BJP Karnataka Govt Refuses To Interfere In Religious Traditions Of Ancient Hindu Temples Unlike Anti-Hindu Leftist & DMK Govts
The BJP government in Karnataka refused to enact artificial laws to interfere in the ages old traditional Sampradayik practices in ancient Hindu Temples in Karnataka in contrast to the policy of anti-Hindu governments run by Leftists in Kerala and the DMK in Tamil Nadu.
BJP Govt Says Will Not Interfere In Temple Traditions
Srinivas Poojary, the BJP Minister for Murzai Kota reportedly said that the government has no plans to enact a law to appoint non-Brahmins as priests in temples in Karnataka. He responded on 28th June to a question raised by Congress leader RB Timmapur in Karnataka Assembly asking the government to interfere in the ancient religious practices of Hindu Temples like the Left run Kerala Government and DMK run Tamil Nadu Government. Notably, there are over 34,000 temples under the Muzrai department of the Karnataka Government, a majority of which are ancient temples.
The Congress MLA had asked whether the Karnataka government intends to appoint priests from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes in temples under the Muzrai department, the minister responded in the negative. The BJP minister in response elaborated that the non-hereditary priests and temple employees will be appointed as per section 12(1) of the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments 2002.
The ruling BJP government in Karnataka defended their decision on not following the hypocritical policies of its neighbouring state governments run by the Left and DMK. The BJP Karnataka spokesperson reportedly stated that the state has many non-Brahmin archakas in various temples in Karnataka based on the sampradaya’s traditions, so there was no need for a separate law to include non-Brahmins as priests.
He stated, “The state government does not have any such proposals. There are non-Brahmins also working as archakas for a long time. In north Karnataka, they do not have Brahmins as archakas in many places, people from other castes also are allowed as priests,” said S Prakash. “Tamil Nadu has a different social fabric. It is an old thing in Karnataka so no rule is needed for legislation. There is no bar. If somebody wants to become a priest, they are most welcome. Why should the government decide? It is according to the interest of the person.”
Secular Hypocrisy of Left & DMK WRT Churches & Mosques
Notably, the Stalin led Tamil Nadu government, in June 2021 had made grandstanding announcements that Hindus of all castes will be appointed as priests in over 36,000 ancient Temples and Maths under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department (HR&CE). The same Stalin government remained silent about an ongoing protest in Salem against appointment of a non-Dalit Bishop for a Dalit dominated Salem Diocese by the Vatican. The representations made by the Dalit Christians on the matter to the DMK government fell on deaf ears. Similarly the hypocrisy of DMK government’s over zealous attack on Hindu NGO run PSBB School for a sexual harassment case while remaining awfully silent on horrendous sexual harassment cases in the prestigious Christian Church run Loyola College in Chennai.
The CPI(M) run leftist government in Kerala too displaying its double standards in 2017, conducted written tests and interviews to fill the position of priests in temples under the government controlled Kerala Devaswom Recruitment Board and appointed 36 non-Brahmins, six of whom from Dalit communities in October 2017 as temple priests. The same communist government has not yet implemented the 2017 Supreme Court verdict in the Malankara Church case where the Jacobite and Orthodox branches were in a pit battle over the control of 1000 churches between them. While contradictorily the same leftist anti-Hindu government went overboard to implement without wasting anytime the Sabarimala temple verdict of the SC in 2017.
Both the leftist and DMK governments in Kerala and Tamil Nadu do not undertake any legislative actions to reform the patriarchal practices in Church or Islamic institutions. Both these so-called women’s rights champion government, are mum about Muslim women demanding access to Mosques as a matter of fundamental right to worship. They also maintain radio silence about the blatant discrimination of ‘Dalit’ converts in Churches and Church administration. So also the various caste discriminations among Indian Muslims where the 90% lower caste Pasmandas are oppressed by the 10% Ashrafs.
In fact, all ‘secular’ (read anti-Hindu) political parties of India pander to the higher caste affluent Christian converts and Muslim converts and shower all the government subsidies on them at the cost of poor and marginalised lower caste converts. Its another matter that the proponents of these Abrahamic faiths run conversion industries run contrived propaganda on so-called caste discriminations among Hindus.
Image Credit: PTI
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