{"id":265,"date":"2000-11-29T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-11-29T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2000\/11\/29\/2000-11-29-lower-caste-hindu-fined-for-touching-goddess\/"},"modified":"2000-11-29T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2000-11-29T12:00:00","slug":"2000-11-29-lower-caste-hindu-fined-for-touching-goddess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2000\/11\/29\/2000-11-29-lower-caste-hindu-fined-for-touching-goddess\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower Caste Hindu Fined For Touching Goddess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/story\/54\/story_5480_1.html\">GO TO SOURCE<\/A><\/P><br \/>\n<P><\/p>\n<p>CALCUTTA, INDIA: A Hindu lower-caste &#8220;untouchable&#8221; family in eastern India is to appeal to the human rights commission after being fined for touching a statue of the Goddess Kali. According to villagers, one family member, Malati Sith, entered a Kali temple and touched the forehead of the statue, angering the upper caste brahmin community in Pursurah village, near Calcutta. The brahmins called a special meeting and imposed the extraordinary fine of 8,000 rupees (US$173) on the family to meet the cost of purifying the icon. &#8220;We would have to sell off all our valuables to pay the fine,&#8221; said Sith&#8217;s husband Madan Mohon. The temple priests insisted they acted correctly. &#8220;We are abiding by the rules of the temple,&#8221; said head priest Sufal Chakaborty. Although discrimination on the grounds of caste is illegal in India, it continues in many forms. This is an unusual case because it would be a grave offense for anyone, regardless of caste, to enter the inner sanctum, let alone touch the Deity, without the express authorization of the temple priests. At least it would be a form of trespassing. A local village committee member Asit Patra said they were &#8220;investigating the matter.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GO TO SOURCE CALCUTTA, INDIA: A Hindu lower-caste &#8220;untouchable&#8221; family in eastern India is to appeal to the human rights,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}