Tonsuring some 60 lakh devotees who come every year to the hill shrine of Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupati had been the sole preserve of men. That has changed with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) appointing 20 women in the temple’s kalyanakatta (tonsuring centre). Following the intervention of the High Court, the TTD had agreed to recruit 100 women. A group of agama sastra (scriptural texts) experts is said to have advised the TTD against the move.
In 2001, TTD executive officer P. Krishnaiah proposed appointment of women barbers, a longstanding demand from women devotees. While the 400 male barbers objected to it, the Rashtra Mahila Kshuraka Sangham, which saw a chance of employment for women of Nayee Brahmin (tonsurer caste), refused to let go. “After all, women are in every field today,” said Radha Devi, 33, its president. But things moved slowly.
Meanwhile, the state women’s commission directed the TTD to give women a fair share in the work. The TTD woke up to it after a writ petition was filed. That led to a deluge of applications: around 2,000 for 100 jobs. Twenty women were selected from 97 who ?qualified.
Many of them were trained at Radha’s beauty parlour in Tirupati. She also got them to practise at temple festivals in Chittor. “Initially, women were reluctant to come to us,” said Shobha Rani, mother of two. “We gave volunteers Rs 10-20 for a ?demonstration.”
There are 14 tonsuring centres in Tirumala and each barber gets Rs 10 per tonsure in addition to salary and other benefits. But the women barbers would be employed on a two-year contract for Rs 3,000 a month and be given Rs 2 a tonsure.
There was opposition from several quarters to the move. Sri Swaroopanandendra Saraswathi of Visakha Sharada Peetham argued that women were considered representatives of the goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi, and should not take up tonsuring, which is identified with the poor and the destitute. He added the country would suffer from drought if women were allowed to take up the job.
“Is it okay for spiritual men to board planes and travel in air-conditioned cars?” asked Radha Devi. “Which dharma prevents women from taking to tonsuring for their livelihood?”
On conservative comments that women are impure, TTD chairman Karunakar Reddy said: “We have many women volunteers working inside the temple and there has been no objection to that. Besides, ?tonsuring is not happening inside the sanctum sanctorum.”
He said the swamis were giving a spiritual spin to a biological situation. “We are in a different culture today,” he said. “The TTD has been ?adopting many modern practices, including selling tickets online for different darshans.”
Union Minister Renuka Chowdhury’s daughter Poojita Chowdhury, who has made a film Gender Bender for the BBC on women breaking barriers in male bastions, has also taken up cudgels for women barbers. “The priests should realise women devotees feel more ?comfortable being shaved by women barbers,” she said.
The TTD has asked the heads of 21 peeths (religious seats) to look into the issue. “We will see what to do then,” said Reddy. “It is a matter of faith.”
