It is high time the State Government rose to the occasion and settled the issue of touching the Trinity on chariots during the Rath Yatra, feel people from cross sections of the society.
Chief Administrator of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Arabinda Kumar Padhee has initiated a process in this regard, which has the seal of approval of both Jagadguru Shankarachrya and Gajapati Maharaja of Puri.
Now the decision makers will have to take the call before annual car festival begins on June 29.
It has to be taken into consideration that a few individuals and groups who besmirch the reputation of the pilgrimage city of Puri, the abode of the revered lord Jagannath, are a section of servitors of the temple, who are holding the SJTA and Government to ransom for their own vested interests.
Every time the authorities plan to negate the irrational ritualistic traditions which bring discomfort to many visitors to the 12th-century temple shrine, strong resistance is made by these handful servitors trying to strike an emotional chord with God-fearing multitude by calling the move for reform sacrilegious.
Political bosses succumb to this type of histrionics as they dare not do anything that may warrant a backlash from the same multitude that revere the lord and also vote them to the seats of power.
It is another matter that these elements do not hesitate to commit reprehensible acts inside the temple precincts. Cases of theft, drug peddling, bloody scuffling, outraging modesty of women pilgrims, deceiving and manhandling innocent visitors, demanding hefty amounts from devotees for touching the deities on the chariots and many more improprieties are said to have been committed by these servitors.
If the allegation about the servitors’ act of blackmailing the State is true, the authorities are paying them a whopping amount to make the Rath Yatra a smooth sailing event.
Introduced as a very nominal amount since the early Eighties of the twentieth century when State Government started paying this to some rowdy servitors who allegedly bullied the administration threatening it to create disturbances during the car festival, this conciliation amount has grown astronomically, it is alleged. Emboldened by this submissive attitude of the Government, the delinquent servitors keep defying all attempts made to sanitise the temple system. The restrictions mooted against touching the deities on chariots are a case in point.
Even as the Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati and Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingh Deb endorsed the proposal of imposing restrictions on chariot-climbing, some servitors have already started intimidating the Government by raising the pitch against it.
Gullible among young and old, rich and poor are waylaid by the servitors for availing the opportunity to touch the deities in the chariots so that they will get complete salvation! And this opportunity does not come without a price which varies according to the paying capacity of the devotee. It is time State Government acted tough against these cultural thugs not bothering about the fallout because whatever be the compulsion, power of the sovereign State should not be diluted to appease such characters, feel many.