At a television talk show, the anchor sought to know from a so-called priest class servitor if a Daitapati had done right by belittling the Gajapati and the seer with indecent words. The respondent, rather than answering to the query, said the Daitapati was not guilty of causing devotees to touch and scrape deities mindlessly. This great servitor is a former Sales Tax officer of the State cadre who appears in priestly robes only when big events occur and TV cameras are rolling. He has earned well from the State service and lives proudly in Bhubaneswar with fat pension money. His conduct was like that of a shameful ‘slave to Daitas’. God forgive him.
Another participant pretending to be a researching scholar was so loud that viewers believed his vocal cord would snap any moment turning him speechless forever. He kept roaring that the deities can never be ‘untouchable’ and went on with horribly idiotic examples from several cock and bull stories. The third one was a decently levelheaded pundit who made a critical point very clear by explaining a specific section of the original Jagannath Temple Act as followed until the Gajapati king was unseated: If by any chance, the deities are touched by any non-priestly person, a heavy fine of one rupee and six annas would be slapped on the violator apart from the deities being sanctified with an elaborate Maha Snan (big bath). Then, 10 grams of gold cost only ten rupees. The Daita community incidentally is not priestly class servitors. If after completing their nursing and other menial duties, they happen to touch the dities accidentally, the ceremonial bath called Maha Snana has to be performed.
The Orissa High Court had conclusively upheld the ban on ‘chariot climbing and deity-touching’ by the temple managing committee on the advice of the Shankaracharya and the Gajapati king. But the Daitapatis cry hoarse against such an order and dare provoke devotees publicly to violate norms and rules without being punished. The Daitapati, who was recently put in jail for a grave criminal act, has been given bail by a senior judge which has upset many.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that the State Government can only perform the duty of maintaining law and order and providing assistance for smooth conduct of religious festivals of all faiths alike in accordance with the decision of the managing committees of the shrines. The State machinery cannot interfere with the age-old value systems determining rituals. So, the Orissa High Court has ruled only recently that the Jagannath Temple, the administration has to go by the norms as approved by the temple committee on the advice of the Shankarachaya of Puri. Correction of this decision is neither a subject matter for consideration of the State Government nor before this court, the HC maintained. Accordingly, the Government decided to prohibit climbing on chariots. Strangely then, president of Daitapati Nijog Ramakrushna Dasmohapatra said at a meeting that he would examine the matter and take a final decision vis-a-vis the HC directive. Incidentally, he is president of the Puri Hotel Association and clings to Naveen Patnaik in Puri like a ghostly shadow only because he is a BJD member. He is the one who got Sanjeev Marik destroyed by feeling great when the defamed former DGP touched his terribly ordinary feet. Even, law Minister Arun Sahoo sat at his feet and devoured some leftover food at a non-secret camp, which flung the Minister irrecoverably into a pool of bitter criticism.
What some headless pundits don’t seem to realise is that the Shankaracharya is the one who has the final say on all ritual-related disputes. The practice is not mentioned in the record of rights because the ancient seer was above the document. The practice of Shankaracharya being considered chief advisor and special servitor on the chariot platform is a non-negotiable convention which simply can’t be violated. The present chief administrator too had mindlessly dismissed the seer as a person without any right over the temple affairs and had recommended the seer’s age-old ritual visit to the chariot platforms with his chosen followers. Some people fail to understand the fact of the seer being much above the temple rulebook which was made with his approval quite in the ancient times. It is appropriate here to know that the British Constitution is not a written document; it is only a set of accepted norms and rules. Not a single soul has discarded it as an illegal ‘rulebook of conduct’.
Most people including the chief administrator and other Government officials and the ones fighting wrongs unitedly do not seem to know how rules are to be followed. The fundamental clarity: In a secular country, the state institutions cannot make or upset prevailing norms of holy shrines of any faith. The Supreme Court has amply made it clear that the state can only facilitate functioning, not scrap rituals or have them amended in any manner. So, the temple committee is supreme like the working committee of a political party called the ‘high command’. Whether or not the Shankaracharya had a critical role, the committee has the power to determine. The people outside the ambit would have no say. The temple chief administrator’s role is strictly limited to ensuring everything runs smoothly so that devotees don’t suffer at all. One is not the top boss over the temple norms as decided by the Gajapati king on advice of the Shankaracharya, conventionally the head advisor with support from the Mukti Mandap Pandit Sabha, which decides the ritual rights and wrongs. The state took over the temple management in 1960 from the royal family mainly because the monarchs had become impoverished and powerless in the secular republic. They could not organise money or manpower to keep the temple activities running. The worst-affected was the servitors who virtually went hungry for most rituals that gave them material benefits ceased to be performed, so much so that the Car Festival was dropped or cancelled a couple of times due to want of funds and other resources. The state rushed to the scene only in pure public interest. But it did not snatch the basic rights of the Gajapati or the Mukti Mandap or the seer.
lately, some non-researching persons including the chief administrator have spread the word that the Shankaracharya is just a ‘nobody’ as he is not mentioned in the record of rights. This imagination provoked one Basanta Behera of Cuttack to file a PIl to have the Shankaracharya’s wings clipped to render him weightless in guiding the temple committee in events of ritual disputes. The non-priestly servitors have never been rebuked for deceiving the gullible devotees. Pandas are essentially Brahmins and are engaged in ‘touch-deity’ services. Karan (administrator), Maharana (carpenter), Patara (weaver), Mali (flower grower-supplier) and Bhoi (SC category nursing guarding plants and trees) and many more servitors are critically important but cannot touch deities except during critical rituals. But if any of these come in contact, the deities would have to undergo the Maha Snan process.
Today is the Return Car Festival. The festival drudgery and torture has grown beyond endurance. It would start diminishing if only live telecasting is stopped as a first step. Highlights for an hour or so would bring immense relief to the suffering mankind. The state machinery has to rise to the occasion to keep the nation’s secular spirit intact. Jai Jagannath!
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)