Orissa: Dalit girls enter Orissa temple, whole village is punished

NDTV

Puri, 23 June 2011:  A board at the Kali temple in the village of Nuapada in Orissa’s Puri district says "Harijans can pray from here", warning the Scheduled Castes not to take a step further. Startled? Don’t be. Even today the so-called ’untouchables’ and people belonging to Scheduled Castes are not allowed to pray inside temples.

 

In Puri, the board was put up in August 2010 after three school girls from the Bauri community ( a Dalit community) entered the shrine and offered ’prasad’ to the goddess.

 

"It is against tradition. 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," says the temple caretaker.

 

The girls who live in the neighbouring village of Ranapada believe they did nothing wrong.

 

"There should be no discrimination. We can do the same work as the upper castes. We pray to the same gods, so why are we treated so badly?" says Chandana Bhoi, one of the girls.

 

 

Ranapada is home to 80 Dalit families who earn their living as sharecroppers. But since last August, they have no work after upper caste leaders of surrounding villages decided to punish them for the girls’ act The landlords of the area even took back their fields from the cultivators. 

 

"They did not call us to cultivate their land, neither the women nor the men. We used to work in their fields and share the harvest but after they stopped hiring us, we’re facing a hard time," says a local farmer.

 

When the plight of the 80 families was brought to the notice of local authorities, they were given work under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). It’s been several months since they finished laying out a road in the area but they have received just half the wages.

 

The victims say they have no faith in their elected representatives who belong to the forward castes and will protect their vote bank at any cost.

 

The local BJD MLA Sanjay Dasverma refutes this charge. "There is no votebank politics in my constituency. I always try to keep the constituency above these issues, only focus on development. This is a very wild allegation," Dasverma says. 

 

The board is a stark reminder of the fact that even in 21st century, India is battling issues like untouchability and has failed to change the parochial attitude of people, specially in villages. It seems that there is no political will to end untouchability. That’s why an act which is illegal and unconstitutional continues to be practiced openly.