Thread by @dhavalkulkarni

#India has many temples of #LordRam, but Raveri village in #Maharashtra's #Yavatmal district has a temple dedicated to Goddess #Sita. Read the thread on how the local lore about this shrine was harnessed in a unique initiative to #women their rights
#WomensDay #WomensDay2023

This is a temple to Goddess #Sita and not #LordRam, unlike the other shrines where Ram, Sita, Laxman and even Lord Hanuman are worshipped together. Here, the presiding deity is Sita Mata.

#SharadJoshi #ShetkariSanghatana

It is said that when a pregnant Mata #Sita was asked to leave #Ayodhya by #LordRam, she came to Raveri, which is located in in Ralegaon taluka. She was hungry and asked villagers for some grain. But they refused and she cursed them that no wheat would grow there #SharadJoshi

The curse is said to have held for centuries and the cultivation of wheat seems to be a more recent phenomenon after villagers prayed to the Goddess to relent and bless them or perhaps due to improved varieties of seeds etc.

#Sita is said to have delivered her sons #Lav and #Kush at Maharshi #Valmiki's ashram nearby
#WomensDay #WomensDay2023

The temple also has an idol of Lord #Hanuman in which he is tied up. For when Lav and Kush captured the horse used by Lord Rama in his Ashwamedh yagna, they also fought & defeated his army, including Bajrangbali himself at that site.

In the 1980s, farmer leader #SharadJoshi, who revolutionised the peasants movement through his #ShetkariSanghatana, had launched the Lakshmi Mukti abhiyan. Joshi, a former civil servant, who birthed the India vs Bharat idea felt that that while farmers should get economic liberty

their wives must also get a right in the family's landed property. Joshi, a well-read, articulate man, used the example of Ram's unjust treatment of Sita to stress how men treated their wives.

Joshi was told about the temple when he had come to Yavatmal. Soon, his Shetkari Sanghatana held the Laxmi Mukti program at Raveri. The womens wing also held its session there.

#SharadJoshi would tell people to ensure that no woman should suffer like Sita did. This moved many men to treat their wives as equal partners and grant them property rights.

Joshi contributed to the renovation of the temple. The renovated shrine was inaugurated by Joshi in 2011. The Sita Navami festival is also celebrated here.

This is an example about how local lore and religious beliefs rooted in misogyny can be turned on their heads for a larger public good.
#Women #WomensDay #WomensDay2023

To know more about Sharad Joshi read my work here:
dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-…

news18.com/news/opinion/s…

dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-…