Thookkam ('Hanging') – A criminal act in the name of Religion

7 May 2004

 

Threat to revive the barbarous, criminal practice of Thookkam (hanging) in Elavoor Putthankavu Devi Temple, near Adi Shankara’s birth place Kaalaty (Ernakulam District) Kerala, India.

Protest by Sannyaasins puts an end to Thookkam

 

Thookkam is one of the most abhorred barbarous and criminal practices perpetrated in the name of devotion and religion in some of the Devi Shrines of India.   

As part of the Thookkam ritual, the back of ‘a hired person’ is pierced with two sharp metal hooks.  The bleeding victim is pulled to a height of 32 ft in a scaffold.  In blinding frenzy the scaffold is taken at lightning speed thrice around the Temple, before the bleeding victim is brought down and his hooks taken out. The cruel act is made to submerge in the heat of chorus shouting, howling and crying done in conspiracy by the frenzied crowd around.  

The Thookkam Ritual – a victim raised by hooks pierced to his back

Following protests launched and led by Poojya Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha in the year 1987, this deplorable act had been stopped with the intervention of the Govt. But after a gap of 16 years, the threat to revive this uncivilized act had cropped up.

• How can the cruel act of piercing and hanging –  warranting instant police action if done  in any other place in the land – be allowed in the sanctifying precincts of a temple? 
• Is not Temple a divinizing venue, meant to transform even a  criminal and violent individual, making him a votary of gentleness and innocence?

Finally, Thookkam was banned on April 22, 2004.

Read more about this heinous act and Poojya Swamiji's campaign against it, in the following sections:

(CLICK SECTION HEADING BELOW FOR DETAILS)

1. The Practice of Thookkam – A violent act

2. Why should this ritual be stopped 

3. The first successful protest – Led by Poojya Swamiji in 1987

4. Threat of revival and Subsequent Ban in April 2004

   >>> A detailed account of the campaign 
          in Poojya Swamiji's own words
    

5. Thookkam pictures

6. Thookkam - Chronology

7. Press clippings

8. Elavoor Thookkam: Poojya Swamiji’s article in Malayalam Publication ‘Sushikham’

 

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