http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/dalits-punished-for-entering-temple-government-steps-in-114179
Dalits punished for entering temple: Government steps in
NDTV Correspondent, Updated: June 23, 2011 15:48 IST
Puri: A board outside a temple for the Goddess Kali orders Dalits to
stop at this point. "Harijans can pray from here," it declares. The
warning sign was put up in August last year after three schoolgirls
entered the shrine to offer Prasad to the Goddess, an icon of
empowerment and Shakti.
The caretaker of the temple in Orissa's Puri district offers no
apologies for the discrimination. "It is against tradition," he says,
"Our fathers did not allow harijans to step inside the temple, and we
will also bar their entry. We will die rather than let it happen."
Now, based on NDTV's report this morning, the Centre has asked the
Orissa government to provide more information on why this was not
stopped.
Chandana Bhoi is one of the young girls who visited the Goddess,
triggering a vengeful response. "There should be no discrimination. We
can do the same work as the upper-castes," she says. "We pray to the
same Gods, so why are we treated so badly?"
Her entire village waits for the answer. Ranapada is home to 80 Dalit
families who earn their living as sharecroppers. But since the temple
controversy last year, they have been given no work. Upper caste
leaders from surrounding villages decided to teach them a lesson.
Landlords in the area took back the land given for cultivation to the
Dalits.
"They did not call us to cultivate their land - neither women nor
men," says an out-of-work farmer. "We used to work in their fields and
share the harvest. Then they stopped hiring us."
When they wakened to the problem, local officials employed the Dalit
farmers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or NREGA.
They spent months working on constructing a road. But they have been
paid just half of what they are due. Wages not being handed out are a
common problem with NREGA - middlemen or contractors are also known to
pocket part of the money that's due to hires.
The Dalit farmers say elected representatives in the area are from
upper castes - and will not protect them at the risk of upsetting
their vote bank. Sanjay Dasverma, who represents the area, refutes
this allegation. "There is no vote-bank politicking in my
constituency. I always try to keep the constituency above these
issues," he says.
But the board outside the temple proves that there is little political
will in undoing the wrongs inflicted here - or in challenging archaic
and illegal conventions rooted in the caste system. A young couple in
their wedding finery crouches outside the temple, seeking the Goddess'
blessings, forbidden from drawing any closer. Nobody blinks.
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/dalits-punished-for-entering-temple-government-steps-in-114179&cp
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