Karnataka turns to prayers at temples in desperate cry for rains

Facing a severe drought, Karnataka’s temple endowments department – known by the Persian term Muzrai – on Thursday held special prayers in temples across the state praying for good rains in the oncoming monsoon.

As part of the functions, state water resources minister DK Shivakumar and Muzrai minister PT Parameshwar Naik offered prayers at the Rishyasringa Temple in Kigga in Chickamagaluru district. Speaking about the initiative, Shivakumar said the state government was just bowing to the beliefs in the state.

“There is a long-held belief in the state that if you pray at the Rishyasringa Temple then you get good rains. With this in mind, the Muzrai department decided to hold prayers as a precautionary measure because the state faced severe drought last year,” he said.

There has been acute shortage of drinking water across the state and 156 of the 176 taluks in the state have been declared drought hit. Such has been the drought’s severity that the government is providing drinking water to 2,999 villages through private tankers and borewells. This is because the state received deficient rains over the past year.

The pre-monsoon rains (March to June) was deficient by 43%, and this came on the back of a 49% deficit in the northeast monsoon (October to December). And while the southwest monsoon was considered normal with only a 4% deficit over the long period average, this hid the vast disparity in rainfall across the state as some districts in the hill regions received excessive rainfall.

Speaking to HT, Muzrai Department Commissioner Shailaja said the state government had asked all the premier temples across the state to hold prayers at a cost of Rs 10,000. “The money is to be taken from their own temple funds, which are made up of donations by devotees. Though there are 37,000 temples under the Muzrai department not all of them might have conducted prayers because of lack of funds,” she said. “However, it is difficult for us to put a number on how many temples might have conducted the puja.”

Following the instructions, priests at the Someshwara Temple in the state conducted varuna puja and then they sat inside large containers filled with water to conduct the Prajanya Japa. “We prayed to Lord Shiva in the morning and then did the Prajanya Japa. Thanks to this Lords Shiva and Varuna will ensure good rains and we might even see results as early as Wednesday,” said SR Dikshit, the head priest of the temple.

This move comes despite the state government announcing the cloud seeding project at an outlay of Rs 91 crore, in which chemicals are used to aid precipitation in clouds.

However, rationalists criticised the move as they said it was incorrect for the state to promote superstitious beliefs.

Rationalist Narendra Nayak said if this belief was correct then the state government should have held prayers in January to ensure rains throughout the year instead of conducting the exercise just before the advent of the monsoon.

“This exercise, when viewed together with the cloud seeding programme, shows you that technology-wise the state is in the 21st century but mentality-wise it is still in the 16th century,” Nayak said. “How far will the government go in upholding popular beliefs? Even now some people believe in child marriages, so will the state promote that as well?”

First Published: Jun 06, 2019 18:16 IST