SC puts safety first, slams brakes on Puri Rath Yatra
Bhubaneswar: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the cancellation of the Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath in Puri. The order ended weeks of speculation on the fate of the annual festival, which was scheduled to be held on Tuesday.
Hearing the petition of NGO Odisha Vikash Parishad, which had sought the deferment of the Puri Rath Yatra, a bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and justices Dinesh Maheshwari and A S Bopanna ruled that the festival could not be allowed in the interests of public health and citizen’s safety. “Lord Jagannath won’t forgive us if the Rath Yatra is allowed this time,” CJI Bobde is said to have remarked.
“It is not disputed that the number of people that are likely to gather for the annual Rath Yatra, scheduled to be held from June 23, 2020, is going to be about 10 to 12 lakh. Having regard to the danger presented by such a large gathering, we consider it appropriate in the interests of public health and the safety of citizens to restrain the respondents from holding the Rath Yatra this year,” the Supreme Court’s order said.
The order is applicable to all Rath Yatras across Odisha, not just the one in Puri. “We accordingly direct that there shall be no Rath Yatra anywhere in the temple town (Puri) or in any other part of the state this year. We further direct that there shall be no activities, secular or religious, associated with the Rath Yatra during this period,” the apex court said.
Puri’s titular king Gajapati Dibyasingha Deb said the apex court’s order should be obeyed. “I can understand that people are hurt and pained but it is the responsibility of all to go by the Supreme Court’s order. We will consult Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati ji to determine if the rituals can be performed inside the temple,” Deb said.
The order, while not entirely unexpected, led to disappointment among residents of Puri and servitors of the Jagannath Temple, who had hoped that a scaled-down version of the festival would be allowed. They had reason to hope, as the Naveen Patnaik government had allowed the construction of the chariots after the Centre had left it to the state to take a decision on the Rath Yatra.
The Orissa high court, too, had disposed of two separate petitions against the conduct of the festival and had left the matter to the wisdom of the state government. The high court had even proposed to the government to consider the deployment of heavy machinery or elephants to pull the chariots.
Around 100 carpenters had undergone Covid-19 test before being engaged in chariot-making. “We cannot bear to see the Raths being broken or auctioned before use. We are hurt,” Rabi Bhoi, a carpenter, said.
The world-famous festival — in which sibling deities Jagannath, Subhadra and Balabhadra travel for 3km along Puri’s Grand Road in towering, specially designed chariots from the Jagannath Temple to their ‘aunt’s house’ in the Gundicha Temple — is an integral part of the social and cultural life of Puri. The spectacular nature of the Yatra is believed to have lent heft to the word ‘juggernaut’.
Researchers on Jagannath Culture said the Rath Yatra was not held several times between 1570 and 1735 because of attacks by Muslim rulers. “We do not know with exactitude the last time the Rath Yatra was cancelled, but there are precedents,” Manoj Rath, a researcher, said.