Are Hindu Temples In India Only For Upper Castes

Bharatiya Janata Party members wash temple after visit by Akhilesh Yadav, an opposition leader who is a backward caste Hindu

(Photo: Akhilesh Yadav)

May 13, 2024                

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders say their Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the protector of Hindus and Hinduism in India. Very often though, certain actions of BJP leaders appear to protect the interests of upper caste Hindus and insult and hurt lower caste Hindus.

Last year, Modi, followed by dozens of Brahman priests, inaugurated India’s new parliament building in New Delhi. Typically, such roles are performed by the president who is the country’s highest constitutional authority.

Opposition members of parliament boycotted the inauguration saying Modi’s role was an insult to President Droupadi Murmu. An opposition leader said that Murmu was asked not to inaugurate the parliament building – in fact was not even invited to the event - because she is an Adivasi, a member of a tribe, and not an upper caste.

Last week, the upper caste bias of the BJP was in the news once again after its members “washed and purified” the Gauri Shankar Temple in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), with water from the Ganges River. The purification took place after Akhilesh Yadav, an opposition leader, visited and prayed at the temple.

Yadav is a Hindu who leads the Samajwadi Party. From 2012 to 2017, he was the Chief Minister of U.P. He is from the Yadav caste, who are dairy farmers, breeding cows, water buffaloes and goats. Yadavs, who make up about 10% of U.P.’s population, are among the backward castes. Most of the BJP leaders are reportedly Brahmans and Vaishyas, the business caste, who together make up about 7% of India’s population.

Akhilesh Yadav was visiting the temple as part of his campaign for the Kannauj parliamentary seat where his main opponent is a BJP candidate. A BJP leader, referring to Yadav’s temple visit, called Yadav an “electoral Hindu.” 

U.P. is a key electoral state accounting for 80 of the 542 seats in the national parliament, for which elections are currently underway. In the contest for the state’s parliamentary seats, Yadav leads an alliance of opposition parties which represents Hindus from backward castes as well as Dalits or low castes.

Apparently, BJP leaders grew nervous after videos of the temple being washed went viral on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media. Support was rising for Yadav’s alliance among backward and lower caste Hindu voters because they viewed the washing as a signal that the BJP does not want them to pray in Hindu temples.   

BJP leaders appear to justify the temple washing by trying to blame the Muslims. While praising their members for washing the temple, the leaders said that the purification was neccessary because it was desecrated by the Muslims who accompanied Yadav: the Muslims wore shoes and spat on the temple property. The BJP leaders though offered no evidence of any such desecration.   

There are videos of Yadav praying at the temple, without his shoes. If shoes were worn and there was spitting, such actions would have also been filmed on cellphones by temple visitors and staff. The BJP would have quickly used such videos as part of its propaganda of demonizing Muslims to try and attract more Hindu voters. The videos would have been widely distributed throughout India by the BJP’s well-funded and organized social media campaign teams.

In 2017, after the BJP took over the U.P. government from Yadav, BJP members also washed the Chief Minister’s residence with Ganges Water, IP Singh, a leader of Yadav’s party posted on X, formerly Twitter. “BJP believes that backward, Dalit, deprived and exploited people have no right to worship in Hindu temples,” Singh added.

Responding to the washing of the temple after his visit, Yadav told the media that his alliance “is going to wash” away the BJP in the parliamentary election in the state.