Thiyya Samithi opposes move to take over temples

Committee recommends temples be brought under Malabar Devaswom Board

The Thiyya Samudhaya Samithi has opposed the alleged move by the government to entrust the management of the temples run by the trust in the Malabar region to the Malabar Devaswom Board.

Samithi president Purushotham Puthukkudy on Friday claimed that half of the Hindu temples and shrines in the Malabar regions belonged to the Thiyya caste, and they were owned and managed by traditional trusts. The shrines were often called kaavu , mathom or mathappura . They mostly followed the Saktheya tradition of worship, like other tribal communities.

Mr. Puthukkudy claimed that almost all of the shrines were on private properties, formerly owned by

tharavads of the erstwhile joint family system. “The takeover of these private shrines by the Devaswom Board will be illegal as it will violate the right to private property and the right to religious beliefs,” he told

The Hindu .

The Law Reforms Committee, headed by K. Gopalakrishnan, had in its report last month, recommended that the management of temples and shrines in the region be brought under the Malabar Devaswom Board. While the board could take over the management, recruit staff and order disciplinary actions against erring employees, the trustees would have the right to perform rites and rituals.

The committee, against the backdrop of misuse of temple properties and revenues, recommended that the earnings from the temple properties should be consolidated in a corpus fund. All the expenses of the temple could be met out of this. The fund could pay for daily pujas at the temples where daily earnings from offers from worshippers were meagre.

The committee has recommended that all renovations, constructions and festivals of these temples be managed by the Malabar Devaswom Board. The board should be paying the salaries, pension and other service benefits to the staff.

Mr. Puthukkudy contended that the Devaswom Board was created to run the affairs of the temples in the former princely states and hence the board had no business to take over the management of the private trustee-run temples and shrines of the Thiyya caste.

He said the Saktheya traditions of the temples and shrines of the Thiyya caste in the regions were discarded when some of the temples were earlier taken over by the board. The temples, where the focus was on goddess-worshipping, had been converted into Saivite or Vaishnavite traditions. There are some 1,400 temples and 800 shrines under the Malabar Devaswom Board.

He asserted that the Thiyyas in Malabar would resist the alleged move for taking over the temples.