Ileana Citaristi beaten up on Puri Rath

Noted Italy-born Odissi dancer and Padmashree award winner Ileana Citaristi on Sunday alleged that she was manhandled by two priests of Jagannath temple on the chariot of Lord Jagannath at Puri when she refused to pay them money.

Ileana said one of the servitors offered to take her and her friend atop the Nandighosha for Rs 20. “We agreed and after paying obeisance, a servitor asked us to pay Rs 1,000. When I refused, he hit my head many times with his hands and pushed me aside. Another servitor then started shouting that a foreigner entered the chariot,” she alleged.

“When the priests failed to extort money from me, they shouted at me saying I was a foreigner (non-Hindu) and that I cannot climb the chariot. But nobody questioned my religion when I was climbing the chariot. We know that non-Hindus are not allowed in Jagannath temple. But there is no such official restriction on the presence of non-Hindus on chariots outside the temple during Rath Yatra,” said Citaristi, who has been staying in Odisha since 1979.

Amid the chaos, the dancer got down from the chariot and filed a written complaint at the temple office. She later faxed her complaint for an FIR against two servitors to Puri SP Anup Sahoo.

Expressing her dismay at the incident, she said: “The Trinity of Lord Jagananth, Lord Balabhadra and Maa Subhadra give darshan once a year to the devotees who are not allowed to enter the temple. However, things went wrong. I had never expected that they would be so rude to the devotees.” Illeana has identified the servitor who had manhandled her.

Chief temple administrator Arvind Padhee said: “I spoke to Ileana madam and expressed my deep regret over the incident. I asked the temple commander to submit a detailed inquiry report. I also spoke to the police and asked them to take appropriate action.”

“No one should misbehave with the devotees while he or she is going to have a darshan of the Trinity atop the chariots,” he said.

The servitors clan, however, sought to dismiss it. “It’s a minor incident which often happens during Rath Yatra as a large number of devotees try to climb the chariot and touch the deity. Since there was so much crowd below and on the chariot, we could not immediately know what happened. It could have been avoided had she paid the dakshina,” said assistant secretary of Daitapati Nijoga Binayak Das Mohapatra. Asked if any action would be taken against the accused servitors, he said the matter will be resolved amicably.

Ileana, noted for her innovative choreographic productions in Odissi and Chhau, said this was her first visit during Rath Yatra. “This is the only occasion when Lord Jagannath comes out of his abode to give darshan to all his devotees, irrespective of their religion and caste. I was completely shocked at the behaviour of the servitors,” she said.

The incident rekindled the memory of a similar attack on an American tourist on Lord Jagannath’s chariot on the second day of Rath Yatra on June 22 last year. Some temple security guards assaulted the American Noel Magee Hayden, citing the reason that he was a non-Hindu.

While temple scriptures are silent whether or not non-Hindus can climb chariots, the temple administration has since not taken any firm decision on the issue. The temple, however, is off limits to non-Hindus. “We referred the matter to Puri Sankaracharya for solution. But we have not received any communication from the seer,” Padhee said.