The employees of Malabar Devaswom Board, under the aegis of the Kerala Temple Employees Coordination Committee, are gearing up for a 24-hour hunger strike in front of the Collectorate in Kozhikode on the 29th anniversary of the Kerala High Court order to ensure justice for temple employees in north Kerala.
It was on July 21, 1994, that a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court ordered the formation of a Malabar Devaswom Board on the lines of the Devaswom Boards in Travancore and Kochi in place of the trusts that governed the temples in north Kerala under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Act of Madras Presidency. However, the employees complain that 29 years later, they are yet to be treated on par with their counterparts under the Travancore or Kochi Devaswom Boards.
“We are still governed by age-old laws and landlords. We are not paid based on our workload. Many have not received wages for years,” said V.V. Sreenivasan, coordinator of the protest committee, adding that the pay revision declared in 2019 has been implemented only in temples that make enough profit.
The employees complain that the government actions have been anti-employee and undemocratic in Malabar Devaswom Board and hence the hunger strike. The protest will begin at 1 p.m. on July 20 and end at 1 p.m. on July 21. The committee has been holding an indefinite strike at the head office of the Devaswom Board on every Wednesday for the last three months demanding that the pay revision be implemented along with the recommendations under the K. Gopalakrishnan Committee report of 2017.
