KUKKE SUBRAMANYA (DAKSHINA KANNADA DISTRICT): The protest against the Made Snana made no impact in the hotbed of the Made Snana politics on Tuesday. On day one of the three-day Subramanya Shashti festival, devotees from across the state took part in the ritual.
The police had decided not to take chances and had provided tight security around the temple. But there were no protests in the area.
The protests remained confined to Mangaluru city, where K S Shivaramu of the Hindulida Vargagala Vedike of Mysuru staged a quiet demonstration with two saffron-clad seers.
According to temple authorities, 229 people rolled over plantain leaves with leftover food on chouti (fourth day) of the Champa Shashti. Bhaskar Bendodi, a tribal leader who had fought to keep the tradition alive, told Express that the anti-Made Snana activists were weaving “lies after lies” on the tradition.
“They say that Brahmins force the lower castes to perform Made Snana. In reality, people belonging to all castes perform Made Snana,” he said.
He claimed that 60 per cent of the 229 participants belonged to Hindu upper castes.
Giridhar Rao, a devotee who performed the ritual on Tuesday, said this was his third time performing Made Snana. Subhas Chaturvedi, a devotee from Pune in Maharashtra, described the controversy around the ritual as “needless” and said the Constitution grants him the right to follow religious practices.