Kerala must confront evil of untouchability
Keralites believe they are insulated from the kind of caste discrimination and violence that bedevils other parts of the country. They choose to think, perhaps with some quiet pride, that the giant strides made by religious reformers such as Narayana Guru, Ayyankali and Sahodaran Ayyappan had cured the malady of caste in the state forever. But an experience endured by a state minister has brought the touchy subject of untouchability back to centre-stage. The state’s devaswom and SC-ST welfare minister, K Radhakrishnan, recently revealed that a priest in Kannur district’s Payyannur had refused to hand him a lamp at a function held on temple premises earlier this year. The priest, instead, had placed the lamp on the floor. The minister, who is a Dalit, felt slighted and said it was a deed of untouchability.
Outrage has poured forth in public from both the ruling and opposition parties. On the other side, two organisations representing temple priests, Yoga Kshema Sabha and Akhila Kerala Thanthri Samajam, have offered a justification. They claim the act cannot be construed as one of untouchability because the priest was only abstaining from touching anyone during a puja to preserve his ritualistic shudhi (purity). The minister countered that it would not have been possible for the priest to arrive at the venue, wade through the crowd, and avoid touching anyone. Moreover, it was a public function and not a temple ritual. Indeed, untouchability derives from an extreme idea of purity.
Untouchability is legally barred, but socially practised around the country. Article 17 of the Constitution prohibits untouchability. Public practice of it is an offence under Section 3 of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. These laws apply in Kerala as much as they do in the rest of the country. The minister’s experience shows that casteism had just been swept under the carpet in Kerala, not wiped out. As minister Radhakrishnan himself said, it is impossible to erase at one go a mentality that has sedimented in the minds of people for centuries. It needs sustained and conscious efforts if society is to rise above this relic of prejudice. It is time Keralites wake up from their cosy slumber and do some soul-searching.