It was an interesting case of a Communist fulfilling a goal of Mahatma Gandhi. On July 16, 1933, 41 Harijan Vaishnavites (Madiga shoemakers) voted to elect the trustees and members of the Board of Supervision of the Parthasarathy Temple at Thiruvallikeni, after Sir Vepa Ramesam, Justice of the Madras High Court, decided a case in their favour.
The man instrumental in procuring the voting right for them was P. Ramamurti, who was then working with Gandhiji’s Harijan Seva Sangh.
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“A large number of Harijans started in a procession, singing devotional songs, from opposite to the Police Quarters at Wallajah Road, Triplicane, and went to the polling station. The voters recorded their votes and retired at 12 noon in a body,” reported The Hindu on July 17, 1933.
Later, recalling the incident, P. Ramamurti said Harijans could even be elected as dharmakarthas (trustees) if only they possessed property. He said Gandhiji also wrote about the incident in the magazine Harijan. While Ramamurti claimed that 200 of them took part in the election, The Hindu report said there were 41 voters.
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Troupe of bhajan singers organised
It all began with Ramamurti organising a troupe of Harijan bhajan singers from Perambur, who would go around the Parthasarathy temple in the month of Margazhi, singing verses from Divya Prabandham. “Since they were not allowed to enter the temple, they would disperse after the bhajan singing. One day, I invited the retired judge, V. Bhasyam Iyengar, to the bhajan singing session. He was so impressed that he went inside the temple and brought prasadam for them,” Ramamurti said, as recorded in his biography authored by N. Ramakrishnan.
But a section of Vaishnavite Brahmins was furious. “Particularly Sambakesa Iyengar said Ramamurti already had a broken leg, and we should break the other leg too,” Ramamurti said. Ramamurti went further when there was an election to the temple trusteeship. He mobilised the shoemakers at Sergeant Colony near the Triplicane police station and prepared them to participate in the election. The voters should be Tenkalai Vaishnavite Hindus, over 21 years of age and resident within the boundaries of the temple.
Stay on election
“I performed Samashrayana [marking Sangu and Chakra on both hands] and taught them some slokas. Then I registered them as voters. The Vaishnavites obtained a stay on the election and we filed an appeal against it in the City Civil Court,” recorded Ramamurti.
At the hearing, the Harijan voters responded to the queries of Judge U. Ramappa of the City Civil Court as instructed by Ramamurti. They showed the judge their Vaishnavite markings and told him that Sathani Iyengar was their guru. The judge was satisfied with their response and allowed them to be registered as voters.
“It appeared to His Honour that whoever believed in Vishnu or Siva was a Hindu. The Madigas were untouchables, His Honour further observed, but it did not follow that an untouchable was not a Hindu. The untouchables worshipped Hindu Gods. They had no other God and it was his opinion that all untouchables were Hindus,” The Hindu reports of the judgment in January 1935.
Even when the case was pending in the City Civil Court, the temple board filed an application before Justice Ramesam for transfer of the suit to the High Court; an order of injunction against the election; and re-transfer of the suit to the City Civil Court.
The temple board contended that it had rightly excluded the ‘chuckliers’ (shoemakers) who had admittedly no right of entry into the temple. “The words, ‘Vaishnavite of the Thengalai sect’, applied only to the members of the four cardinal castes and not to outcastes,” The Hindu recalled the board as arguing in the court.
Separate ballot boxes
But Justice Ramesam ruled, “It was not necessary to issue an injunction, totally stopping the election tomorrow.” He said the election could be conducted by allowing the 41 Adi Dravida voters to vote in separate ballot boxes in a suitable place. In compliance with the order, they voted at the polling booth at the Corporation Model School, Bells Road, Triplicane.
The incident drew the nation’s attention and The Hindu reported it in detail. When Gandhiji visited Chennai, Bhasyam Iyengar wanted his view on whether Harijans could be allowed to enter temples after they had undergone some sort of Samskara (purificatory ceremony).
“I do not think so,” Gandhiji replied. “I do not think that we should prescribe any Samskara for them, except that they should observe all the rules that are applicable to other Hindus. I have always said to them that they must observe the rules of cleanliness and abstain from carrion and beef-eating,” reports The Hindu.
Ramamurti recorded that after working a couple of years in the Harijan Seva Sangh, he realised that it could not liberate or ameliorate the conditions of the Harijans. Subsequently, he joined the Communist Party.
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