Devadasi System – another form of sexual exploitation?

As Director, Women and child welfare in 1980s, I was confronted with what was called a social evil, the Devadasi system prevalent in Karnataka State and debate was going on with demands to do away with that system. I went with a few officers of my department on a fact-finding mission and organized a widely participated, taluk level seminar on the subject and undertook some field study. Very interesting facts emerged.

The place where this tradition is practiced is in Soundatti, a taluka place in the district of Belgaum in Karnataka State. It is some 70 kilometers away from Belgaum town, on top of hillocks there. There in a temple, where the local goddess, Yellamma is worshiped and tradition has that her real name is Renuka. She is worshiped as a Mother goddess, Yellamma. The Devadasi tradition associated with this worship seems to have been strongly established even since 10^th century AD. Here on a full moon day, anytime between November to February, young girls are dedicated to the goddess. At least five times during that period such rituals are organized.

The girls are dedicated, mainly as young children around 8 to 12 years old by her parents, seeking the intervention of the goddess in their affairs. It could be a serious sickness in the family, when the parents vow to dedicate a daughter praying the goddess to bring healing; or it could be a prayer wanting a son; or to overcome a financial difficulty or simply to get rid of a superfluous daughter. There could be a ‘call’ by the deity in many cases, with a sign, like the formation of a clump in the hair or a white patch of leprosy, indicating the desire of the goddess to have that child as her devotee. There are male children who are offered similarly.

The girls are taken to the ponds near the temple, given ritual bath, made to wear only neem tree (Margosa tree) leaves as dress and with a pot full of water on their heads, made to climb the hill to the temple. Of course the path is lined by ogling young boys and men. In the temple, the priests amidst rituals tie around the neck of the girl, a thread with beads, taken from the goddess’ neck. Now she has become married to the goddess and enters into the service of the deity, serving her by singing and dancing and worshiping. Such girls are forbidden to marry any mortal. 

  

So far so good; but what happens in reality after this marriage to the deity is sickening. The girl is taken in by the temple poojari (priest) first or by the landlord or a rich man of a village, the highest bidder. The patron pays lump sum money to the parents of the girl, pays for the ceremony and also maintains the girl. She may be kept as his mistress for a year or more, till he is tired of her or finds a new girl. Thereafter the girl really enters into prostitution to eke out her livelihood, with any and every one. These girls are forbidden to claim to be a wife of any one man. The children born out of such unions are given the surname of Basava, the goddess. Virginity of a girl is offered as an offering to the goddess. They become the female prostitutes attached to the temple; there are male prostitutes also.

When the seminar was going on with many experts speaking on the subject and social reformers waxing eloquent, I took a few of my officers and quietly went and visited a few Devadasis in the surrounding villages. In the local temples of the villages I was able to find three to four Devadasis and fell into conversation with them. They were about 40 to 50 years of age and they said that they were married to the goddess, when they were still young and for so many years they have lived as Devadasis. Surprisingly they all belonged to the lower castes of Mahar or Chambahar. They were poor, illiterate and marginalized. The men who visit them are usually from the village itself and mostly the upper caste men. They got paid Rs 5 and 6 for their services in the 1980s. They seemed to be satisfied with their lot, casting the burden on the goddess, saying that type of life was the will of the goddess for them.

It immediately struck me that here was a system devised by the rich and the upper castes men of the area to have a few women to serve as prostitutes in their own villages, sanctified by their religion and traditions. It was so very convenient; they need not go anywhere in search of such services; they had them in their own villages and at a cheap rate. No one can point their fingers at them, because are they not serving the goddess by taking care of her devoted female servants? What a stark exploitation of poor and illiterate women in the name of religion? 

I was so angry, I made a detailed report to the government and law was passed in 1982 abolishing the Devadasi system and making such dedications punishable by law. Plans and schemes were drafted for the rehabilitation of the affected women. The worse off were the younger women, who had one or two children and slowly being lured to Bombay red-light area for better prospects. They had to be educated, taught skills and shown other respectable means of earning their livelihood. We did our best to institute these changes in the area.  

Well, recently I learnt that the tradition is still strong in the area, though the rituals of dedication are held clandestinely without the knowledge of the authorities. It takes times and constant vigilance from the government and society to root out these social evils of open exploitation in the name of religion. 

Such traditions were found in other places too; temple Devadasis of Brihadeeswarar temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu; Jaggannath temple of Odhisha. These girls were experts in Bharatanatyam dance in Tamil Nadu and Odisa dance on Odhisha. They were simply the nautch girls, the dancing girls of the yester years attached to the temples.

They were not unlike the Geisha girls of Japan, who served a similar role, but not attached to any temple, but all the same entertained their male customers serving as courtesans. What makes the exploitation in Devadasi system acute is the religion sanction attached to it, for it becomes a divine prostitution, in the service of the deity, the goddess, but in reality serving the lust of the upper caste men in society. Every attempt must be made to root out such exploitation.

We need a God who says, 'I hate such practices;' God of the Bible says, in Deuteronomy 23:17, 18,

“No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.

You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both.”

Such things are abomination to God of the Bible. Moses wrote these laws around 1500 BC, as commanded by God. He is a holy God, demanding holiness in the life of His children.

“Be thou holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” Leviticus 19:2.

No wonder man-made traditions of exploitation in the name of religion do not hold sway under the banner of Christ, who is the core subject of the Bible. As Christ wins over people, these forms of exploitation will wither and fade away for good. That is the only hope for humanity.