The decision of the state leadership of the CPI(M) in Tamil Nadu to actively participate in temple festivals raised several sceptical eyebrows and generated strong criticism. While many wondered if the plan was a replica of the CPI(M) experiment in Kerala, which in 2015 decided to take out Krishna Janmashtami pageants featuring Marx and Stalin along with Krishna, others felt it was a desperate move to keep the voter base, swayed by the Hindutva narrative, intact.
On March 23, the Tamil Nadu CPI(M) state secretary K Balakrishnan had said that the party was considering such a move in order to counter the presence of Hindutva forces. Last week, during the party’s three-day state conference held in Madurai from March 31 to April 1, a resolution was passed to the same effect. However, the party leader now says that they won't be part of temple festivals, but will counter the Sangh Parivar. Critics, however, are doubtful of its success. Senior journalist B Kolapan, in his column in The Hindu on April 4, said the CPI(M) is trying to prepare for the “Hinduisation of Tamil Nadu politics,” a political scenario witnessed in other parts of the country. Others see it as “opportunistic and hypocritical”.
K Balakrishinan told TNM that the party still hasn’t worked out a comprehensive plan to counter the Sangh Parivar. “We are certainly not going to take part in any of the religious rituals; we aren’t going to do abhishekams or aaradhanais. In the temple premises, we are thinking of talking to the people about the need for communal harmony and on equality of religions reflecting on the sentiment of ‘yaadhum oore, yaavarum kelir’(roughly, a paean to universal citizenship). We are also planning awareness programmes against casteism and communalism. But we are yet to decide how to implement this on the ground,” says Balakrishnan.
But before the criticism broke out, the CPI(M) had specifically said that they would take part in temple festivals, which raises the question if the party has had second thoughts. To hold awareness programmes in temples and taking on Hindu right wing groups by having a stake in temple festivals are two different things. Balakrishnan’s statement also calls into question the feasibility of the initiative and the reach the party—it has only two seats in the Legislative Assembly—hopes to have at such programmes. The CPI(M) only has pockets of political influence in the state, mainly Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Nagapattinam districts and the Thanjavur-Thiruvarur belt.
Advocate Rajendran, a member of the Deiva Thamizhar Peravai, an organisation dedicated to spreading Tamil forms of worship instead of Sanskritized and Brahminical ones that have gained acceptance in the state, says that if the CPI(M) is serious they should be willing to take on Hindutva forces. “The call ‘Jai Shree Ram’, which the Hindutva groups want to popularise across the country, would never be recognised in Tamil Nadu. Raman isn’t a Tamil god. As a matter of fact, in the Ramayana, we are considered Asurans (demons). Here, people worship Murugan,” he says.
One way the party could commit to this, according to Rajendran, is by pushing for what he describes as a ‘theistic rationalism’ as opposed to Hindutva which he describes as “monotheistic”, in terms of their singular, exclusionary ideology. “Hindutva’s proponents don't share the view Sidhars have on faith, for example. They don’t believe that there could be different paths that lead to God. Religion is like a choice of apparel and as Christians, Muslims or Hindus, people reach God through their preferred path. Theistic rationalism, instead of atheism, does away with the need for Brahmin priests, horoscopes and other superstitious practices. The idea of God takes the form of our conscience which gives the direction about what is right or wrong,” says Rajendran. In his view such a concept of religion is diametrically opposed to the Hindutva project which is based on structural inequality and bigotry.
Theistic rationalism is a hybrid of religion and rationalism, in which rationalism is the predominant element.
Author and Tamil folklore historian Sa Tamilselvan, says the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has been working in Tamil Nadu for decades to homogenise religious practices, and downplay and erase the culture of worship associated with folk deities. In Tamil Nadu, these deities are referred to commonly as ‘siru theivangal’ (small gods).
“But, who decides which gods are small and which are big? There are countless folk deities across Tamil Nadu. There are also ‘kula deivangal’ (family deities) and Gods specific to a particular region. But from the time of the Tamil Bhakti Movement itself, there was an attempt to erase them. The movement intended not only to counter Buddhism and Jainism, which were gaining popularity, but also sought to supplant the worship of folk deities with Siva and Vishnu,” says Tamilselvan, adding that this could be an area of intervention for the CPI(M).
Pointing to the Gazette entries made in the late 1910s, which he came across during the course of research, Tamilselvan says folk deities are the Gods of the working-class. “Colonial-era missionaries, who saw these groups as their primary focus, documented their worship practices. One entry I found observes that the people had a higher regard for folk deities than so-called big Gods. The folk deities played a day-to-day role in their lives,” he says. These folk deities are often worshipped through sacrifices of chickens or goats. The meat is cooked and eaten communally. The priests (poosari) of temples dedicated to folk deities are not Brahmin and hail from caste groups which have a majority in the locality, “The VHP in the past few decades has been working towards replacing this with Brahmanical forms of worship by introducing rituals like ‘kumbabishekam’,” says Tamilselvan.
The origin of these Gods have varying local stories. Many of them are thought to be real people, either murdered or who had taken their own lives. Some of them are victims of honour killings, like Kaathavarayan, worshipped in fear of retribution. It is a complex history. There are also stories that have passed down for generations and have turned into myths. But, as the author notes, over the centuries, there were attempts to Brahminise these deities as avatars of Vedic Hindu Gods.
“Take the goddess Mariamman, for example,” says Tamilselvan. “There are many versions of her across Tamil Nadu. In my village near Sivakasi, the Mariamman story is that a young woman who collected cow dung for a living, accidentally came across the amman statue buried deep in the ground. The VHP recently trained the poosari of this amman temple to offer worship using Sanskrit hymns. What does the VHP have to do with Mariamman? How long before the poosaris in folk deity temples are replaced by Brahmins?” he asks.
If the CPI(M) wants to counter the narrative of Hindutva forces which are gaining ground in Tamil Nadu, they need to think beyond awareness programmes, and think of preserving the diverse cultures of worship that the Sangh is seeking to wipe out, says Tamilselvan. When asked if the party is thinking of focusing on folk deities in the state, Balakrishnan said that they have small village temples in mind, but did not expand on what precisely the depth of their involvement is going to be.