Kolkata: Breaking the shackles of caste-based discrimination, practiced in a rural pocket of Bengal for nearly three centuries, representatives of 130 Dalit families for the first time set foot inside the Gidheshwar Shiv Temple in Purba Bardhaman district on Wednesday, officials confirmed.
A group of five members of Das families — four women and a man — from Gidhgram village’s Daspara area in the district’s Katwa subdivision climbed the steps of the temple around 10 am, poured milk and water on the Shivling and offered prayers to Mahadev without obstruction, amidst the presence of local administrative officials and personnel from the local police station deployed around the shrine to prevent any law and order problems. The families, which had planned to break tradition and offer prayers at the temple during the Maha Shivratri festival on February 26, had not only been driven away from the temple premises on grounds that they belonged to “low caste”, they also faced economic isolation from a significant section of villagers following their move to seek help of the local administration and police to carry out their plans to worship at the temple, a news agency reported.
Happy and relieved by the day’s development, the families thanked the administration and police for their “active intervention and cooperation,” but expressed uncertainty about whether the effort to end the bigotry would be long-lasting. “We are ecstatic to have been granted the right to perform puja at the temple. I prayed to God for everyone’s well being,” said Santosh Das, a villager who was previously disbarred from setting foot on temple steps.
“We received tremendous support from the local police and administration on whom we had reposed our faith,” Ekkori Das, another villager chipped in, adding: “We hope we haven’t spoken too soon. The village heads have agreed to the arrangement under administrative pressure.
We have to see whether the temple doors remain open for us even after the police deployment is removed.”