Claim
This looks like showing it to the stove in a tea stall. Neutral Hindus will have their share of sin for this.
Rating
Explanation
Priests are being appointed under the ‘People of any caste can become priests’ scheme in Tamil Nadu. The government is in the process of training the applicants to be temple priests.
But counter-opinions and posts can be seen on social media. In this scenario, Gayathri Raghuram and Kalyan belonging to BJP have shared on their respective Twitter handles claiming the picture of Madurai training centre as the situation of the government priest training centres.
This picture was shared mentioning as ‘The level of respect for Agama and the god’. The same picture is shared widely on social media as the worst situation of government training centres.
What is the Truth?
Few of the social media users are sharing the picture knowing that it is an old picture. The viral picture shows actor Kamalahassan’s Vishwaroopam movie posters. The poster is also dated January 2013.
The same picture was published in ‘The Hindu’ article in 2015 captioning it as “In this April 29, 2013, the Archakar training centre at Dhanappa muesli street in Madurai – one of the six institutes established by TN government across the state – lies in shambles”.
Why is it lying in shambles?
To know the reason behind this situation, we spoke to the advocate of the Archakar trained Student Association (All caste). He reported, “Training centres were established in six places including Chennai and Madurai. This particular centre is near Madurai Meenatchi Amman temple. But Sivacharyas Association of Madurai Meenatchi Amman temple filed a case and got an injunction order against the centre. The centre remains closed after 2007-08. And now the new order allows operating the centre”.
Ranganathan, Head of Archagar trained student association said, “a batch of 207 participants got trained in August 2007. But the Sivacharya association of Madurai Meenatchi temple filed a case and got the injunction order that prevented us from job appointments. The verdict was declared in 2015 for the case filed. But the priest training centre near Madurai Meenatchi Amman temple remains closed after 2007-08. It is now informed that the training centre will be operated soon. I did not know if anybody else has used the building space during the shutdown period”.
A government order was released in 2006 during Karunanidhi’s regime that Hindus who are skilled and trained enough in the temples under the Department of Hindu Religious Affairs can become priests. And six training centres were established in 2007 including Madurai. 207 priests were certified under this scheme including people from a backward caste, scheduled caste and adi dravidian caste.
However, Adhi saiva sivacharyas association from Meenatchi Amman temple and the board of trustees of South Indian temples filed a case against the government order in the Supreme court and has received an interim injunction order. But, an association was formed with the trained priests from the centres by the Centre for the defence of people’s rights to get involved in the case. They also protested to get job appointments for the trained priests. However, the then government did not focus much on the job appointments after the interim injunction order.
It is said that the training centres will be operated from now on under the scheme ‘People from any caste can become priests’.
Conclusion
It is found that the picture claimed as the situation of government priests training centres is an old photo from 2013.
Additionally, the training centres remain closed after the 2007 batch. We couldn’t find the purpose of the building after that. However, the picture of the unoperated training centre is shared with misinformation on social media.
Proof Links
