Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Wednesday, January 22, 1997 04:20:00 PM
Girls -- many under 10 years old -- chosen to become Devadasis, meaning handmaidens of god, will be dedicated to the goddess Yelamma in secret ceremonies before being brought to the temple.
Thousands of pilgrims, most of whom have nothing to do with the illegal cult, flocked to Saudatti, the town in Karnataka state where the annual festival takes place.
Idols of the goddess, moulded from mud, lined roads thick with worshippers coming by foot, car, bus and bullock cart.
"We have been traveling for eight days to reach Saudatti, but we will not marry our daughter to the goddess," Kamala, a young mother aboard a bullock cart, told Reuters.
The goddess is a favourite deity among Dalits, low caste Hindus, who seek her protection.
"I come here every year because I have faith in the goddess and I'm not bothered about the Devadasi system," Avinash Kane, a Bombay man, said.
Even prostitutes, who have every reason to rue a life dealt them by the cult, harbour no bitterness towards Yelamma.
"I am going to Saudatti because it is the only place where I can tell the goddess my sorrows and my joys," said Chandrabai, a brothel keeper in Bombay's infamous Kamatipura district, said.
Hordes of people, chanting and screaming, crowded around a filthy pool where devotees of Yelamma, a manifestation of the goddess Renuka, will bathe on Thursday before making a five km (three miles) uphill trek to the temple.
On the final leg of the pilgrimage, people with their faces smeared with tumeric and bodies plastered with leaves walked and crawled, while women possessed by the goddess rolled on the ground in wild-eyed trances.
A feast on Wednesday night will mark the start of celebrations expected to last through Saturday.
Most of the girls brought into the Devadasi system will return home, but once they reach puberty they will become human cargo in the sex traffic in cities like Bombay, where sex can be bought for less than the price of a bottle of beer.
Hunger, poverty and superstition are the root causes of a practice which sees parents or relatives sell a daughter to a pimp or brothel for $150 to $200.
"I used to cry when men started doing strange things to me when I was very young," said Jayshree Ranaya, a 45-year old woman who joined a government rehabilitation programme to help victims of the cult in the nearby city Belgaum.
"I was with one priest for five years and after he got married I had to go with different men. I had no choice. I started begging and living on the streets of Belgaum."
The cult also entraps a handful of boys, known as Jogappas, who are made to become transvestite prostitutes.
The centuries-old Devadasi system persists in secret after being made illegal, but the campaign against it and the growing fear of AIDS are showing results.
The privately funded Indian Health Organisation (IHO) in Bombay, which campaigns to stamp out the Devadasi cult, estimates that around 1,000 girls are dedicated to the goddess each year, compared with around 7,000 less than 10 years ago.
"It is on the decline, but I cannot say it has totally stopped," O.M. Prakash, a police officer at Belgaum said, adding: "At the main Yelamma temple it does not happen now, but we can't stop it taking place in homes."
"This system exists because of money," said IHO's Dr Ishwarprasad Gilada.
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