Travancore Devaswom Board
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Recruitment of priests
2017: majority of non-Brahmins, including 6 SCs
A first: Kerala temple picks 6 Dalit priests, October 7, 2017: The Times of India
The Travancore Devaswom (Temple) Recruitment Board has created history by recruiting six Dalit priests. The 62 new priest recruits include 36 non-Brahmins.
The board has chosen non-Brahmins as priests in the past, but this is the first time that Dalits have been selected for the job. The selection, made on Thursday , was based on a written test and interview conducted on the model followed by the Kerala public service commission.Based on the written test, merit and reservation lists were prepared.
So far, the recruitment was done by the concerned devaswom boards and non-Brahmins rarely found a place in the list. “We are not against the decision to appoint non-Brahmins as priests in temples. But there has to be a system to ensure that those who are appointed have knowledge of tantric mantras. The recruitment should not be made following reservation norms. It should be purely based on the knowledge and the belief systems followed by temples,“ said Akkeeraman Kalidasan Bhattathiripad of All India Brahmin Federation.Kerala devaswom minister K Surendran had directed the board to base recruitment on merit.
