Tamil Nadu recently gave the go ahead for appointment of women as temple priests. Hindu Religious Endowments Minister PK Sekar Babu, whose department runs many temples in the state, said that Chief Minister MK Stalin had given the ok for it.
Applicants will be provided training in Hindu rituals to enable them to become priests. Archanas or rituals will be conducted in Tamil on request at all the major temples. Tamil archanas are already being conducted in some temples in the state. Women serve as priests in some Shakti peethas, such as the popular Melmaruvathur temple and the Isha centre near Coimbatore. The minister said the government would take measures to provide appointments to qualified priests before the newly elected DMK government completes 100 days.
Earlier, the minister had said that people from all castes would be able to become priests under the state government’s “all-caste archaka” scheme, aiming at implementing the 75 recommendations made by the Madras High Court recently.
In 2008, the Madras High Court directed that a woman priest, who was the only legal heir of her father, be allowed to perform pooja in a village temple where the presiding deity is Goddess Durga. It observed that the “altars of God” must be freed from gender bias. Justice K Chandru of the Madurai Bench allowed a petition filed by Pinniyakkal, the only legal heir of the temple priest, and rejected the plea of a male cousin of the petitioner that only he should perform pooja on the grounds that only a male member can be a priest.
“It is ironical that when the presiding deity of the temple is a Goddess, objections are being raised against a woman in performing poojas in such temples. Even in vedic times it is recorded that women had performed poojas. Fortunately the temple is not trapped under any Agama sastras. The sub-cultural deities established in south India are freed from the norms of Manusmriti and hence women being subordinated to home making alone is not warranted,” Justice Chandru said.
In 1971, the DMK government under M Karunanidhi had amended the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious Endowments Act to abolish the concept of hereditary appointments for priests in temples in the state.
In the Seshammal case, a constitution bench of the Supreme Court held that the appointment of archakas was a secular function and abolished next-in-line succession appointments. However, the Court clarified that appointments so made, even if they are non-hereditary, should confirm to the “usage” prevalent in the said temple.
In May 2006, the DMK government while relying on a 2002 judgement in the Adhithayan case, where the apex court held that there was no justification for insisting that persons of a particular caste alone could conduct temple rituals, issued an order making any person with “requisite qualification and training” eligible for appointment. The ordinance that followed was challenged by the Adi Saiva Sivacharyargal Nala Sangam.
In December 2015, a bench comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and NV Ramana observed that the appointment of archaka could not be in contravention of constitutional principles, referring to equality and freedom from caste discrimination. However, they acknowledged the claims of the appellants insofar as archaka appointments could not be made in contravention to diktats imposed by agamas, the religious scriptures that governed a Hindu temple.
Rejecting the primary claim of the appellants that the issues in the present case were the same as and had been conclusively decided in Seshammal, the Court found Seshammal relevant to the limited extent of its finding that “some of the Agamas do incorporate a fundamental religious belief of necessity of performance of the Poojas by Archakas belonging to a distinct denomination”.
In both Seshammal and Adi Saiva, the Supreme Court observed that while appointment was a secular matter, it was governed by religious scriptures or the Agamas that the state was obliged to respect. However, courts did not just hold the Agamas to be mere religious practices, but essential religious practices, entailing an element of inviolability and complete protection from state action.
An essential religious practice was the one seen in Sabarimala Temple in Pathanamthitta District, Kerala. Women in the reproductive age were not permitted to worship here. In 1990, S Mahendran started a petition, alleging that young women were visiting Sabarimala. In the verdict, which came in 1991, Justices K Paripoornan and K Balanarayana Marar of the Kerala High Court banned the entry of women between 10 and 50 years, stating that such restriction was in accordance with the usage prevalent for a long time. In addition, the High Court directed the government of Kerala to use police force to enforce the order to ban entry of women.
In 2006, six women, members of the Indian Young Lawyers’ Association, petitioned the Supreme Court to lift the ban saying that the practice was a violation of their constitutional rights. They questioned the validity of provisions in the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules Act of 1965 which supported it.
In September 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that women of all age groups could enter Sabarimala temple. The verdict was passed with a 4-1 majority where Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar, RF Nariman and DY Chandrachud favoured permitting women to enter the temple, while Justice Indu Malhotra dissented. She said that every individual should be allowed to practice their faith irrespective of whether the practice was rational or logical. The Supreme Court observed that the custom of barring women was in violation of Article 25 (Clause 1) and Rule 3(b) of Kerala Hindu Places of Worship.
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Among Christians, Elizabeth Paul was the first ordained woman priest in India in 1987, while Marathakavalli David became the first woman priest in Kerala in 1989. She was from the Church of South India (CSI). When the issue of ordination of women came up in the CSI Synod in 1970, it was vehemently opposed, leading to a decade of debate and protracted legal recourse by opponents. But eventually, the persistence of the CSI Synod led to a majority vote in 1982, favouring the ordination of women.
Scholars say that unlike the Catholic church or Islamic tradition, there’s nothing in Hindu holy books that bans women from becoming religious leaders. But centuries of convention have dictated that only men are entitled to perform the most sacred religious rites. The first school to offer priestly scholarship to women opened in the 1980s in Pune.
But change is slow.
—By Shivam Sharma and India Legal News Service