If the Monday resolution of the Shree Jagannath Temple managing body is implemented, the devotees would be deprived of climbing up the chariots by the steel ladders and embracing the deities as the management decided to discontinue the practice from this year.
This decision has evoked strong protest from the Daita servitors as well as from the devotees. The Daita servitors, known as body protectors of the deities, conduct the annual Rath Yatra till it concludes. They take over the charge from the Snan Yatra (bathing ritual of the deities) till the end of the festival on the day of Niladri Bije (homecoming of the deities).
About a decade ago, as per the tradition, devotees were climbing onto the Raths by holding the artifacts and the structure parts of the Raths and only the young and able-bodied could climb. Realising the difficulty of the devotees, the then managing body had allowed fixing of steel ladders to make it convenient for them to have darshan of the deities on the Raths.
This practice was going on smoothly till last year when a devotee couple was roughed up by some servitors on the ground that they were non-Hindus. Since then, a controversy over whether it was religiously correct to allow devotees irrespective of religion to go up to the Raths or not began. A lot of discussions over the issue in various quarters failed to resolve the issue. The decision of the Jagadguru Sankracharya of Puri Gobardhan Peeth, who has been approached to solve the issue is learnt to be pending.
To register their protest, the Daita servitors’ body has convened a Press meet on Wednesday to vent their anger over the unilateral decision. They said a meeting of the servitor community was organised by the temple administration a couple of days ago in which many matters relating to observance of the rituals of the Rath Yatra were discussed, but the issue of climbing onto the chariots was never mentioned. The issue has widespread impact as the devotees were emotionally attached to the old practice.