The purpose of a temple is to enable the devotees to worship God for peace and happiness. However, unfortunately, temple festivals are perpetuating violence and they are increasingly becoming a medium for the local groups to exhibit their power in the locality, the Madras High Court lamented on Friday.
Refusing to order police protection for a temple festival in Mayiladuthurai, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh wrote: “There is no devotion involved in conducting these festivals and rather it has become a show of strength by one group or the other. This completely defeats the very purpose of conducting temple festivals.”
The judge went on to state: “If temples are going to perpetuate violence, the existence of temples will have no meaning and in all such cases, it would be better to close down those temples so that the violence can be averted. Till the man drops his ego and goes to the temple seeking for the blessings of the God, the whole purpose of having a temple is of no use.”
Expressing pain over the court having to encounter a number of writ petitions related to groupism in conduct of temple festivals, the judge said, the time and energy of the police as well as revenue officials were unnecessarily wasted in resolving disputes between those groups who fight over their right to conduct the temple festivals.
“The police and revenue have got other important functions to perform and their time is wasted in resolving disputes between groups who have no devotion to God and are more interested in showing their strength over the other. In the considered view of this court, the precious time of the revenue and police officers cannot be wasted in disputes of this nature,” he observed.
Justice Venkatesh pointed out that the present writ petition before him had been filed by Thangarasu alias K. Thangaraj claiming to be the hereditary trustee of Sri Rutha Maha Kaliamman Alayam at Sirkali Taluk. Additional Public Prosecutor A. Damodaran told the court that there was a dispute between two groups over placing Vinayagar idol inside the temple.
The Tahsildar had conducted an inquiry and ordered that no one should place the Vinayagar idol inside the temple since it might lead to a law and order problem and therefore the petitioner had rushed to the court seeking police protection. After recording the APP’s submission, the judge refused to order police protection for the temple festival.
“It is left open to the parties to conduct the festival peacefully without their ego coming to the forefront. If any law and order problem is created, the respondent police shall immediately interfere and take action against all persons concerned and shall stop the festival from proceeding any further,” Justice Venkatesh ordered.
