Mired in the raging controversy, the Kandadevi temple car could not be pulled this year too during the Aani festival as the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) Department could not make the car ready.
The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court had directed the department last year to take all earnest efforts to ensure that the car of the Sri Swarnamurtheeswarar Temple ‘gets running during the annual Aani festival in 2015’ but the department could not comply with the order.
The majestic wooden car presented a pathetic look after the HR and CE department had removed the ‘vigrahams’ and four wheels of the car, Mr P R Chandran, a native of Kandadevi, who had done extensive research on the issue told The Hindu on Sunday.
The chances of the car getting ready for pulling next year also looked bleak as the Assembly elections would be round the corner and the State government would not wish to repair the car in time and take a risk, he said.
This year, the 10-day-long Aani festival began with flag hoisting on June 22 and passed off peacefully in the absence of the two contentious issues, the pulling of car and according special honours to the heads (Ambalams) of four ‘Nadus’.
The temple car, which came to a grinding halt in 1998 after Dalits asserted their right to pull it, remained in the centre of controversy ever since it was rolled out with four ‘vadams’ (ropes), exclusively meant for caste Hindus from four ‘Nadus’, more than 200 years ago.
Mahatma Gandhi during a visit to Devakottai on January 24, 1934 tried to broker peace between the ‘Nattars’ (Kallars) and Dalits but the controversy would not die down, Mr Chandran recalled. He said the car festival witnessed the first major law and order problem in 1875 when eight people were killed in a clash. Since 1896, the festival was held every year but not without clashes between Nattars and Dalits, he says in his book “Therum Porum.”
From time immemorial, only ‘Nattars’ of four ‘Nadus’ – Iruvaseri, Unjanai, Semponmari and Thennilai – were allowed to pull the car, while Dalits were asked to push it from behind, whenever it got stuck, he says in the book. And when the Dalits asserted their right , the car stopped running.
