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Amid allegations of child marriages having been held in the Chidambaram Natarajar Temple, the CPI(M) has urged the Tamil Nadu government to investigate the role of the state’s Governor, R N Ravi, in the matter.
Several people were arrested, including two priests, last year on charges of holding child marriages on the temple premises. The controversy was rekindled this month, as several photos and videos emerged purportedly showing child marriages being held at the temple.
CPI(M) state secretary K Balakrishnan, a former MLA from Chidambaram, demanded action against Governor Ravi and said: “The Governor is supporting the culprits behind an illegal event and attacking the government for taking action.”
In May this year, Ravi had criticised the government for its handling of the case, saying the child marriage charges were “false”, and alleged that the government was acting out of “vengeance”.
The Indian Express has learnt that four FIRs were filed in October 2022 in connection with alleged child marriages at the temple, based on complaints from two Tamil Nadu social welfare officers, Chithra and Meena.
According to police records, three alleged marriages took place in 2021 and one in June 2022. Two deekshithars (priests) from the temple were detained and remanded to judicial custody in October 2022. A total of 11 individuals were arrested, police records show.
Senior officers say they are working with local informants and the social welfare department to probe whether more such incidents took place. “We did not file more cases as the investigation is still underway. After the Governor made statements attributing motives to the government, we decided to proceed cautiously,” said a senior officer.
Soon after the Governor’s statement in May, a member of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), R G Anand, claimed that girls were forced to say they were part of child marriages. Anand is a BJP functionary from Pudukottai.
The Governor had alleged that the two-finger test was conducted on the girls who were suspected to have been involved in child marriage. The state government has denied the claim.
Following an inquiry, Anand said on May 24 that there was no evidence of the two-finger test having been performed on the minors. However, on May 25, he said in social media posts that all the Governor’s allegations were correct.
In five days, Anand also submitted “a copy of the report” to Raj Bhavan. An official release said the report was regarding the investigation into the “forced virginity tests” on minor girls from the Dikshitar community in Chidambaram.
Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian and DGP C Sylendra Babu have denied the allegations, saying medical records and inquiry reports prove that no such test had been conducted.
The Chidambaram Temple is managed by a community of priests, the Dikshitars, who are believed to have descended from the sage Patanjali. They largely marry within their community.’
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