Priest & prejudice

A woman in Tamil Nadus Madurai district is fighting for her hereditary right to priesthood.

in Madurai

AS said by a great philosopher, the women hold half the sky and for the human progress, we must walk with our two legs. The altars of the God must be free from gender bias. Only then the constitutional mandate under Articles 15 [prohibiting discrimination against a citizen on the grounds of sex] and 51A (e) [stressing the fundamental duty of every citizen to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women] will become a reality.

There is no gainsaying that these words, written by Justice K. Chandru of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, have boosted the morale of A. Pinniyakkal of Nalluthevanpatti in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, in her uncompromising battle against obscurantist forces. The September 5 order was passed on the 45-year-olds petition to assert her right to priesthood, which at came to her by way of inheritance. The order also sends a clear message against attempts to prevent women from entering priesthood, which has hitherto been a male bastion.

On October 14, thanks to the intervention of the district administration to ensure that the court order was complied with, Pinniyakkal performed pooja at the Durgai Amman temple in the foothills of Pannaikadumalai in Nalluthevanpatti. However, her troubles were far from over. The district administration had to face stiff opposition from the local people even while executing the order. In fact, Pinniyakkal was escorted to the temple through a drainage canal as thorny bushes were strewn along the main path. And though the revenue officials promised to take her to the temple again, they have not been able to do so.

Fearing reprisals from her adversaries, most of whom belong to her own Thevar community, Pinniyakkal has said that she will not be able to do pooja at the temple without police protection. The temple has been locked and the revenue authorities are in possession of the keys. She and her husband, A. Palraj, are keeping their fingers crossed, hoping for a proactive move from the administration even as a writ appeal against the court order is before a Division Bench of the High Court.

Pinniyakkal has been performing the rituals at the temple and extending Arul vaakku (oracle) to devotees ever since her father, Pinnathevar, assigned his ancestral poojari rights to her three years ago because of his old age and failing health. Trouble started after his death on November 12, 2006, when she became the de facto trustee of the temple, which owns a small piece of land.

It was a rude shock for Pinniyakkal when people in the nearby Puthur Nalukarai and Linganaickenpatti villages came up in opposition to her continuing as the priest. Her opponents had succeeded in mustering the support of the residents of 18 villages and hamlets who worshipped regularly at the Durgai Amman temple. Most of these people are small and marginal farmers. They launched a campaign saying that since Pinnathevar had no legal male heir, the right to perform pooja lay with other male descendants in the family.

Against this backdrop, Pinniyakkal moved the civil court in Usilampatti last year seeking a declaration recognising her as the lawful poojari of the temple. As tension began building up in the area, the then tahsildar convened two peace committee meetings in September 2007.

At one of these meetings, it was announced that 89 per cent of the people who were present had chosen G. Vasudevan of Linganaickenpatti as the priest of the temple. But Pinniyakkal refused to be a party to the decision and walked out of the meeting without signing the minutes.

This was followed by a smear campaign against Pinniyakkal that she had demanded a hefty sum to abdicate her responsibility as priest. Denying the allegation, she said there was also an opinion that she should give her elder daughter (she has another daughter and two sons) in marriage to a local youth who could succeed her as priest. She felt this was a ploy to unseat her.

On November 12, 2007, Pinniyakkal moved the High Court to assert her right to continue as priest, breaking the shackles of obscurantism in an area known for its deep-rooted gender bias. Usilampatti taluk, in which the village is situated, has seen worse gender bias in the form of female infanticide in the 1990s.

In his order, Justice Chandru said that neither any provision of law nor any scheme prohibited women from performing pooja in the Durgai Amman temple. He also pointed out that the claim that only a male member could be a poojari had no legal or factual basis. It is ironical that when the presiding deity of the temple was Amman, in a female form, objections are being raised against a woman in performing poojas in such temples. Even in Vedic times, it is recorded that women had performed poojas and rituals, he observed.

He further noted: Fortunately the present temple is not trapped under any Agama Sastras. The subcultural deities established in the southern parts of India are freed from the norms of Manu Smriti and hence women being subordinated to home making alone was not warranted.

Agama Sastras explain the procedures and methods of performing various temple rituals and poojas. According to some Vedic scholars, Agama Sastras have no place for women priests because of the physical and physiological problems of women.

The Judge also referred to the motivated campaign by certain villagers who have a vested interest in removing the petitioner (Pinniyakkal) by the so-called will of the villagers. Setting aside the minutes drawn by the tahsildar, the Judge said that the revenue officer, a government servant, could not be a party to obscurantist ideas of people with vested interests.

Justice Chandru made it clear that Pinniyakkal could not be prevented from performing poojas at the temple until a contrary order was passed by a competent civil court. He also asked the authorities to guarantee appropriate help, including directing the police to provide protection to the woman priest, so as to establish the rule of law as mandated by the Constitution.

Challenging the order, Vasudevan, who was selected priest, has stated in his writ appeal that there is a likelihood of disturbance of peace.

The order has been hailed by many people, including functionaries of womens organisations who point to the changes witnessed in different parts of the world that paved the way for the gradual crumbling of many a traditional male bastion. Reports indicate that women priests are becoming popular in different parts of India, such as Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad and Rajkot, ending the myth that women, who are supposed to be soft-hearted and impure, are not fit for the job.

Scholars say that in ancient Tamil society women were not forbidden from performing poojas and rituals in temples. V. Vedachalam, an archaeologist, and S. Madasamy, a functionary of the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers Association, cited references in the Sangam era literary work Tirumurugatrupadai, which speaks of rituals such as Kuravaikoothu and Tunangaikoothu performed by women in temples to propitiate the deity.

Another Tamil scholar, A. Sivasubramanian, and the writer Chandrakanthan said that except for the feudal elite, women were not debarred from performing temple rituals on the grounds of being impure or unqualified, even during their menstrual period.

With the passage of time, several village temples hitherto not governed by Agama Sastras got influenced by Manu Smriti, paving the way for the exit of women priests. Sivasubramanian said the remnants of the practice of women performing rituals can be seen at the Akhilandeswari temple in Thiruvanaikaval in Tiruchi district where the male priest performs the noon pooja clad in a sari.

Apart from this, there are hundreds of nondescript temples in urban and rural Tamil Nadu where rituals are conducted by women who also don the roles of soothsayers and shamans. Madurai district has many such temples the Odaikaruppannasamy temple in Bibikulam, the Madapuram Mariamman temple in Anna Nagar in Madurai city and the Thavamuniandi temple in Narasingam village, to name a few. According to the State convener of the Grama Kovil Poojarigal Peravai, A.K. Soundararajan, there are over 1,000 women priests attached to folk temples in Tamil Nadu.

But the Thevars of Nalluthevanpatti are clearly against accepting a woman as the priest. Dalits in the village, however, have taken a stand that they will go to the temple irrespective of who conducts the rituals.

Meanwhile, Madurai District Collector S.S. Jawahar described the court order as a landmark judgment which has opened up new vistas of thinking in this area which is normally known for strong casteist and anti-feminist feelings. He also expressed the hope that the administration would be able to convince the detractors of Pinniyakkal to accept her as the priest of the Durgai Amman temple by bringing about a change in their mindset.

General secretary of the Tamil Nadu unit of the All India Democratic Womens Association U. Vasuki stressed the need for an intensified campaign by the Social Justice Department against caste and gender oppression in the area. She appealed to all right-thinking people and the local community to rally around Pinniyakkal, who has taken a bold and courageous stand.

Flaying the gender bias against the woman priest, Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women K.M. Ramathal said that until the service rules were amended in 2002, women were not even eligible to apply for the post of executive officers in temples under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Board.

K. Devaraj, leader of the Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangams Madurai district unit, said such discriminations against women and Dalits were instigated by casteist outfits and self-centred politicians. This area is known for temples with Dalits as priests, Thevars as kodangis (soothsayers) and women as shamans, he said.