AMY CHARMICHAEL IS THE FORERUNNER OF DR. MUTHULAXMI REDDY TO ERRADICATE DEVADASI SYSTEM IN TAMILNADU

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     Tirunelveli district was formed on September 1, 1790 (Tirunelveli day) by the East India Company (british) and named it as Tinnevelly district.  The entry of East India Company to this district has made tremendous changes in social, cultural and religion of people of Tirunelveli district. Tirunelveli district is the pioneer district to eradicate Devadasi System in Tamil Nadu.   Amy Carmichael is well known social reformer and the forerunner of eradicating many social evils like abolition of Devadasi system, slavery, to give asylum to widows and neglected girls by their own family members, adopted orphans and educate them. This research is focused on Amy Carmichael’s efforts to eradicate Devadasi System  in Tirunelveli district of Madras Presidency (Tamil Nadu) since 1901.

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

     The scope of this research is to highlight the initial effort taken to eradicate Davadasi system by Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur in Tirunelveli district.  To give a clear-cut picture of historic efforts of Amy Carmichael, who was the forerunner of Dr. Muthulakshmi to abolition of Devadasi system in Tamil Nadu. Objective of this research is to write history of social reforms from the initial efforts taken by Amy Carmichael in Tirunelveli district which help the readers to understand the past and focused from the beginning to present day. To help the historians to understand the person who work for the eradication of Devadasi system earlier than Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy in Tamilnadu. 

SOURCES         

       This research is based on Primary and Secondary sources and to follow explanatory, historic and chronological way of writing history.   Amy Carmichael is well known  author of 32 books like Lotus Buds, Widows, Though the Mountains Shake, Gold by Moonlight were some of her masterpieces.  Her books revealed her rescue operations and other welfare activities.  1800 copies of her work “Things as They Are”  were sold in England, at a cost of six shillings each.¹ Things as they are, Lotus Buds are her beautiful work in rescuing and caring for “Temple Children”. 

HYPHOTHESES

      Hyphotheses of this research found that Amy Carmichael is the forerunner of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy.   Amy Carmichael has taken efforts to stop practicing Devadasi System earlier than Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy.  She raised voice against all social evils like slavery, neglect girl child, purchase temples dancers, purchase orphans and brought up driven out children by their own family were gave asylum and educate them.  So it is rightly says that Amy Carmichael is the forerunner of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy in Tamil Nadu.

CIRCUMSTANCES TO WORK IN INDIA

    Mother Amy Carmichael was born in Ireland in 1867.  At the age of 26 she herself dedicated to serve Japan, but the climate let her to leave Japan within 2 years.  Then she came to Bangalore at the age of 28 to do her evangelical work. She was advised by Rev. Thomas Walker she came and settled at Dohnavur village in Tirunelveli district in 1896² Later she was sent to Pannaivilai, where she worked till 1900.³ As Amy and the Starry Cluster had traveled through southern India, they had often seen Hindu temples and had occasionally caught glimpses of and tried to speak with the women who worked there.  The devadasis maintained the temple, danced and sang in front of the deity statues and their worshippers, and lived as temple prostitutes.  Gradually, Amy began to hear stories about and then to actually witness little girls, some just infants, who were sold by their parents to the temple where they were “married to the god” and began this life.  Amy said the temple girls she saw were often exceptionally intelligent and beautiful, which increased their worth in the work.  At that time,  she was heartbroken for many days, after seeing little girls being forced to undergo a very brutal habit of 'Pottu Katti Viduthal' to become temple 'dasis'. From that time onwards, she decided to deliver such little girls and orphans and to grow them up.

ORIGIN OF DOHNAVUR  AND DOHNAVUR FELLOWSHIP
     Dohnavur is a village near Nanguneri which was purchased by  C. T. E. Rhenius   and constructed CSI Christ Church with the help of "Count Dohna" (a psudonym used by queen Christina of Sweden), naming the village “Dohnavur”. Amy wrote, “Rhyme Doh with No, na with Ah, vur with Poor”.  In those days, women were subjected to hardship like purchasing young girls for temple dancers i.e. Devadasi, Sati which forced women to mount on her husband’s funeral pyre, Seclusion of widows till her death, her presence in social functions was considered inauspicious, child marriage also prevailed and usually female infants were either killed at birth or sold to the temple. So Amy Carmichael committed themselves to the task of improving the miserable women and she herself dedicated to the abolition of Devadasi system founded the Dohnavur Fellowship.

DEVARADIYAR BECAME DEVADASIS

     In Hinduism, the Devadasi tradition  (“servant of god”) is a religious tradition in which girls are “married” and dedicated to a deity (deva or devi) or to a temple and includes performance aspects such as those that take place in the temple as well as in the courtly and Mujuvani [telegu] or home context. Dance and music were essential part of temple worship. Originally, in addition to this and taking care of the temple and performing rituals, these women learned and practiced Sadir (Bharatanatya),  and other classical Indian artistic traditions and enjoyed a high social status.    This same custom was prevailed in Tirunelveli district also.  When Amy Charmichael visited the women at home for evangelistic work, she came to know that young girls were trained as dancers.  Whenever she met such women, she saved them from this fate.   The social and religious customs of Hindus warranted a large number of dedicated girls to the service of the temples as ‘Devadasis’.⁴ Mostly, they belonged to hereditary caste of weavers  or thykula⁵ who bound their first-born girl to the temples.⁶  

REASONS FOR DEDICATION TO TEMPLE SERVICES 

       Girls and boys were dedicated to the temple services for various reasons.  In case of illness in the home parents sometimes vowed to give one of their children to the Gods so that the sick one might recover; in certain families one of the children was dedicated to the Gods, in cases of unhappy marriage a man may get rid of his wife and dedicated his child to the God;⁷a poor widow or a deserted wife would marry the child to the God for economic reasons; a baby abandoned by its parents would be adopted by the Temple women if she is fair to look at and likely to be intelligent;⁸  sometimes lack of money and a women in a bid to be the mother of many children promised to sacrifice her-born daughter to God.  Everywhere it seemed there were men and women on the watch for these children,⁹  these girls were donated in their infancy itself. 

POOJA BEFORE DEDICATION

      When the little girl was married to the God of the temple, first they would anoint her with oil, then bath her with water drawn from a special well.  Later, she would walk to the well wearing a mantle of neem leaves that would barely hide her young body, Then she would return home where the local devadasi or temple women gathered to partake feast.¹⁰      

     Later, dressed in new clothes and finery, she would be taken in procession to the temple.  A priest performed the puja and finally blessed the girl in her new profession. A garland of pink flowers would be fastened around her neck which would be the tali, symbolizing the girl’s marriage to the god.¹¹ Since then she became the property of the temple, when she attained puberty, she would be sold to a rich patron unless the priest himself coveted her.  Every full moon day, scores of young girls were dedicated to various deities all over the country.¹²  

DUTIES OF THE DEVADASIS

     The dedicated girls were taught in early childhood to read, sing, dance and excel in every art of seduction.  Their business was to light the temple lamps and keep them trimmed to sweep and mop the floor and attend to the visitors in the temple.  They were professional singers and dancers.  They had to perform night worship and sang in the service of their Gods at different places and earned their living.  So long as they were young they were called, but once old they were left as destitute. These girls were common property of the priests.¹³ Later, these professional girls lead a life of prostitution. There were 11,573 women dancers in the Madras Presidency in 1900.¹⁴

AMY CARMICHAEL AND DEVADASIS

     Amy, when she visited the houses to preach the gospel, she came to know that girls were offered to Gods.  Moreover, she over-heard that some girls were refused to go.  At that time they were either beaten or brought to the temples forcibly by telling different lies.  One girl escaped from the temple was captured by the temple women was punished severely.¹⁵    

           Little Preena’s father had died, and her mother had been persuaded to give her to the gods.   The first time, when Preena was seven years old, she ran away from Perunkulam temple and walked twenty miles by herself home to her mother.  The temple women came to retrieve her, and her mother, afraid of the wrath of the gods, returned Preena to them.  The temple women branded Preena’s hands with hot irons to reprimand her. Still, when the child found another chance to escape.  The first such girl who revolted from such atrocious practice was Preena,  who escaped second attempt from Perunkulam temple and sought shelter in the Mission Bungalow at Pannaivillai and was taken under the protection of Amy Carmichael on 7^th March, 1901. Preena immediately climbed into Amy's lap and she told what had happened in the temple under devadasi system.¹⁶ Amy could not return Preena to the temple. The temple women came to retrieve Preena (Amy records them shouting, “We are servants of the gods!”), and crowds gathered.  Arulai took Preena out to stand in front of the crowd and asked her if she wanted to go back with them.  Preena said, “I won’t!” and Amy, thinking of the little girl’s scars, refused to make her.  So the crowd dispersed, threatened to write to Preena’s mother, who had given her to them.  Perhaps they never wrote, or perhaps Preena’s mother was mercifully haunted by the remembrance of prying the little arms of her crying girl from around her neck to send her back to the temple, but no one ever came back for her. Preena was the first person to call Amy  as Amma which is the Tamil word for “Mother” thereafter hundreds of children and to millions of friends and supporters around the world.  Amy said about Preena that, “ we felt we would risk anything to keep her.” This is the historic incident to think about the abolition of Devadasi system in Tirunelveli district of Madras Presidency.   Within three months, four more homeless children had found their way to Amy's bungalow.¹⁷

      In order to searched the truth, she dressed like a Brahmin lady and smeared the coffee powder over her body and sat down among the flowers selling women in the temple festivals. She overheard the conversation of the temple women.  One temple women told another that a child was going to be get married and immediately she sent native women to that child’s mother.  Mother hesitated to give her child and later she realized that it was better to be with missionary lady Amy rather than in temple.¹⁸ Often, Amy’s group women mingled with the priests or pilgrims, listening their talks here and there and picking up a clue for redeeming such kind of children by giving money. The elder sisters who lived with Amy known as Akkal [Tamil term] looked after that children.¹⁹    She gave useful training for rehabilitation.  Hostile natives often called these women as ‘child – Catching Missies’.²⁰

     Amy wanted to find and rescue the little temple girls, and she began to search for them.  She talked to Indian officials and begged supporters in England.  Amy herself probably didn’t know very many details of what was happening to these girls.  She writes several times about the position of temple girls to her friends in England, what she was learning from Preena and later from other little girls.    However, she realized that these girls needed her urgent help.  By June, 1904  she saved 17 children, 6 of whom were from the temples.  By May 1906, there were 15 babies, and there were 70 in the Family. In order to educate the children of Dohnaur Fellowship, she built a school in 1908.²¹   

LOTUS BUDS

     Miss. Amy Carmichael called these children as “Lotus Buds”.  For instance, one day Amy and her group travelled  near Kalakkadu, where  they saw a pond with beautiful lilies, someone in her group wanted to pick up few flowers, but the priest of the temple reminded them that “these flowers are not for you, they belong to the temple”.²² Stroke of the moment, she saw the temple children as “Lotus Buds”  and saved them.  When these girls were saved by Amma, the relatives plotted to kidnap them. Their compound was opened to attack from all sides, surrounded only by a low mud wall.  The temple women threatened the rescue party on charges of kidnapping.  She had no choice but to give up the child to avoid seven years imprisonment. 

    From 1918 onwards, they brought up the boys too.  Because the small boys were used as actors in the drama or musicians in the temple and they were in danger all over South India. It was undiluted evil for them.²³   

     In 1925, she wanted to act independently, so she formed an association on legal ground and thus the Dohnaur Fellowship came into being in 1926 and free from Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, hence Dohnaur Fellowship registered in 1927.²⁴ The C.M.S. generously handed over some of its property to this fellowship.²⁵  Girls of ages from babies to teenagers formed a large part of the family in Dohnaur and boys home at Cheranmahadevi about fifteen miles from Dohnaur. In  1947, there were eight hundred children in Dohnaur Fellowship. She created social awakening among the women of whole Tamilnadu.   In 1947 the government of India made the custom of selling or giving babies and young children to the temples illegal, in part because of the international attention created by Amy and her work.²⁶

   Amy Carmichael was followed by Dr. Muthulakshmi, who introduced a resolution on 5th November 1927, demanding the Government of Madras to recommend the Government of India to craft legislation at a very early date to put a stop to the practice of the dedication of young girls and young women to Hindu temples for immoral purposes under the pretext of caste, custom or religion. In 1930, Muthulakshmi Reddy introduced in the Madras Legislative Council a Bill on the “prevention of the dedication of women to Hindu temples in the Presidency of Madras”.   The Bill, which later became the Devadasi Abolition Act, declared the “pottukattu ceremony” in the precincts of Hindu temples or any other place of worship unlawful, gave legal sanction to devadasis to contract marriage, and prescribed a minimum punishment of five years’ imprisonment for those found guilty of aiding and abetting the devadasi system.

CONCLUSION

     Dohnavur Fellowship was thus created for the deliverance of hundreds of little girls from a life of shame.  She continuously searched for some way to save the little girls. She rescued young girls who were subjected to sexual harassment by the temple priests. By the beginning of the 20^th century, Christian lady Missionary Amy Carmichael witnessed the Devdasi practice in South India. On 1^st March 1901, she rescued a young girl just initiated as Devdasi at Perunkulam in Tirunelvelli district of  Madras Presidency.  Later on, she led a delegation to the administrative officers of the district. She extended Devadasi rehabilitation work  at Donavar Fellowship. Hence 1901 is recognized as the beginning of the organized effort for the rehabilitation of the Devadasi in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.  But Mother Amy had to become the victim of the anger of those cruel people who were hell-bent on making Preena a temple 'dasi'.  However, Amy decided to dedicate her life for the upbringing of such suffering children.  Thousands and thousands of children suffering from poverty, dispossession by parents, torture of being forced to temple 'dasis' came into the loving care of mother Amy Carmichael at "Donavur Fellowship". She made an extensive study of the marriage of girls to temple gods with ulterior motive of bringing them to lives of vice and shame and placed her findings before the government²⁷ twenty seven years earlier than Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy thus, Amy Carmichael is the forerunner of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, who work for the abolition of devadasi system.     By the “Devadasi Act of 1947 the dedication of girls to temples was made illegal.²⁸ The practice of dedicating Devadasis was declared illegal by the Government of the India in 1988, and 2004  however, in the name of Mathammakkal in Mangattucherri near Arakkonam and many other  names still women are dedicated to temple.     

ENDNOTES 

1.      Madras Diocesan Record 1902-1903, pp.157-158.

2.       Proceedings of the C.M.S. 1900- 1901, p.348

3.       Amy Carmichael.D, Walker of Tinnevelly, Madras, 1915, p.217.

4.       Azariah.V.S., The India and the Christian Movement, Madras, 1936, p.15.

5.      Dharampal, The Beautiful Tree – Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century, Biblia Impex Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1983.  

6.      Manifesto of the Devadasi Association, Madras, 1927, p.8. 

7.       Frank Houghton, Amy Carmicheal of Dohnavur, London, 1953, p.255.

8.      Amy Carmichael, Lotus Buds, London, 1923, pp.54-55.

9.      Amy Carmichael, Gold Cord, London, 1957, p. 29.

10.  Amy Charmichael, op. cit., London, 1923, pp.256-57

11.   Amy Charmichael, op.cit., London, 1957, p.30.

12.  Manmohan kaur, Women in India’s Freedom Struggle, New Delhi, 1992, p.23.

13.   Desaiyar.M, The Nivendakara Inscription, The Indian Historiographer, Vol.VIII, Nagercoil, June, 1992, p.3.

14.  Manmohan Kaur, op. cit., p.23.

15.  Amy –Wilson – Carmichael. D, ‘Over weights of Joy’, London, 1906, pp.125 & 174.

16.   Amy Carmichael, Things As They Are, London, 1903, p. 161.

17.   The Reluctant Mother: Amy Carmichael by Susan Verstraete 14.Sep. 2010 at www.Pannivialai.net on 27^th Sep. 2012 by 10.15 pm

18.  Thiyagaraj Ananda, Thamarai Mottukkalai Nesi, (Tamil), Dohnavur, 1950, pp.131-133.

19.  Amy Carmichael, Over Weight of Joy, London, 1906, p. 192

20.  Nathan.N.S., Amma Amy Carmichael, Bangalore, 1991, p.53.

21.  Amy Carmichael, op.cit., London, 1923, pp.3-4.

22.  Godfrey –Webb-People, Brothers of the Lotus Buds, London, 1927, p. 17. 

23.  S.P.C.K., Annual Report, 1906, p.408.

24.  Lois Hoadley Dick, Amy Carmichael Let the Little Children Come, Chicago, 1984, p.107.

25.   “Thirty years of hardwork in a few paragraph” 29^th April. 2010 starry cluster.wordpress.com dt 27.9.12 time 10.59pm.

26.  Proceedings of the C.M.S. Conference, Tinnevelly, October 4^th 1912, p.5

27.  Amy Carmichael.D, Though the Mountains Shake, Madras, 1943, p.202.

28.  Amy Carmichael.D, op.cit., London, 1923, pp.255-59.