Hello World,
While the nation is struggling to stick together in one piece under the evil right wing hindutva rule, the negative impacts are flowing into the Tamil society through the pre-existing cultural conduits, an output of the hindutva conspiracy from the past. It is about time the Tamil society acknowledges the problem appropriately, for the ignorance of the same will result in the extinction of the Tamil race in every sense of the phrase.
The Tamil society, much like other societies all over the world, relies on specific set of relevant thought leaders who end up shaping the respective societies over time. Amongst the many such thought leaders any society can have, the ‘Mothers’ form the first and fundamental group of thought leaders every society is invariably dependent on. The Tamil society is no exception to this fact. All of us learn the first things from our mothers before we get exposed to the other thought leaders as we grow up. The mothers, therefore, are the primary stakeholder group that the Tamil society needs to worry about, should sustainable freedom from hindutva terrorism over the long term be the core objective. The concern, in this regard, however, must be aimed at rescuing Tamil women from the evil clutches of the temple-driven inequality schemes for it is only after that, the possibility of a new generation of Tamils, immune to the inhuman concepts enforced by the evil hindutva terrorism framework, be realized in a sustainable manner.
While all women need to be saved, for the sake of the relevance, this discussion will primarily focus on saving Tamil women. This discussion, in all respect, will serve as the basis for the efforts to emancipate Indian women in general. However, any such usage is left to the readers’ free-will-driven conscious application. The Tamil society, will however, must focus more deeply into this as its freedom from oppression lies in the core of the real freedom of its women – The Tamizhachis.
For this discussion, the reference I am using is the book titled ‘Castes and Tribes of Southern India’ written by Kadambi Rangachari and Edgar Thurston. The book is a comprehensive compilation spanning seven volumes, documenting the findings of an elaborate census exercise, covering the physical, cultural and social anthropological aspects of Southern India, which, as per the authors, was started in 1894. This research was formally published in 1909.
The Much-Needed Realization of Truth
I am dumbfounded to have realized that ‘Deva-dasi’ is recorded as a separate caste group in this research. If a specific version of forced re-socialization can be so powerful that the victims of the organized crime be classified as a dedicated social group within a society, nothing more is needed to confirm that the fundamental reasons behind such violent, large-scale re-socialization efforts were aiming to secure a position of privilege for a foreign entity, inside an existing population, at the cost of the existing inhabitants, which in other words can be referred to as the original inhabitants of the land, speaking a specific language. In this case the victims are Tamils who lived in the land which later got to be known as Tamilnadu. The Deva-dasi system is being misrepresented by the evil right-wing conspirators in today’s time to revive the religion-driven subjugation of women. To notice the difference, it calls for a close and hard look at what was documented 111 years ago by Kadambi Rangachari and Edgar Thurston.
The Deva-dasi section of the search begins with the following:
“In old Hindu works, seven classes of Dasis are mentioned, viz., (1) Datta, or the one gives herself as a gift to a temple; (2) Vikrita, or one who sells herself for the same purpose; (3) Bhritya, or one who offers herself as a temple servant for the prosperity of the family; (4) Bhakta, or one who joins a temple out of devotion; (5) Hrita, or one who is enticed away, and presented to a temple; (6) Alankara, or one who, being well trained in her profession, and profusely decked, is presented to a temple by kings and noblemen; (7) Rudraganika or Gopika, who receive regular wages from a temple, and are employed to sing and dance.”
The very beginning establishes the core aim of the evil hindutva framework. The definitions for the organized subjugation and exploitation of women is attributed to the output of an organized religion which in this case is Hinduism or the hindu religion. In the name of religious observance, women have been classified across classes, the definitions of which, violate the fundamental concept of humanity, to say the least. How cruel is the organized religion if this is what it has created for the female members of its followers, is something, we need to calmly introspect and let the facts sink into our minds before jumping to any conclusion. The ‘why’ and ‘how’ need to be given more weightage than the ‘what’. Such is the outcome warranted by the definitions of the different classes of Deva-dasi.
Recall some of the phrases used in the Deva-dasi definitions:
“…one who gives herself as a gift to a temple”
“…one who sells herself for the same purpose”
“…one who is enticed away, and presented to a temple”
“…one who, being well trained in her profession, and profusely decked, is presented to a temple by kings and noblemen”
It is very clear that the woman is equated to some object of trivial value much lower than that of a pet animal! There seems to be a complete absence of remorse when a certain system of practice defines a specific subsegment of its followers, as mere objects for a specific purpose. For some reason, the women are easily assumed to be objects of vanity to be owned and shared! Such a system is referred to with the phrase “In old Hindu works…!!!”
Please, also note that the place of this deposit, withdrawal and exchange of women, is nothing other than a temple – the primary place of worship belonging to the system that had held this commercial practice of slavery with a gender bias by design. This is by no means to indicate that the inhuman practice can be considered fair if men are also dedicated, sold and bought in a similar manner. Slavery is slavery and it is inhuman in every sense of the term.
If such is the practice accepted in the primary place of worship belonging to a specific faith system, how is that system a religion in the first place and how is the head of the religion even eligible to be a god, irrespective of its existence and associated beliefs?
How will any superpower rationalize the subjugation and exploitation of one specific gender group of its many creations?
Why would anyone with sanity even consider following the faith system that accommodates such a practice?
How come no Avatar came to the rescue of the Deva-dasi women?
It is almost as if the Hindu gods considered it good for a select group of their women followers to remain as sex slaves engaging in the inhuman practice via the primary places of worship dedicated to those very gods! To imagine my fellow humans frequenting these temples and spending large amounts of money on every visit to those temples is simply excruciating to me. My fellow Tamils doing the same in Tamilnadu is even more horrifying as I know, compared to many other states in the nation, mine is way forward in terms of education and economic prosperity.
The authors, while referring to what the Deva-dasis primarily did while being attached to the temples, note the following:
“For the following general account, I am indebted to the Madras Census Report, 1901: -
Dasis or Deva-dasis (handmaidens of the gods) are dancing-girls attached to the Tamil temples, who subsist by dancing and music, and the practice of ‘the oldest profession in the world.’ The Dasis were probably in the beginning the result of left-handed unions between members of two different castes, but they are now partly recruited by admissions, and even purchases, from other classes….”
The reference to prostitution is being made with an effort to establish its antiquity! However, I am even more horrified to see the phrase ‘Tamil temples!’
How come, for every other discussion in every other sense, the temples are referred to as hindu temples, saivite temples, vaishnavite temples, or temple titles referring to the primary piece of statue (some call it deity but a statue is a statue first, before any other form of imagination is allowed to take over) and just when it comes to documenting organized prostitution in the name of god, the term ‘Tamil temples’ is being used?
For all positive mentions, the faith system uses its own terminology to denote the relevant entities but when it comes to discussing a disturbing subject, it becomes a liberal out of the blue and uses my primary identity ‘Tamil’! The fact that Tamils are continuing to visit these temples is clear evidence that the Tamil proletariat has lost the memory of having anything even remotely related to self-respect!
The reference to the Deva-dasis goes on to say that they were a consequence of allegedly illegitimate mix of different castes and over time they became the consequence of ‘legit’ admissions and purchases! The description blindly accepts ‘purchase of women’ as an acceptable alternative to inter-caste marriage! This is the evidence that the so-called hindu system segregated its followers across castes that weren’t allowed to mix, while at the same time, tolerated the sale of women, all attached to its primary place of worship – temples!
Women were admitted or sold to temples and that was a cultural practice. For some reason, nobody dared to question such a tradition which is slavery! This includes the men who otherwise don’t shy away from taking pride in the so-called manliness! What is more disheartening is the fact that my fellow Tamils were, at the time, culpable of tolerating this anti-social practice designed exclusively against women! To visit the temples today and waste the hard-earned money there is merely an extension of acceptance of the same blame, we Tamils have been collectively carrying all along, without any remorse. All we have in our defense is the lost memory of us tolerating inhuman practices such as the Deva-dasi system in the name of god! We Tamils must accept the fact that we were focused on everything other than the organized exploitation of women, as we were conditioned to accept the gender bias by design. Women were considered to be inferior to men and were literally owned by men in the name of customs, tradition and even the non-existent god. All we did was fall in line, as we fell for the greatest fake news in human history – organized religion!
The Simplicity of the Subjugation
While discussing the internal aspects of the Deva-dasi caste, the authors note:
“Among the Dasis, sons and daughters inherit equally, contrary to ordinary Hindu usage. Some of the sons remain in the caste, and live by playing music for the women to dance to, and accompaniments to their songs, or by teaching singing and dancing to the younger girls, and music to the boys. These are called Nattuvans. Others marry some girl of the caste, who is too plain to be likely to be a success in the profession and drift out of the community. Some of these affix to their names the terms Pillai and Mudali, which are the usual titles of the two castes (Vellala and Kaikola) from which most of the Dasis are recruited…”
As it turns out, ordinary hindu usage does not allow sons and daughters to inherit family property equally. That being outright unfair to women, is not the most disturbing part. The sons of Dasis, the men who remain in the group, had lived by playing music for the women of their own family to dance to. This could be taken in positive light when the situation deals with siblings getting involved in art forms and collaborating in creative pursuits. However, such is not the case, as here, the male siblings of the girls in the Deva-dasi group literally whored them out in the name of tradition!
How insane were the women that they raised their sons to tolerate and contribute to the organized prostitution of their own sisters and cousins?
How did this society tolerate such upbringing of children?
The phrase ‘…who is too plain to be likely to be a success in the profession’ literally confirms that our society had strongly ingrained the concept of aesthetic appeal as the elementary means of evaluating women, especially when they are being considered for prostitution. With a heavy heart, I feel a bit of relief that the so called ‘plain-looking’ women, at least, had the opportunity to get away from the evil flesh trade. The insult of aesthetic appeal, which is nothing but a concocted view of evaluating what one receives naturally from their parents, is much safer than the life of a prostitute. I am however not sure how many had the opportunity to escape this temple-based sex trade racket. It is an unavoidable irony where the lesser of the evils must be given a positive consideration.
As it turns out, those who drift out of the Deva-dasi group, had affixed to their names the terms ‘Pillai’ and ‘Mudali’! Now it is slowly opening that most of these individuals, both genders, were not entirely proud of their Deva-dasi lineage and created their own cover identities. The disturbing part there is that, even when these individuals wanted to free themselves from the oppression, all they chose was a fake identity from within the evil caste system that is the basis of the evil hindu system.
The question however remains:
The question however remains:
How many Pillai’s and Mudali’s had chosen those caste titles as a means of self-made emancipation from the organized prostitution in the name of god?
Irrespective of the number, the concern is more towards the social acceptance of this new identities the outgoing members of the Deva-dasi group adopted.
One is forced to wonder what kind of mentality would have prevailed among the Deva-dasi crowd back then, that their very lifestyle forced some of them, when being unsuccessful, by default or by design, to willingly leave the Deva-dasi identity, only to pick a new fictional identity from the same anti-social framework.
While discussing the lifestyle of the Deva-dasi community, the authors note:
“The daughters of the caste, who are brought up to follow the caste profession, are carefully taught dancing, singing, the art of dressing well, and the ars amoris, and their success in keeping up their clientele is largely due to the contrast which they thus present to the ordinary Hindu housewife, whose ideas are bounded by the day’s dinner and the babies.”
Girls were raised to dance, sing, self-groom and were also taught on the art of seduction with the secret recipe being the difference these women presented in contrast to the ordinary hindu housewife! The ‘ordinary hindu housewife’, as it turns out, was an individual restricted to dinner and the babies!
Now I am stuck as to what should be the more horrifying piece of history I should be fixated on: The Deva-dasi girls being raised to specialize in seduction or the non-Devadasi women being used as cooks and baby-making machines?
If such was the state of women back then and such practices has its roots in a faith system and its places of worship, how did the population rationalize visiting the places of worship and even follow the system. It was more filth than faith! The fact that we left our hard-earned money in those places of worship along with our self-respect outside, only reinforces the astronomical extent of backwardness, we, as a population had been conditioned with. Those who were responsible for building, running and maintaining these places of worship and the associated filth system do not deserve to be considered as humans, never mind any other fancy titles.
Comprehending the Non-Tamil Component
All this happening in Tamilnadu is absolutely discouraging but as it turns out, was the status quo across many parts of India especially the other provinces of south India. Describing the prevalence of the Deva-dasi system in the Karnataka region, the authors note:
“In the Canarese (or western) taluks of Bellary, and in the adjoining parts of Dharwar and Mysore, a curious custom obtains among the Boyas, Bedarus, and certain other castes, under which a family which has no male issue must dedicate one of its daughters as a Basavi. The girl is taken to a temple, and married there to the god, a tali and toe rings being put on her, and thence-forward she becomes a public woman, except that she does not consort with any one of the lower caste then herself.”
Bribing the gods is pretty much a common gimmick among all faith systems and this case is no different. The practice, as documented, has involved, families with no male child willingly offering one of their daughters to their gods! Not only were the girls being subjugated based on their gender, but also were exploited on account of the absence of the opposite gender in their families! The father’s male chromosome missing out results in a female child and over time, if the father establishes a failure to father a male child, one of the earlier born female children is gifted to the temple. Guess what, those girls were married to the idols and from then on, they became ‘public women’. They did get the luxury of not having to consort with any of the so-called lower caste customers. How fair??!!!
This makes me wonder why and how we ended up missing the inclusion of our own guillotine to bring these inhuman practices to an abrupt end. Oh, wait, I know: We were busy paying for the poojas and ceremonies in the same temples where this inhuman Deva-dasi system prevailed in the name of the same gods we revered! We should have never included salt in our diet system and disregarded the concept of having skin and blood.
Fathers and mothers had agreed to give up their daughters simply because they did not have a male child, and this was the state of our fellow citizens and the entity responsible for such a state was the hindu faith system and its place of worship.
It is very difficult to not notice the strange way the caste system established this game within the hindu faith system. Organized exploitation of women had them classified as a Deva-dasi caste and one version of the practice prevented the same victims from serving those who were classified under caste groups considered inferior to that of the Deva-dasis. This is how the concept of caste system was reinforced into our minds. We could consider disregarding people based on caste to our benefit and the practice just propagated itself across the society, all the while operating under the hindu banner. The irony is that, in this case, the victims of organized prostitution were allowed to use caste as a means to avoid being exploited by a select class of men, oblivious to the fact that, they were vulnerable to every abuse possible by the men belonging to the so called upper castes. Such was the state of women in our society and we tolerated that in the name of god and paid the temples and its operators our hard-earned money! One needs to wonder the real state of the paid blessings we enjoyed as a community back then!
It is about time we take a moment to recall the fact that we continue to visit these places of worship even today and willfully waste our hard-earned money on the aarthi-plates and undiyals! This however does not disregard the money we waste on ‘footwear protection at the temple doorstep’, ‘the pooja kit’, ‘the pooja token’ and other nonsense crafted to establish us as slaves to the greatest fake news in human history – organized religion.
Identifying the Source of Gender Bias
The authors discuss the Deva-dasi system in more detail and refer to other research works in this regard. While quoting Rev. M. Phillips’ work, the authors note:
“They read, write, sing and play as well as dance. Hence one of the great objections urged at first against the education of girls was ‘We don’t want our daughters to become dancing-girls.”
Now, this in very simple terms explains how, we, as a community, got ourselves conditioned to reject the idea of the girl child getting educated and exposed to art forms. Since the Deva-dasi system had the practice of training the victims to display knowledge and talent, the rest of the society detested the same for their own girl children. For once, our society decided to act against the Deva-dasi system, but our neural networks were so badly damaged that we collectively went berserk on our own girl children! Our society was not even capable of doing the bad thing right and our women alone paid the price for it, irrespective of them being a Deva-dasi or not. Every phase, every turn, every instance, the girl was subjugated to what the oppressors wanted her to do, almost as if, she had no such thing as free will. If there is a creator up there, what kind of a lousy creator she is (there is already enough testosterone in such fairy tales!) that she created a society that will discriminate its women in such organized fashion while also detesting the practice by means of discriminating against their own girl child!
Now do you realize where we got our ‘keep the girl uneducated’ mindset from?
While I was busy pondering over the findings of the research, I was unassumingly allowing myself to drift into the self-forged understanding that all girls were forced against their will into the evil Deva-dasi system. I was terribly wrong, and I realized this when I came across the following petitions the authors had compiled:
“The following are examples of petitions presented to a European Magistrate and Superintendent of Police by girls who are about to become Basavis: -
Petition of ------------- aged about 17 or 18.
I have agreed to become a Basavi, and get myself stamped by my guru (priest) according to the custom of my caste. I request that my proper age, which entitles me to be stamped, may be personally ascertained and permission granted to be stamped.
The stamping refers to branding with the emblems of the chank and chakram.
Petition of ---------------------- wife of -----------------------
I have got two daughters, aged 15 and 2 respectively. As I have no male issues, I have got to necessarily celebrate the ceremony in the temple in connection with the tying of the goddess’s tali to my two daughters under the orders of the guru, in accordance with the customs of the caste. I, therefore, submit this petition for fear that the authorities may raise any objection (under the Age of Consent Act). I, therefore, request that the Honourable Court may be pleased to give permission to the tying of the tali to my daughters.
Petition of two girls, aged 17 and 19.
Our father and mother are dead. Now we wish to be like prostitutes, as we are not willing to be married, and thus establish our house-name. Our mother also was of this profession. We now request permission to be prostitutes according to our religion, after we are sent before the Medical Officer.”
The first petition refers to the stamping of the chank and chakram. This indicates there existed the practice of branding girls who, post branding, are officially deputed as dancing-girls of the respective temples who can consort to men who claim their company by means of a gift of money. The symbols used to mark a woman as a public property are, to this day, being revered as holy symbols of the hindu faith system, the chank (conch shell of religious importance) and the chakram (disk of auspicious vision). We have collectively traveled all along, in a horribly wrong direction, which can be attributed to no other entity than the evil hindu faith system thrust into our society!
The second petition is mentally excruciating on two accounts: one being the fact that the parents of the girls themselves had applied for legal clearance for rendering their girl children as prostitutes; the other being the fact that the practice called for submission of one of the girls and the parents chose to give away both their daughters! Our society was so backward in thoughts and deeds, all while being devout practitioners of religious rites, that, parents collectively decided to give away their daughters to temples where the highest bidder can force them to submit to their sexual desires!
The third petition is the awakening one in my view, where the petitioners are girls who are willfully requesting the court to permit them to become prostitutes as their parents have died and they have no other means of sustenance. We had the education to write petitions and the courts to seek justice. However, all we did was use it to destroy ourselves as not all of us were educated and not all of us had the luxury of approaching the court for legal clearance of what we felt as rightfully ours. I am not sure if the girls were forced to sign the petition and or otherwise, but I cannot, for a moment put myself in their place and imagine the situation for such is the horribly inhuman nature of the same. We had a social set up, where when girls lost both their parents, they had nothing other than to take up prostitution as the only means of sustenance. This petition might well have been an exception, say one in a million. However, one instance of one girl being forced into prostitution is reason enough to go all out against the inhuman practice. A minima-based insignificance is not a valid excuse to disregard such violence against women, even if it is the case of the victim volunteering for it.
The authors have documented more than one instance of families giving up their girl child. One such instance referring to Coimbatore is:
“Among the Kaikolan musicians of Coimbatore, at least one girl in every family should be set apart for the temple service, and she is instructed in music and dancing.”
Deva-dasi system seems to have permeated the deep interiors of our social framework for such has been the reach of the faith system and its practices propagated via the numerous temples built on our land. While Deva-dasi groups were actively practicing music and dance, over time, those who had engaged in similar art forms became exposed to the evil system which, for reasons only they can explain, over time became acceptable to them and they followed suit in giving up the girl child. We were just busy with so many things and one of them was giving up our girl children to the temples!
It is not Coimbatore alone. The authors refer to other parts of Tamilnadu in:
“The funeral pyre of every girl of the dancing girl (Sani) caste dying in the village should be lit with fire brought from the temple. The same practice is found in Srirangam temple near Trichinopoly.”
The institutionalized prostitution forcing girls into submitting themselves to the service of the perverted, was so well organized that, it even included an honor system of offering respect to those who grew up not knowing what self-respect is. When a dancing-girl died, the funeral pyre should get the starter-flame from the temple she belonged to. The Srirangam temple near Trichy had such a practice. This means, every time we visit the Srirangam temple and spend our hard-earned money in the temple, we are essentially celebrating the perverted sex trade the temple had organized for the benefit of the rich in the name of service to god. When we do the same along with our family, we are also enabling our family to share the shame of supporting an institution that specialized in subjugating women in the name of god. Let that fact sink in.
The Consequences of Organized Exploitation
The Tamil land has been culturally invaded by practices from all corners and as it turns out, the negatives have persisted longer, as they served as the means of establishing political control over us and our land. After the authors cover the migration of one version of Deva-dasi practice from northern provinces (within South India) above, they go on to document their findings of similar practices from the south end of the Indian peninsula. They note:
“But the South Travancore Dasis are and indigenous class. The female members of the caste are, besides being known by the ordinary name of Tevadiyal and Dasi, both meaning servant of God, called Kudikkar, meaning those belonging to the house (i.e., given rent free by the Sirkar), and Pendukal, or women, the former of these designations being more popular than the latter. Males are called Tevadiyan, though many prefer to be known as Nanchinat Vellalas. Males, like these Vellalas, take the title of Pillai.”
So, this is where the iconic flagship bad word of modern Tamil profanity, ‘Tevadiyal’ originates. I cannot believe the nomenclature followed an elementary format and essentially told people that a woman who remains at the ‘Adi’ (feet) of the ‘Tevan’ (god) and performs a community service can therefore be called 'Tevadiyal'. The male children of the Tevadiyal were referred to as ‘Tevadiyan’. Over time, as these identities become easy reference to ‘inferior class’ and associated derogatory terms, those who were forced to carry these identities decided to change their identities and their first choice was ‘Nanchinat Vellalas’ and over time they started taking the title ‘Pillai’.
Now we can understand how the title ‘Pillai’ came to be held by both Tamils and Malayalees. However, that is the least significant thing we need to discuss at this point. What is more significant here is that the provinces in the south also had the practice of subjugating women into the prostitution rackets run by the hindu faith system and they forced the victims to fend for themselves via means as trivial as change of caste names and picking up titles to go along with their names.
If everything said and done in the name of god in temples are actually so pure, holy and positive, why were the victims of the Deva-dasi system so desperate to change their caste identities, jumping from one trivial title to another, hoping they will succeed in emancipating themselves from such organized oppression, in the name of the very religion they subscribed to?
The authors go on to document the practice of offering the girl child to the temple and they note:
“All applications for the presentation of a girl to the temple are made to the temple authorities by the senior dancing-girl of the temple, the girl to be presented being in all cases from six to eight years of age.”
At the tender age of six to eight, the girl is a little child still trying to better understand her surroundings every time she wakes up from sleep and the inhuman god-believers chose to submit the girl child for the service of the temple, which in the long run, forces the girl to survive by satisfying the perverted sexual desires of rich lunatics. The temples were the place of submission, the temple authorities were the key decision makers and the girls’ parents were voluntary donors. All this in the name of the god that, never mind its non-existence, the followers believed in. This horror of a practice was part of a faith system and to this day, this system is being referred to as a majority religion and the heads of this majority religion are assumed to be gods. It is now imperative that we take a good look at who were the key perpetrators in this organized sex crime racket our society had accepted in the name of god.
The authors, while describing the key stakeholder primarily responsible for this organized crime against women, note:
“The priest kindles the fire, and performs all the marriage ceremonies, following the custom of the Tirukkalyanam festival, when Siva is represented as marrying Parvati. He then teaches the girl the Panchakshara hymn if the temple is Saivite, and Ashtakshara if it is Vaishnavite, presents her with the cloth, and ties the tali round her neck.”
This is the initiation of the life of sexual slavery for girls who did not have people willing to raise them as normal humans and some of them were in fact the girls’ own parents. The temple priests had devised elaborate procedures to get the girls into the Deva-dasi life and they did it without remorse.
This is not something that can be easily assumed as an act of religious rite carried out on the request of the girls or their family. The temple priests were not merely conceding to the demands of the public. They ran the entire show. They drafted the rules and they controlled the institutions that run these sex rackets. Remember, the temple priests were and are claiming to be the capable and eligible middle-men, by virtue of their birth, who can connect the common man with the gods!
The authors Kadambi Rangachari and Edgar Thurston refer to multiple court cases and in one of them, the note:
“The plaintiff, a Deva-dasi complained that when she brought offerings according to custom and placed them before the God at a certain festival, and asked the Archakas (officiating priests) to present the offerings to the God, burn incense, and then distribute them, they refused to take the offerings on the ground that the Deva-dasi had gone to a Komati’s house to dance. She claimed damages, Rs. 10, for the rejected offerings and Rs. 40 for loss of honour, and a perpetual injunction to allow her to perform the mantapa hadi (sacrifice) at the Chittrai Vasanta festival. The priests pleaded that the dancing-girl had, for her bad conduct in having danced at a Komati’s house, and subsequently refused to expiate the deed by drinking panchagavyan (five products of cow) according to the shastras, been expelled both from her caste and from the temple.”
The Deva-dasi had submitted the offerings to the priests officiating a worship event and the priests had denied her their service. When questioned, they had indicated that the Deva-dasi had gone to a Komati’s house and danced. Komati is a caste identity referring to a trading community. In other words, this caste identity refers to the Vaisya group as per the religious nonsense that propagated these made up nomenclature to segregate equal humans. Now, a Deva-dasi must heed to every other highest bidder and dance to the pleasure of them and those associated with the temple and go on to satisfy their sexual urges. However, when she does the same at the residence of a specific caste group, she becomes an outcaste.
Being a Deva-dasi is being an outcaste for any woman. As a Deva-dasi, women serve as sex-slaves of the rich. Them offering their services outside the established temple-based business model further outcasts them to such an extent that the priests, refuse to present her offerings to the idol in the temple.
Firstly, why in the world, does anyone need a middleman to deliver material to a non-existent entity? The material remains in front of the idol. These officiating priests merely scream some nonsense that nobody understands and then take a part of the offerings along with the hard-earned money from the gullible god-believers. This is extortion!
Secondly, how is forced prostitution in one place holy and the same done elsewhere a sin? Those women had to live a life of slavery and even that inhuman practice was outright unfair to them in every sense of the phrase.
What is even more disturbing is that the priests had offered a punishment or corrective measure, performing which the Deva-dasi becomes eligible for the priests’ services. The punishment was to drink Panchagavya which is a mix of cow-dung, cow-urine, cow-milk, curd and ghee. The modern day Panchagavya mix tends to include a few extras such as tender coconut, water, jaggery and banana. However, the very idea of mixing animal excrement/urine and consuming it is beyond anything acceptable as hygienic!
A Deva-dasi committed a sin, became impure and she had to drink a mix of animal excrement/urine to purify herself, post which the priests will be available to present her offerings to the idols. These temple priests have inculcated the habit of consuming animal excrement in the name of god and this unhygienic practice is present to this day in our society! As it turns out, the consumption of Panchgavya was a form of punishment for those who went against the god.
Who do you think decided when someone goes against the god – the temple priests!
What do you think is the basis for such an act of evaluation and punishment – the sanskrit shastras!
Tamil Population Under the Sanskrit Siege
This prolonged exposure to organized religion and its evil schemes have rendered the Tamil proletariat incapable of differentiating the fact from fiction. As long as something has an ancient Tamil term associated with it, the Tamil population quickly grabs it as if it is the fundamental core of its cultural identity, not realizing that the sanskrit siege operates across the spectrum and cleverly mixes its nonsense into what is originally Tamil and delivers a mixed version of anything and everything it uses to perpetuate the planned political propaganda using religion. Thanks to the kings who ruled the Tamil lands, they did everything this sanskrit culture invaders asked them to. These temple priests, like most monks across other cultures, had the uneducated monarchs as their slaves and promised them wealth and continued hold over political power, should those monarchs do as these priests say. The consequence was nothing but the establishment of multiple temples, increasing the presence and control of the priests over the Tamil land and its people. This subsequently led to an era of cultural captivity where Tamils lost most of their original cultural heritage and fell for the evil anti-human schemes perpetuated using sanskrit propaganda literature as the basis. The Deva-dasi system discussed above is nothing but a minute figment of the very large consequence of accommodating the temple-based practices dictated using the sanskrit propaganda literature as the basis.
People from faraway lands came, enslaved a few of the local population, created a dialect of their own, convinced the monarchs of invincibility and under their patronage , established a pseudo-society violating every essence of our Tamil culture. They came to the Tamil land, took away the Tamil identity, convinced Tamils to follow a new faith system and in the name of those made up gods, made Tamils voluntarily submit their own girl children to be exploited. While a few Tamils voluntarily allowed their girls to be taken away in the name of god, the rest of the Tamils believed in the same god and visited the same temples, participated in every religious event and even offered their hard-earned money and valuables!
The Fall of the Tamil Proletariat
The Tamil proletariat, to this day, remains a victim to this sanskrit siege, not realizing that sanskrit has nothing to do with anything even remotely Tamil! The following practices are the modern-day remnants of the centuries old sanskrit cultural ambush:
The Tamil proletariat continues to visit the so called hindu temples and wastes its resources in the process.
The moment a girl child turns, say 12 or 13 years old, her family does everything it can to make a ‘Pooja Performer’ out of the girl, not realizing, she is as much human as any other male in the same family!
The young Tamil girl is conditioned to keep thinking about the god and is forced to practice religious rites both at home and the local hindu temples. In many cases, they are given books about non-existent characters which they must read. Most of what they hear from the elder females in their family revolves around the concept of god, pooja and the do’s and don’ts in that regard. That Tamil girl can gain the same way as a boy by hearing about science and math but the Tamil women are conditioned to raise their daughters the religious way as they are forced to fear that if they fail in this regard, their daughters will get spoiled.
The moment a Tamil girl reaches puberty, she is made to believe in the concept of impurity arising out of what otherwise is a mere natural process common among all females of mammals across the animal kingdom! The Tamil girl is conditioned to believe that she cannot enter any place of worship while she is having her monthly menstrual period. For some reason nobody knows, the insignificant drops of blood oozing from the broken uterine wall of the Tamil girl makes her unfit for participating in many events, including the insignificant religious ones. This creates the culture where the Tamil girl is conditioned to believe that she is nothing but an object under the organized religion.
There are circumstances where the males in the family plan for a religious trip to a mountain-top temple to waste their time and money in the name of a non-existent god and they observe a fast for a few weeks prior to their trip. During these times the females are expected to not have their periods. Those who do have their monthly period, a natural event, either stay away from interacting with the males in the family or restrict themselves to one corner of their homes. In some cases, the Tamil women even take medicines to purposely prolong their monthly period, so their family’s males don’t get exposed to the impurity of their menstrual blood!
Connecting the History with the Future
Looking back at the evil Deva-dasi system and the current state of the Tamil proletariat, one cannot miss the fact that the temples have existed and have even grown in number. So has the habit of visiting these temples and wasting money on religious rites. The Tamil proletariat, at one time voluntarily participated in the organized exploitation of its own women on its own land and to this day the Tamil proletariat visits the same temples, losing its time, self-respect and hard-earned money in the process.
How is visiting the very places of worship where one’s own women were sold as commodities, beneficial from a positive energy perspective?
How is anyone, while operating within the cope of sanity, consider a participation in the institution that enslaved his/her women, a source of ‘peace of mind’?
How long are we going to tolerate evil hindutva forces simply because they operate in our Tamil language, persisting with the same hostile intent?
The Tamil proletariat needs to remember that the evil hindutva forces have assembled their allied forces comprising of the non-Tamil bourgeois who are already here on our land sucking the life out of our land and its resources. The same hindutva forces have long held a strong foot in the door in terms of the temples their ancestors built to support them. As it turns out, the Tamil proletariat has already fallen victim for the religious propaganda carried out by the evil hindutva forces and has been busy building more temples and places for further methodical brainwashing of the Tamils in the name of god.
Given the times of organized right wing hindutva propaganda destroying our social fabric, the consequences of the non-Tamil bourgeois holed up in Tamilnadu taking the side of the hindutva forces is only dissolving the Tamil identity steadily and strongly. If we Tamils do not take time to recognize evil as evil, very soon, we will, cease to exist and even if we do continue to exist, we will not be having anything left out of our Tamil identity!
The Next Steps Forward
To be able to counter the rising right wing hindutva propaganda, we Tamils need a sustainable, and long-term anti-divisive effort that can unite us using the one and only valid entity that connects us all – The Tamil Language! However, we cannot be doing so, if we continue to subjugate Tamil women, the Tamizhachis, to the evil religious schemes being propagated by the temples.
If at the tender age of 12, a Tamizhachi is brainwashed to focus more on insignificant Pooja gimmicks and if the same Tamizhachi is brainwashed to believe in the non-existent impurity of menstruation, are we Tamils not designing for the colossal failure of our own future?
These young Tamizhachis are going to be future mothers, who are going to raise the future Tamils who will carry on the responsibility of establishing a fair, inclusive and division-free Tamilnadu. For this to happen, we need these young Tamizhachis to be educated on par with the male Tamils and be treated as equals. We cannot have Tamizhachis remain as victims of religious nonsense and still expect a future Tamil generation which can stand up to the evil hindutva forces.
Remember, the Tamil proletariat needs its future generations to be raised within the scope of the Tamil culture before getting exposed to other cultures and this cannot happen until we let the young Tamizhachis of today to make their own decisions. The girl child is morphologically different from the male child but that does not render the girl child inferior in any sense. Enabling today’s Tamizhachis to stand up on their own is the very core of the future survival of the Tamil proletariat.
There are many thought leaders who end up influencing the masses and the Tamil proletariat is no exception to this. However, the Tamil proletariat needs to remember that to counter the rise of the oppressive hindutva propaganda aided by the non-Tamil bourgeois, the first and foremost thought leader group to be evolved are brave, educated Tamizhachis.
All the Tamil proletariat needs to do are these:
Stop forcing young Tamizhachis to pick up insignificant practices such as those of organized religions. Emancipating them from the clutches of the temples is paramount in this regard.
Educate Tamizhachis on par with their male counterparts.
Stop encouraging any format of practices, places or literature that is connected to the evil temple-based schemes that enslaved Tamizhachis (women in general) and exploited them.
The Tamizhachis are evolving. From mere sex-slaves in temples, they have now come far into the mainstream across all areas of legitimate professional and social life. All they need to be is free to think, decide and act on their own.
Sadly, we live in times, where we are gently going backwards from a cultural standpoint and consequently the Tamizhachis are being put in the backseat. Some of them are still stuck there. With gender bias reviving itself into newer forms, it is about time the Tamil proletariat makes a firm decision to stand by its Tamizhachis and enable them to recover the lost ground in their own terms. We cannot have brave Tamils of the future standing up to evil hindutva forces if we have Tamizhachis of today afraid of raising their voice against sexual harassment and gender bias of all sorts!
The Final Word
Remember, the Tamil proletariat is in an unevenly matched war against an unfairly advantaged hindutva propaganda and the only solution lies not in the present but the coming decade and beyond. The future Tamil generations need both strong fathers and mothers. If the Tamil proletariat can enable the Tamizhachis of this generation establish a mark on their own in their own terms, then nothing more is needed for a strong Tamil future. Ideally, the Tamil proletariat will benefit from having its Tamizhachis stand up against the very temple infrastructure that enslaved and exploited them. Such an onslaught will present the ideal example for the entire Tamil proletariat moving forward. Should anyone else wish to take inspiration from the Tamizhachis, nobody is going to stop them.
My dear Tamizhachis, the freedom of the Tamil proletariat is in your hands. It is undeniable that today, your hands are tied by many knots totally uncalled for. However, should you resolve to retake the rights of equality that you truly deserve, there is nothing that can stop you from doing so. Remember, you are merely disadvantaged, not dismembered or dismantled. In your recovery of gender equality, lies the future Tamil society’s freedom from the evil hindutva oppression. I think, I have made my point. I will let you think about this, decide and act as per your independent thought.
Reference:
Reference:
Castes and Tribes of Southern India
Authors:
Best regards,
