DMK Govt Pushes Scheme on Non-Brahmin Priests at Hindu Temples

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday presented appointment orders to 24 priests from non-Brahmin castes to work at Hindu temples across the state, a significant step forward in the Dravidian dream of freeing the Hindu priesthood from being a preserve of Brahmins.

MK Stalin gave out the appointment orders at a function arranged by the HR&CE Department, which manages the Hindu temples in the state.

Stalin in a tweet after the function said: “It was a thorn in the heart of Periyar…,” referring to the practice of disallowing people from non-Brahmin Hindu castes to become priests.

Written into law by the DMK government in 1970 when Stalin’s father and DMK icon M Karunanidhi was chief minister, the scheme to appoint priests from all castes took a long route towards realisation.

The DMK Government had suffered a setback just two years after bringing out the law—the Supreme Court had struck down the order. Karunanidhi, back in power after defeating Jayalalithaa at the hustings in 2006, brought back the scheme. After a nearly decade-long battle, the top court allowed temples to appoint priests from all castes, provided they are validated through training.

Moving not much since then till 2021, the scheme to bring non-Brahmin priests to conduct rituals inside the sanctum sanatoriums of some of the state’s celebrated Hindu temples has taken a definitive step forward under Stalin.

Over 207 priests had been trained in Government-run schools for the purpose of making candidates ready to become priests. There had been several complaints from social activists and lawyers about the state of these candidates—waiting for appointment orders for over a decade. The first Government-trained non-Brahmin priest to be appointed to a temple was T Marichamy in Madurai, early 2018.

With the state government kick-starting a new drive to the scheme today, more appointments are expected in the coming months.

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