“It should not have been just the five of us. All of us from the village should go to the temple. There were so many police officials but they were not brave enough to take all of us to the temple,” says Jayashree.
The temple was opened again on June 1 when police officials and the MLA Raju Gowda arrived to hold a peace meeting among the residents but it has been closed to the public since the women entered it. “The meetings were a missed opportunity since they were held separately for the upper caste people and the people of our village. There was no chance to address the root of the discrimination,” says Sharanabasappa.
District police officials say there is a threat of violence breaking out if Dalit groups assert themselves and try to re-enter the temple regularly.
“We have to go gradually and not all of a sudden. Even if we (police) are there, if thousands of people there start throwing stones, we cannot do anything. There were chances of them doing this if we used…