Obnoxious Devadasi cult thrives, girls in distress

Y Maheswara Reddy | NT

Bengaluru, Jan. 12 A group of children from Devadasi families shared their heart-wrenching stories highlighting their discrimination and exclusion at a state-level consultation held in Bengaluru on Tuesday. They narrated how the Devadasi system is still alive and the need for the immediate intervention of the state government to prevent it.

There are more than one lakh Devadasi families in Belagavi, Bagalkot, Vijayapura, Raichur, Koppal, Bellary, Vijayapura, Davanagere and Vijayanagara districts. The state government has to take measures not only to create awareness among Devadasi families but also rehabilitate these families to discourage the conversion of girls into Devadasis.

A Kishori leader from Koppal expressed her agony saying, “Everywhere the forms for any service or admission have a compulsory column where the father’s name has to be filled. This puts girls in a very disadvantageous position when it comes to their education or securing any facility,’’ said the Kishore leader.

A Devadasi mother from Davanagere lamented that her name is not in the Devadasi survey conducted by the state government in the 90’s and as a result she is not getting the ‘pension’ and is forced to engage in rag picking in public places to take care of her children.

Similar stories were shared by the participating Devadasis and children coming from nine districts of Karnataka who wanted some immediate measures to protect the rights of the children and long term measures by the concerned departments of Social Welfare, Women and Child Development, Police, RDPR, Education and Revenue to provide housing, pension and identity certificates to them.

“We have succeeded in sending Devadasi children to schools. Most of them are drop outs due to various reasons. We created awareness among 6,000 children on the importance of education. We are working in 118 villages of five districts in the state,’’ said Vasudeva Sharma, government relations officer of Children of India Foundation.

Devadasi families have urged the state government to revamp the existing Karnataka Devadasi (Prohibition of Dedication) Act 1982 and bring a comprehensive law to prevent, protect, prohibit, rehabilitate and compensate the aggrieved parties. A group of Kishoris demanded that the state government establish a separate Devadasi Rehabilitation Board with a fixed budget to end this obnoxious practice systematically.

Responding to the woes and demands of the Devadasi families and children, Prof. Jaffet, Vice Chancellor (retired), Bengaluru Central University said that prior to 1982, he and a team conducted a study about the existence of the Devadasi system and influenced the state government to enact the Devadasi Prohibition Act. He said the time has come to revisit the Act at the earliest.