VILLUPURAM: A day after the Shri Dharmaraja Draupadi Amman temple at Melpathi was opened for the public, no one from the village turned up at the temple for worship on Friday when it was opened for rituals in the morning and evening.
The Vanniyar community of Melpathi, who are higher in number - their resistance to Dalits entering the temple resulted in its closure in June 2023 - stayed away despite Friday being an auspicious day. Many from the community said they would rather boycott than worship together with the Dalits.
A few men from the community chatting at a tea shop near the temple on Friday told TNIE, on condition of anonymity, they felt the temple has been “polluted” after Dalits entered on Thursday, adding purification rituals needs to be performed to cleanse the temple.
One of them said, “Certain matters related to faith cannot be resolved by the law or the court. Draupadi Amman is our community’s deity. We cannot give up the tradition all of a sudden because of a legal intervention.”
The temple, managed by the HR & CE department, was opened for the first time for public worship since June 2023 with huge presence of police on Thursday, following Madras HC order in February.
The police personnel were deployed at the temple on Friday as well. Though around 80 people from Dalit community worshipped separately at the temple on Thursday morning, they too stayed away on Friday, citing the hostility faced from the caste Hindu community the day before as the primary reason.
When Dalits exited the temple on Thursday, a group of around 30 caste Hindu women hurled verbal abuses.
“Yesterday we went due to the court order and since officials escorted us to the temple. We all heard the filthy remarks made by those women. In such a situation, there is no need for us to go there again,” said G Venkat (45) a dalit resident.
R Manivel, Melpathi panchayat president, who belong to the Vanniyar community and is also with the ruling DMK, had told TNIE on Thursday his community had no say in the matter any more after the court’s verdict. He had also said that the community will offer worship en masse on Friday as it was an auspicious day.
Although no one from the community showed up, a few members TNIE spoke to did not say a collective decision to boycott was taken. Manivel could not be reached for a comment on Friday.
Collector S Sheik Abdul Rahman said the district administration is maintaining vigil to ensure that no “purification” rituals happens at the temple.
