Amid the ongoing row over his past remarks about Telangana tribal goddesses Sammakka and Sarakka, seer Chinna Jeeyar Swamy on Friday, March 18, issued a clarification claiming that he did not mean to demean them. He claimed that a portion of his speech made several years ago was picked up now and presented out of context. Stating that his organisation had set up schools and conducted health camps on a large scale to benefit Adivasi women, the seer claimed that in the now viral clip, he was objecting to the use of village deities or tribal goddesses as an excuse for “anti-social activities.”
Jeeyar made the clarification at a press conference after Bahujan and Adivasi groups and leaders in Telangana staged protests and demanded action against him for his alleged derogatory remarks. In the controversial video, Jeeyar is heard saying, “Actually, who are Sarakka and Sammakka? Are they gods who descended from Brahma Lokam (heaven)? What is their history? They are merely forest and village deities. Let the people who live there worship them. But now, educated people and big industrialists (are worshipping them). They have even named banks after them. This has become a business.”
In his clarification on Friday, the seer once again said that the village deities did not come from heaven but grew to the status of goddesses amidst tribals. “Many women seen as village deities were mostly illiterate, but were knowledgeable. The circumstances in those villages gave them a status of worship and turned them into village deities, because of their knowledge. They didn't come from heaven, they came from the midst of humans and became deities because of their qualities. But using them as an excuse, we must not encourage anti-social activities,” he said.
Claiming that his remarks had been taken out of context to create a controversy, he said, "You have to see the entire context. You can't pick up something and highlight it.”
When questioned about his organisation charging an entry fee of Rs 150 for a visit to the recently inaugurated Statue of Equality, he said that the charge was for maintaining the area where other activities also happen. “Unless you keep some entry fee, it's hard to control the crowd. Such places usually have entry rates in thousands of rupees, but we have kept a nominal fee for its maintenance,” the seer said.
He was also questioned about his remarks ridiculing people who eat meat, to which he replied, “Everything has certain rules. If you want to study medicine, various subjects are removed at every step from school to post-graduation, to narrow your focus on the subject, if that is your goal. I said meat must be avoided for people who wish to take a vow of tradition (sampradaya deeksha), not to random passersby on the street.”
In an earlier speech, Jeeyar had said that people who eat pork would think like pigs, people who eat mutton would follow the herd, and people who eat eggs would only behave like a chicken, pecking in the dirt and eating from it.
With IANS inputs