Federation (Justice Party) in 1916 is the starting point of the Dravidian movement.
Under the 1919 Montagu-Chelmsford reform of diarchal administration, the Justice Party took part in the presidential governance through the direct election and formed ministry during 1920-1926 and 1930-1934. The Justice party championed the social justice of non-Brahman Tamils in colonial India. One of its pioneering reforms was the state control of the temple and its properties, thereby putting an end to Brahmanical hegemony in the religious sphere. In 1923, the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act was passed by Madras Presidency and subsequently, the Government constituted ‘The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Board’. The creation of the board was an antecedent move towards the de-Brahmanisation/de-Sanskritisation of Tamil temples. In independent India, the board was modified as a department in 1960 and it controls more than 44,000 temples, including thiru kovilgal21, grama kovilgal (village/folk temple), and religious mutts. In 1970, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government amended the HR&CE Act to abolish the tradition of appointment of priests on a hereditary basis. For the first time, the priesthood at Tamil Hindu temples was made open to non-Brahmans. Though this law ran into legal hurdles, it provided the belief to men from all castes that they too could enter the sanctum sanctorum. Ultimately, the 2006 law passed by a subsequent DMK government completed the reform process. Though the HR&CE department strives for social justice in the religious sphere, its takeover of folk temples undermines the traditional rights of folk communities.While consolidating the multicultural Indian sub-continent as a modern state, the Britishers, with the aid of Indian elites, as ‘social engineering’, classified the Indian population into imagined objective identities of religion, caste, and language, which do not reflect the actual social realities (Mann 2015:169). Through the periodic censuses, the Britishers confronted the problem of Indian social orders by the imagined and constructed identities of castes. And the current caste-based tensions prevailing in Tamil Nadu can be attributed to the constructed political identity of castes. The recent takeover of Pekkaman Karuppasamy temple by HR&CE department due to the prevailing tension between the Paraiyars22 and Piramalai Kallars illustrates how the constructed caste/community identities operated in contemporary social reality. In the 19th century, the British raj identified the Paraiyars and Piramalai Kallars and classified them as an untouchable caste and criminal tribe respectively. In independent India, these two communities are officially being classified as scheduled castes and denotified communities respectively. Being Dalit and placed in the lower status, Paraiyars are constantly ridiculed and asserted by the Piramalai Kallars. But the history has another story to tell, wherein the Paraiyars and Piramalai Kallars harmoniously maintained and worshipped the Pekkaman Karuppasamy. To date, the priest of the temple is a male member from the Paraiyar community.
The present animosity between the communities and the location of the Pekkaman Karuppasamy temple in a porambokku (non-private) land coupled with a series of litigations has led to state control of the temple. Many folk temples located in the porambokku land end up being controlled by the state by which the communities are losing their traditional rights.
The HR&CE department classifies the temple under its control based on their annual incomes23. Persons from all communities can become pusaris/pujaris. The pusaris are appointed as hereditary trustees of the temple along with the government authorities. Non-hereditary trustees are appointed according to the classification of the temples, which should include an SC or ST and a woman member. The funds generated by the temple can be utilised for any other welfare purposes as deemed by the department. The rightful devotees have to pay fees for accessing the services of their community temple.
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