India – Jogini/Devadasi Temple “Slave” Girls & Women – Illegal – Lower Caste – Sexual Exploitation

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https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/indias-temple-slaves-struggle-to-break-free/

 

INDIA – JOGINI/DEVADASI TEMPLE
“SLAVE” GIRLS & WOMEN – LOWER CASTE – SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION – ILLEGAL BUT NOT ENFORCED

 

At the rate of two dollars for 1,000 cigarettes,
she earns about 36 dollars a month. “I wish I could do some other job,” the
young woman says longingly.

But no other jobs are open to her in the village of Vellpoor, located in the
Nizamabad region of the southern Indian state of Telangana, because Poshani is
no ordinary woman.

She is a former jogini, which translates loosely as a ‘temple slave’, one of
thousands of young Dalit girls who are dedicated at a very young age to the
village deity named Yellamma, based on the belief that their presence in the
local temple will ward off evil spirits and usher in prosperity for all.

Poshani says she was just five years old when she went through the
dedication ritual.

First she was bathed, dressed like a bride, and taken to the temple where a
priest tied a ‘thali’ (a sacred thread symbolising marriage) around her neck.
She was then brought outside where crowds of villagers were gathered, held up
to their scrutiny and proclaimed the new jogini.

For
several years she simply lived and worked in the temple, but when she reached
puberty men from the village – usually from higher castes who otherwise
consider her ‘untouchable’ – would visit her in the night and have sex with
her.

 

Poshani says she was never a sex worker in the typical sense of the word,
because she was never properly paid for her ‘services’. Rather, she was bound,
by the dedication ritual and the villagers’ firm belief in her supernatural
powers, to the temple.

The only time of year she was considered anything more than a common
prostitute was during religious festivals, when she performed ‘trance’ dances
as a divine medium through which the goddess Yellamma spoke.

But the majority of her nearly three decades of servitude was marked by violence,
and disrespect.

Although a strong anti-jogini campaign in Vellpoor is making strides towards
outlawing the centuries old practice, women like Poshani have little to
celebrate. Though she relishes being free from sexual bondage, she struggles to
survive on her own with no home, no land and a debt-burden of 200,000 rupees
(about 3,300 dollars), which she borrowed from a local moneylender.

Visibly undernourished, Poshani represents the condition that most mid-life
joginis find themselves in: sexually exploited, trapped in poverty, sick and
lonely.

A cultural tradition or a caste-based system of exploitation?

According to official records, there are an estimated 30,000 joginis – also known
as devdasis or matammas – in Telangana today. An additional 20,000 live in the
neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh.

In both states, over 90 percent of the joginis are from Dalit communities.

Temple prostitution has been legally banned in the state of Andhra Pradesh
since 1988. Under the law, known as the Jogini Abolition Act, initiating a
woman into the system is punishable with two to three years, and with a fine of
up to 3,000 rupees (33 dollars).

But this is too soft a law for so heinous a crime, says Grace Nirmala, a
woman’s rights activist based in the state capital Hyderabad. Nirmala, who
heads an organisation called Ashray (meaning ‘shelter’), has been working for
over two decades to rescue and rehabilitate jogini women.

“[Joginis] live away from their families and have no rights […],” Nirmala
tells IPS. “Her life is completely ruined. For that, the punishment is a couple
of years of jail time or a few thousand rupees in fines. How can this be
justified?”

She added that most policemen in the state are not even aware of the law,
which makes it hard to abolish the practice completely.

Superstition also plays a major role in keeping the tradition alive, with
many villagers believing that joginis possess divine powers.

“Sleeping with a jogini […] is a way to invoke that supernatural power and
please the goddess,” Nirmala explained. “In many families, if there is a
nagging problem, the wife will ask her husband to go and sleep with the village
jogini so that it will go away.”

Others, however, believe that India’s deeply entrenched caste-system is
responsible for perpetuating this systematic abuse of so many thousands of
women.

She tells IPS the whole system is, in fact, a “power play” by which dominant
social groups oppress the weaker, more marginalised members of society.

In Telangana, for instance, some of the biggest supporters of the jogini
system are members of the wealthy, land-owning Reddy caste, as well as Brahmin
priests.

Kolamaddi Parijatam, a social activist who has been mobilising rural women
against the jogini system for the past six years, including those in the
village of Vellpoor, which is home to 30 joginis, shares Neelaiah’s analysis.

She refutes the theory put forward by various organisations and even
scholars that the practice of dedicating women to the local temple has deep
cultural roots and should therefore be preserved.

Given that Dalits comprise nearly 17 percent of the population of the newly
created state of Telangana, activists say that villages like Vellpoor are well
placed to lead the movement for legal reform.

“Women here now see the jogini system as a violation of Dalit people’s human
rights,” Parijatam tells IPS. “So whenever anyone says that the jogini system
is a cultural tradition, they ask: ‘Then why not make a non-Dalit woman a
jogini?’”

Local efforts gain steam

Enraged at the government’s inability to clamp down on the practice, local
women have doubled up as vigilantes in a bid to rescue women from the
dedication ceremony.

“Dedications of joginis typically occur between the months of February and
May when people in our region celebrate the festival of the goddess Yellamma,”
Subbiriyala Sharada, head of an all-jogini women’s group in Vellpoor, tells
IPS.

“Our group strictly monitors the celebrations and if we get to know a girl
has been dedicated to the goddess, we immediately call the police.”

Having been apathetic to the plight of joginis for decades, police are
gradually beginning to act in accordance with the law, largely due to pressure
from local activist groups. However, their progress is very slow, and activists
carry the lion’s share of the burden of reporting violations of the law and
ensuring the arrest of perpetrators.

But this, too, only solves part of the problem, because as soon as the dedication
ritual is performed, the girl will continue to live with the stigma – remaining
vulnerable to sexual slavery – until she is either properly rehabilitated, or
until the end of her life.

Activists are currently lobbying the Indian government to divert resources
from its ‘Special
Component Plan’ – which provides social and economic support to
marginalised communities in the form of vocational training, financial loans and
alternative livelihood opportunities – to the rehabilitation of joginis, who
have long been excluded from government assistance schemes.

Their inclusion as legitimate recipients of aid would significantly reduce
the burden on most jogini women, who struggle – among other things – to raise
their children in a safe environment.

According to Neelaiah, children of joginis risk verbal abuse and alienation
in the community if their mother’s identity is revealed. Girl children are
particularly vulnerable, as they face the double risk of being trafficked or
forcible dedicated to the deity in their mother’s place.

These girl children are in special need of protection, she says.

Both Neelaiah and Nirmala are helping to send children of joginis to school,
which they feel is the best way to protect them.

Fifteen-year-old Prashant, son of a former jogini named Ganga Mani, is one
of the lucky ones who managed to complete the 10^th grade and is now
planning to enroll in a high school.

Mani, who is barely literate, is pinning all her hopes on her son for a
better future. “One day he will become a big police officer. Our life will then
change,” she tells IPS with a smile.