by Nirmala Carvalho

Dalits in Orissa and Rajasthan brush aside centuries-old discrimination preventing them from entering Hindu places of worship in order to pray in two of the country’s most best loved Hindu temples.

Delhi (AsiaNews) – Dalits have dared challenge Hindu extremists by entering two of the country’s best loved Hindu shrines in two of India’s most Hindu nationalist-dominated states: Orissa and Rajasthan. Police on duty prevented clashes between the two sides.

In Orissa (eastern India) five Dalits entered the Lord Jagannath temple, in Kendrapara district, no ritual could be performed.

According to police officers present at the scene, who held back crowds surrounding the building, temple priests followed upper caste Hindus’ dictum; the latter met on Friday to decide what to do.

In Rajasthan Dalits decided half measures were not enough; 400 of them entered the Chamunda Temple, in Bhilwara district, to pray and members of the influential upper caste Gurjars could do nothing. For generations Gurjars had enforced a ban on Dalits because they are seen as impure.

Here, too, the presence of some 300 police officers was sufficient to prevent any disorder.

The Dalits were able to muster the courage to enter these temples following a recent order of the High Court, which said that any Hindu, irrespective of his or her caste, could enter any Hindu temple.

Exactly a year ago, on November 5, four Dalit girls were beaten and humiliated by an angry mob for entering the Keredagada temple in order to pray.

• india
• orissa
• rajasthan
• dalit
• hindu
• temples
• worship
• challenge