Kattemad agitation
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On 27 December 2024, Kodava devotees belonging to Kattemad village in Madikeri taluk in Kodagu district, Karnataka were stopped from going to the Sree Maha Mrithyunjaya Temple in their village and refused entry to the annual temple festival for wearing their traditional attire - sari for women and kupya chele (kuppiya chele) for men -by temple management as fer baylaw. There has been extensive news coverage about the incident and its aftermath ever since.[1]
The Kattemad Mruthunjaya temple is a renovated one; it was built around a keri Mahadeva linga in the wilderness using funds collected from Kodavas across Kodagu. The first annual temple festival was observed in December 2024. The village Kattemad is called Kattemadu in Kannada. The Nandetira Kodava clan were the hereditary village and temple chieftains. A discriminatory bylaw had been made to bar those wearing the Kodava dress without regard to ancestral practise, by an Arebhashe committee that occupied the temple in the recent past.[2][3] Members of the Arebhashe community, claiming to be the temple committee, had enforced a dhoti-only dress code, leading to tension between both communities.[4]
Incident
Scores of Kodava community members, including women in traditional attire, were prevented from entering the Mrithyunjaya temple of their village by individuals from the Arebhashe community claiming to represent the temple management.[3][5] The Kodavas were told by the accused individuals of the Arebhashe community to either remove their traditional dress or leave the premises.[3][5]The video footage went viral on social media and later drew criticism for the disrespect to the Kodava community.[5] It was claimed that the temple's by-law prohibited the traditional attire, but the Kodava community members vehemently denied it.[5] According to eye-witnesses, a few Kodava devotees outside the shrine chanted, "Maadhe (Mahadeva) Pore Powodhi (Parvathi) E Pore," (Praise Mahadeva Shiva, Praise Parvathi) invoking God's name at the shrine, which is an old Mahadeva Shiva temple renovated recently.[6] The trouble actually began when some miscreants, pretending to be Vaishnava, came with saffron flags, chanted 'Govinda, Govinda' and created a ruckus while verbally attacking the Kodava devotees.[6]