Wife, mother, lawyer, priest


Those who use the social justice argument to allow non-Brahmins as priests fall silent when it comes to women in the same role

In 1971, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in Tamil Nadu gave legal shape to a social reform that had been a key demand of the Dravidian movement for long.

Through an amendment to the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, the State paved the way for abolishing the practice of hereditaryappointments of priests to Hindu temples, implying that the sanctum sanctorum of temples was now open to non-Brahmins.

But this reform was stopped in its tracks within a year. The law was challenged before the Supreme Court. While the Court upheld the State’s decision in the Seshamal judgement, declaring appointments of priests a “secular function”, the five-member Constitution bench nevertheless added that non-hereditary appointments should also conform to “usage” prevalent in the particular temple. This practically meant that the Agamas, and its dictates on who should don the role of a priest, remained intact for several decades subsequently..........Read more

 

Source: The Hindu


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