Opinion A centuries-old temple ban is broken, bringing a heartening and resonant moment

On March 13, as Mamata Das, Santanu Das, Lakkhi Das, Puja Das, and Sasthi Das — all members of the Das Dalit sub-caste — climbed the stairs of the Gidheswar temple in the Purba Bardhaman district of West Bengal, a discriminatory practice that had persisted for more than 200 years was brought to a welcome end. The Gidheswar temple entry also showed how breakthroughs can happen when the administration acts to uphold the constitutionally enshrined rights of citizens. Dalit families of Gidhagram village have been barred from entering the temple for centuries. On February 24, just days before the festival of Mahashivratri, they wrote to the district administration seeking intervention. Despite protests from the upper caste communities, who cited the “tradition” of the village as grounds for denying them entry, police and civil volunteers ensured that the Dalit families could offer puja safely.

Given that the mainstream political narrative in West Bengal seeks to deny or downplay caste discrimination, this incident also highlights a historical silencing of marginalised voices. In response to the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had said: “In West Bengal, there are only two castes — rich and poor.” In 1994, the most widely read Bengali language newspaper questioned the significance of Dalit literature when the Bangla Dalit Shahitya Sanstha was established. A survey by Pratichi Trust in 2001 revealed that in many schools across West Bengal, Scheduled Caste students were forced to sit separately. Despite such instances, the hegemony of Bhadralok — the dominant upper-caste middle class of the state — attempted to paper over the reality of caste discrimination. According to the 2022 NCRB data, the number of reported cases of caste atrocities in West Bengal stands at 109, significantly lower than the national peak of 12,287 in Uttar Pradesh. However, this figure does not provide the complete picture, as it overlooks factors such as everyday casteism and the near-hegemonic control of the Bhadralok. Unlike Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, or Tamil Nadu, Bengal did not experience radical caste mobilisation. The lack of an alternative Dalit politics further contributed to the invisibility of caste. Incidents like the Gidheswar temple entry pierce this entrenched myth.

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In 1930, Babasaheb Ambedkar led a protest outside Kalaram temple in Nashik to secure Dalit entry. If even after 75 years of independence, similar concerns persist, they call for a wider questioning and introspection. Gidhagram has shown that when the administration doesn’t give in to the demands of the powerful upper castes and remains steadfast in its commitment to uphold constitutional guarantees of equality for all, a “casteless” society can draw closer as a reality, rather than remaining a convenient myth.