Women’s entry at Sabarimala: Supreme Court refers matter to larger bench

Five judge bench rules by 3:2 majority, Justices Chandrachud and Nariman dissent

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday referred to a larger bench pleas seeking a review of its 2018 ruling that allowed menstruating women from entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra said a larger bench will hear if the court can decide matter of religious practice. Justices R F Nariman and DY Chandrachud gave dissenting opinion.

The bench said petitions had “sought to revive the debate about what’s the religion and essential religious practices”. “Individual right to pray at temple cannot be superior to what is considered as religious by another sect is what petitions have argued,” the court said, according to News18.com.

The court had on September 28, 2018, scrapped a ban on women and girls between 10 and 50 from at the temple, ruling that a centuries-old Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional. The verdict comes two days before the temple opens for the two-month-long pilgrimage season from November 16. The court’s verdict sparked protests across Kerala, mainly led by caste outfits like the NSS and right-wing Hindu organisations of the Sangh Parivar…

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Entry to Sabarimala a big step forward for gender equality? Ask Dalit women

Clearly, the people celebrating this victory at Sabarimala are predominantly dominant caste Hindu women

Current Affairs: Over the past few days, I, as a Dalit woman, have been trying hard to understand the reasons why the entry of two women into the Sabarimala temple was being hailed as a momentous victory for women’s rights in India. I must confess that I attempted in vain to try and see the logic behind this celebration. Finally, the only way I could wrap my head around this was to temporarily stop thinking as a Dalit woman.

I struggled to make this shift in my head. I told myself not to think about ‘intersectionality’. I kept telling myself to analyse this phenomenon in a vacuum (read: without caste). I tried to build a rationale in my head about the need for understanding this only through a ‘gender’ lens. Think as a ‘woman’, not as a Dalit woman, I kept repeating to myself. [I later figured why I could not do this – read on. You will know why.]

What is being celebrated? Who are the folks calling this a big step forward in women’s rights? How does the entry into the Sabarimala temple signal freedom for women?

Clearly, the people celebrating this victory at Sabarimala are predominantly dominant caste Hindu women. No single person is ever representative of the entire community and the same holds true for Dalit women as well. From an anti-caste feminist stand-point, the savarna-led feminist movement’s pressure to see this as a great victory for women – all the while being caste-blind – is reductionist, self-centred and hypocritical. There are three reasons I say so.

Dismantling patriarchy for gender equality?

For a long time, I assumed that the feminist movement in India aimed to puncture patriarchy. This primarily indicates that the path to gender equality meant freedom from male control, which in turn meant applying the brakes on obeisance to men.

For the life of me, I do not understand how ‘patriarchy’ is attacked when women devotees bow down before male priests and a male celibate god? Where in this spectrum lies the end of misogyny? So can somebody please explain to me how and why is the savarna women-led feminist movement in India claiming this to be a historic win for women rights?

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No place for women: Sabarimala a blot on Kerala’s progressive state status

The Sabarimala protests are a blot on the progressive state whose highest literacy has not translated to good education

Business Standard: From the time I can remember my grandmother, only one image of her comes to my mind – of a widow with a tonsured head, wrapped on top by a dull brown cotton saree worn in traditional style, a blank forehead without the usual red vermilion or ‘kumkum’, bare neck, empty ears and hands unadorned and shorn off all jewellery. Her ankles and feet were bare too – without the traditional anklets or silver rings worn on the toes of both feet – the symbol of married women.

A very vivid story of my grandmother is etched in my memory. I had gone to Melkote, the idyllic temple town near Mysore – where she lived with one of her sons, my maternal uncle – during my school summer holidays from Gorur, where I studied in the local government Kannada medium school.

In those days, a favourite vacation was being taken to your mother’s birth place to be with your grandmother, carefree and pampered. I must have been eight or nine. My older sister was by my side. I’m not sure what triggered this poignant episode that my grandmother recounted, but it was heart rending. Her eyes had welled up in tears, and with dreamy eyes into her distant past she narrated this event.

She was married off as a child-bride of 13 to a boy – also young, just 16 – who was studying to be a Sanskrit pundit and training to become a purohit (priest) in Melkote, a Srivaishnavite pilgrim centre founded by Ramanuja a thousand years ago. When she was in her late thirties her husband took ill and died. She had three children – two boys and a girl, my mother. They were all in their teens and in school.|Read Source: BS

Kerala police probes reports of two women entering Sabarimala temple

As per news reports, the women trekked to the hill shrine early Wednesday. A video showed them entering the shrine, wearing black clothes, with their heads covered.

Latest News: The Kerala Police Wednesday was looking into media reports that two women in their forties had entered the Sabarimala temple early Wednesday, sources said. According to TV channels, the two women, Kanakadurga, 42, and Bindu, 44, also claimed that they had entered the holy shrine of Lord Ayyappa. They made efforts to enter the shrine in December but had to return due to protests.

As per news reports, the women trekked to the hill shrine early Wednesday. The video showed them entering the shrine, wearing black clothes, with their heads covered. The police sources in Thiruvananthapuram, quoting DGP Loknath Behara, said details were being collected on the issue.

Bindu, a college lecturer and CPI(ML) activist from Kozhikode district’s Koyilandy, and Kanakadurga, a civil supplies employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram, had come to Sabarimala on December 24 after 11 women activists of a Chennai-based outfit were prevented from reaching the shrine and chased away by devotees chanting Ayyappa mantras. The temple was opened on December 30 for the Makaravillaku festival and there has been a heavy rush of pilgrims.,,,Read Source Business Standard OR BS

Prohibitory orders in Sabarimala temple extended till December 22

A string of protests has been witnessed in the state after the Supreme Court’s verdict allowing women of all age groups to enter the Lord Ayappa shrine

Pathanamthitta Magistrate Court has extended the prohibitory orders in Sabarimala Temple till the midnight of December 22. The decision has been taken based on reports by the District Police Chief and Executive magistrates in Pamba and Sannidhanam.

Prohibitory orders issued under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)prohibits assembly of more than four people in an area. The restriction is enforced when there are safety concerns.

A string of protests has been witnessed in the state after the Supreme Court’s verdict allowing women of all age groups to enter the Lord Ayappa shrine. Earlier on Tuesday, a group of 30 women aged between 10 and 50 years has sought permission from the Kerala chief minister to visit Sabarimala temple on December 23.(Click Here: Business Standard OR BS)

The women delegation said they had sent a letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seeking permission and security while visiting the temple, and have been told that their request has been forwarded to concerned police personnel. Till this time, no women in the 10-50 age group has succeeded in offering prayers at the shrine as various people have been protesting against the court’s decision.

Bengal’s Sabarimala: Women not allowed in Kali puja pandal for 34 years

Ever since the worship of the idol began 34 years ago by priests of the Tarapith, a Shakti pith in Birbhum district, women were not allowed to enter the pandal

Latest News: The shadow of the Sabarimala temple row over the entry of women into the shrine has cast its spell on a local Kali Puja committee which does not allow females to enter its pandal amid protests by scholars.

Ever since the worship of the idol began 34 years ago by priests of the Tarapith, a Shakti pith in Birbhum district, women were not allowed to enter the pandal, members of the ‘Chetla Pradip Sangha’ puja committee in southern part of the city told reporters Saturday.

“We wish to maintain the rules which lays down that if any woman enters the pandal during puja, there will be a tragedy in our locality. We cannot break the tradition of the past 34 years,” joint secretary of the puja committee Saibal Guha said.|Sabarimala Temple

The male members of the puja committee and the locality prepare ‘prasad and bhog’ (food) for the deity besides undertaking other tasks.

“Our puja committee has women members, but they don’t enter the pandal as they know it might annoy the deity. They are with men in other tasks like bringing the idol to the pandal and join the immersion procession,” another puja committee member Saheb Das said. Indologist Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri termed such rules as extreme manifestation of patriarchy and misogyny.

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Sabarimala: Ban on women fails four key tests of constitutional morality

Excluding menstruating women from the shrine also violates Article 17 — the Constitutional provision prohibiting untouchability

Nearly a century ago, the princely state of Travancore was convulsing with the question of entry of lower castes into the temple at Vaikom. As holy a sage as Sree Narayana Guru, the saint of the Ezhavas, had been  |BS| prevented from using the roads around the Vaikom Shiva temple. Upon the request of some citizens of Travancore, Mahatma Gandhi had sent Congress workers, including EV Ramaswami Naicker (Periyar), to help in the Satyagraha, demanding equal entry to the temple.

The Maharaja of Travancore at the time was Shri Chitra Thirunal – then 12 years old. His step-mother and regent, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi opposed equal temple entry. President K R Narayanan was to later recount, “During the Vaikom Sathyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi visited Kerala. At that time, Sree Chithira Thirunal was a young man, and had not ascended the throne. Gandhiji asked, ‘When you attain majority and when you assume full authority, will you allow Harijans to enter the temple?’ The twelve-year-old Maharajah said without hesitation: ‘Certainly’. This was not the result of anybody’s advice. This arose from his own mind; from his own thinking.”| Sabarimala Verdict

In 1936, aided by his Diwan Sir C P Ramaswami Aiyer, the Maharaja opened temples to all Hindus. The neighbouring Maharaja of Cochin, in response, declared all people from Travancore as untouchables, but temple entry for all in Travancore became a fact.

Religion and our Founding Fathers

The father of India’s Constitution, Dr B R Ambedkar himself had engineered a number of ‘Dalit temple entry movements’ in colonial India. “The issue is not entry, but equality,” Ambedkar has famously said. The question of religion was a vexed one in the Constituent Assembly. There was sharp disagreement on whether the right to religion would include a limited right of ‘religious worship’ or a more expansive right of ‘religious practice’.| Business Standard

After Sabarimala controversy, BSNL transfers activist Rehana Fathima

Sabarimala Karma Samithi Tuesday organised a protest march to the Palarivattom BSNL office, seeking her expulsion

Activist Rehana Fathima, a BSNL employee who had made an attempt to enter the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala, has been transferred to the Palarivattom telephone exchange in the city where public contact is not required, sources said.| Business Standard 

Fathima, a telecom technician working in the customer relations section at the Boat Jetty branch here, was Tuesday transferred to the telephone exchange at Palarivattom, the sources said. However, the sources said she |BS|has not committed dereliction of duty. Sabarimala Karma Samithi Tuesday organised a protest march to the Palarivattom BSNL office, seeking her expulsion.

The Kerala Muslim Jama’ath Council had expelled Fathima from the Muslim community for “hurting sentiments of lakhs of Hindu devotees”. The activist’s house was allegedly vandalised by unidentified people while she was away trying to climb the holy hills on Friday last.| Latest News 

She made a failed attempt to reach the temple with heavy police protection. The attackers reached Fathima’s house in Panambilly Nagar here while she was climbing the hills.

Fathima, a model and activist who was part of the ‘Kiss of Love’ movement in Kochi in 2014 against alleged moral policing, was among the two women who had reached the hilltop, but had to return before reaching the sanctum sanctorum following massive protests by Ayyappa devotees.

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Sabarimala temple updates: Shastras can be amended, says Subramanian Swamy

BJP, RSS, Congress and Hindu groups are up in arms against SC ruling lifting the ban on entry of women in Sabarimala Temple. Catch top developments at Business Standard

The gates of Sabarimala are set to open today. Tension prevailed in the morning in Kerala’s Nilackal after the police used force to disperse devotees opposing the entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the hill shrine. Acting tough, the police, deployed in large numbers in Nilackal, some 20 kms away from the Sabarimala hilltop, also removed a makeshift shelter erected by a protesting group Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti. The protesting group of devotees had been staging a sit-in chanting Ayyappa mantra in the shelter in protest against the Supreme Court order permitting women of all age groups to enter the shrine. The BJP, RSS, Congress  (BS)and Hindu groups are up in arms against a September 28 Supreme Court ruling lifting the ban on entry of women in the 10-50 age group into the temple, saying it will breach age-old traditions.

Here are top 10 developments on Sabarimala temple row

1. Police detain people protesting against the entry of women in the age group of 10-50 women to Sabarimala Temple.

2. Subramanian Swamy backs SC decision

Supreme Court has made a decision, but now you are saying that it’s our tradition. Triple Talaq was also a tradition in that way, everybody was applauding when it was abolished. The same Hindus have come to the streets now, said Subramanian Swamy.

It’s a fight b/w Hindu Renaissance and obscurantism. Renaissance says all Hindus are equal& caste system should be abolished. Because no Brahman today is only intellectual, they’re in cinema,business as well. Where is it written that caste is from birth?Shastras can be amended, he added.

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