Gujarat govt wants industries dept to "handle" pleas to appoint manual scavengers as temple priests

By A Representative
In what should appear as a weird development, the Gujarat government wants the state industries department to handle applications with pleas for appointing the lowest category of Dalits, Valmikis, involved in manual scavenging, as priests in temples. This has come to light in a letter from the chief minister’s office (CMO) to senior Dalit rights activist Rajesh Solanki, who wanted Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel to make the important change. Solanki had pleaded that Valmiki Dalits should be appointed priests in major Gujarat temples.
Revealing this, the CMO says, all pleas on priesthood to Valmiki Dalits should go to the state industries department directly. A copy of the letter, addressed to Solanki, has been forwarded to additional chief secretary, industries, Gujarat government, D Jagatheesa Pandian, with the the instruction to “handle” the plea for priesthood to Valimiki Dalits. Solanki wanted the Gujarat chief minister to come up with two Cabinet resolutions on this.
Solanki said, the first Cabinet decision related to appointing Valmiki Dalits as priests (pujari) in five prominent temples of Gujarat -- Ambaji, Chotila, Bahucharaji, Dwarka and Somnath. The second one was regarding stone laying foundation ceremony (bhumi poojan), with a minor Valmiki Dalit girl formally asked to conduct play the key role. “On July 25, 2014 CMO replied telling me that my both the letters had been forwarded to additional principal secretary, industries and mines”, Solanki said.
Solanki told Counterview, “I reminded Anandiben in my written plea that she had washed the feet of Valmiki veterans at two places, Patan and Ahmedabad, ahead of Lok Sabha elections, saying her effort was a sort of repentance about what the upper caste people had done to them for ages. I also said, now time had come that, as the chief minister Gujarat, she put her agenda of social harmony into practice. And the best way to do this was to adopt Cabinet resolutions giving special status to Valmiki Dalits in religious orders and ceremonies.”
Solanki expressed surprise that instead of taking any decision in the Cabinet, “her office sent my letters to the industries and mines department, which has nothing to do with the subject.” What is particularly “shocking”, Solanki added, is the fact that the industries and mines department was asked to take care of all plea “as per the rules.” This, he added, prompted him to write yet another letter to the Gujarat chief minister, reminding her of why priesthood to the Valmiki Dalits was so important to end untouchability practices.
The letter said, Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad and Dr BR Ambedkar had demanded abolition of hereditary priesthood among Hindus, but no political party had so far dared to do this. “For decades, the BJP accused the Congress of playing vote bank politics. The Congress had its own Harijan cell. The BJP formed Anusuchit Jati Morcha. But, the BJP is not different than the Congress. BJP is not able to push social reforms among the Hindus. The BJP is interested only in instigating the Dalits against the Muslims”, Solanki said.
The move by Solanki -- who represents the Dalit Hakk Rakshak Manch (DHRM), a Dalit rights NGO in Ahmedabad -- comes more than a year after the state government under Narendra Modi came up with what was then described as “unique idea” of training manual scavengers in Hindu religious rituals. The Valmikis were learn Vedic rituals at institutions like Sola Bhagvat Vidyapith and Somnath Sanskrit University. Even Rs 22.50 lakh was aside for this in the budget for 2013-14. Critics said, such priesthood meant little to abolish caste-based manual scavenging.

Comments

Academics urge Azim Premji University to drop FIR against Student Reading Circle

By A Representative A group of academics and civil society members has issued an open letter to the leadership of Azim Premji University expressing concern over the filing of a police complaint that led to an FIR against a student-run reading circle following a recent incident of violence on campus. The signatories state that they hold the university in high regard for its commitment to constitutional values, critical inquiry and ethical public engagement, and argue that it is precisely because of this reputation that the present development is troubling.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

UAPA action against Telangana activist: Criminalising legitimate democratic activity?

By A Representative The National Investigation Agency's Hyderabad branch has issued notices to more than ten individuals in Telangana in connection with FIR No. RC-04/2025. Those served include activists, former student leaders, civil rights advocates, poets, writers, retired schoolteachers, and local leaders associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Indian National Congress.

The ultimate all-time ODI XI: A personal selection of icons across eras

By Harsh Thakor* This is my all-time best XI chosen for ODI (One Day International) cricket: 1. Adam Gilchrist (W) – The absolute master blaster who could create the impact of exploding gunpowder with his electrifying strokeplay. No batsman was more intimidating in his era. Often his knocks decided the fate of games as though the result were premeditated. He escalated batting strike rates to surreal realms.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Aligning too closely with U.S., allies, India’s silence on IRIS Dena raises troubling questions

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The reported sinking of the Iranian ship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka raises troubling questions about international norms and the credibility of the so-called rule-based order. If indeed the vessel was attacked by the American Navy while returning from a joint exercise in Visakhapatnam, it would represent a serious breach of trust and a violation of the principles that govern such cooperative engagements. Warships participating in these exercises are generally not armed for combat; they are meant to symbolize solidarity and friendship. The incident, therefore, is not only shocking but also deeply ironic.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

Search This Blog