Dalits enter village temple for first time, earn Hindu ire
Tumakuru deputy superintendent of police, K Nagaraj, said, “We had gathered all the residents and told them that temple entry for the Dalits would have to be allowed. Everybody had agreed.” Police saw the agreement crumbling.
Kottihalli’s Hindus insist the fair being called off was not related to Dalits entering the temple. “An old woman who lived near the temple had died about a week ago and, as is the norm, there is a period of mourning. That is the reason the fair was called off,” said Ranganna, 45, a Vokkaliga (savarna), who runs a fair price shop in the village. “It is all a misunderstanding. We have lived in the village as members of the same family.”
But Ranganna’s account incensed the dead woman’s son, Kumar, also a Vokkaliga.
“How dare they say the fair was called off because of my mother’s death? The mourning period ended three days before the fair. If they really were mourning for my mother, they should not have conducted the fair at all,” he said.
After the fair’s abrupt end, Dalits claim Hindus stopped interacting with them. Kottihalli has 50 Dalit houses located in a cluster in the northeast of the village.
Police organised yet another peace meeting on Thursday to resolve the crisis, but the Hindus did not turn up. An elderly Hindu resident of the village who did not want to be named said Dalits had enjoyed reservation, drawn the benefits of education and were more affluent. “You cannot say anything against them, even if they have benefited from the state’s largesse.”
The temple priest, Chikkanna, who belongs to the Kuruba caste (classified as an OBC), justified his reluctance to assist Dalits in offering prayers. “I told them that they could conduct the puja themselves.” The village has two Kuruba households and members of these families have traditionally been the priests.