Podcast | Editor's pick of the day - Tensions high in Kerala as Sabarimala Temple opens gates for all believers

Women's bodies have been treated as battlefields for as long as we can remember. Regardless of cultural and religious contexts, a woman is hardly, if ever, more than an interpreted idea of purity and impurity.

While on the one hand, females are celebrated as goddesses and forces of creation in our country, they are also the ones regarded as second-class citizens, often not even allowed to be born. If India is a bundle of contradictions, exhibit A is its relationship with women.

Most religions exclude women from positions of power and when politics, faith and religion get mixed up, the results are explosive. In a chapter straight from The Handmaid's Tale, the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, the Republican party in the US is pushing its agenda of controlling women's reproductive rights.

Roe v Wade, the seminal Supreme Court judgement that legalised abortion in the US now stands threatened thanks to the contentious appointment of alleged sexual assaulter, Brett Kavanuagh. Back home in India, as the #Metoo upheaval rages across our news feeds, and crimes against women spiral out of control, somehow, the headline of the day is whether women of menstrual age will be allowed into Sabarimala by the protesting devotees.

Even as we were putting this podcast together, tension was rife in Kerala at Nilakkal, the main gateway to Sabarimala, after police personnel dispersed protestors opposing the entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the shrine.  This is unfolding despite a historic Supreme Court ruling last month that lifted a centuries-old ban on girls and women of menstruating age from visiting the temple.

Kerala's Sabarimala temple is scheduled to open today for devotees, in the backdrop of the judgement. The custom, as you probably know, was challenged by a clutch of petitioners who argued that women cannot be denied the constitutional right to worship. The events of today constitute the crux of our Pick of the Day.

Battle lines are drawn

The verdict, since its issuance, has unleashed a storm of conflicting opinions and caused a few thousand detractors to protest across Kerala and call the verdict an affront to their traditional beliefs. As tensions mounted, the police reportedly removed a makeshift shelter erected by the Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti that had organised a sit-in to chant Ayyappa mantras to protest against the Supreme Court order permitting women of all age groups to enter the shrine.

The protestors also tried to block buses near the key entry point to the temple and were then dispersed after the police initiated action in the early hours of Wednesday.

Till yesterday, a conversation between the Travancore Devaswom Board and various bodies and influential opinion makers, failed to yield any concrete solution to check the unrest.

We can read this conflict as a literal gender war, but what complicates the issue is that even a large number of women are against women entering the shrine, and this just goes to demonstrate once again how strong and almost intractable the grip of religion is upon our collective psyche that it even challenges constitutional notions of equality.

As Firstpost pointed out, "It’s telling that of the five honourable justices who delivered the Sabarimala verdict, the only dissenting voice was that of the lady on the bench. Her reason for doing so was more about religious freedom. She said courts must not interfere with issues concerning "deep religious sentiments” except in cases like sati, which is clearly a social evil."

As per reports, several devotees - a large number of them were women - blocked buses, cars and pulled out women asking them to go back.

The Kerala police treads across a minefield as it makes arrangements to defuse the situation post Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan' s press meet yesterday, where he said that the government will ensure facilities to allow all devotees to go to Sabarimala shrine. A massive posse of 1,000 security personnel, 800 men and 200 women has been deployed at the Nillekal and Pampa bases. 500 security personnel have been deployed at Sannidhanam.

But hours ahead of the opening of the Sabarimala shrine for monthly prayers, drama ensued as a woman who tried to climb the Sabarimala Hills  had to return to Pamba after being blocked by male devotees. Another female devotee was stopped from proceeding at the Pathanamthitta bus terminal by irate passengers.

In another development, former Travancore Devaswom Board president Prayar Gopalakrishnan, along with 20 people, was taken into custody for protesting against entry of women in age group 10 to 50 to  the Sabarimala shrine.

Selective outrage

Amid this ideological and literal battlefield, MP Subramanian Swamy  took  a vociferous stand by  backing the SC decision and was cited in reports as saying, "The 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. It's a fight b/w Hindu Renaissance and obscurantism. Renaissance says all Hindus are equal and 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."

While news sources quoted Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra that none would be stopped nor would anyone be allowed to take law into their hands, a woman devotee attempted suicide by trying to hang herself from a tree in Thiruvananthapuram in protest against the Supreme Court's verdict.

Kerala unit of the Shiv Sena too has been busy issuing inflammatory statements and has threatened to stage mass suicides if women enter the temple. P Aji, a senior Shiv Sena leader, stated that "suicide squads" comprising of men and women are ready for what he calls. is the "supreme sacrifice."

There is also a petitioner Rahul Eswar who was quoted according to multiple sources for this statement, "We want to adopt a Gandhian protest where thousands of people will be laying down on the road. If people want to intrude in our belief, they should do so by stepping on our chests.

This is a cry and plea for respecting our sensitivities. Our mothers, grandmothers and sisters are all protesting, praying and fasting across 12 states. We ask for 5 days as we are to go to the Supreme Court on 22nd of the month. We are going to guard our shrine."

The tribal voice, usually unheard in political conflicts, has been extensively quoted this time as tribals living in the hills around Sabarimala believe that the government and the Travancore Devaswom Board were trying to demolish centuries-old customs. Four review petitions have already been filed against the Sabarimala judgement.

Political overtones

Even as the Kerala government struggles to abide by the Supreme Court's  decision, both BJP and Congress have been busy stirring the pot of controversy.

While Congress-led UDF members staged a protest against the Supreme Court's verdict, at Erumely in Kottayam, and Congress leaders arrived at Nilakkal, to question the state government's move to remove protesters, Kerala BJP President PS Sreedharan Pillai issued a warning to the Kerala CM and we quote, "We give him 24 hours to resolve the issue. If he fails to do it, then he should be prepared to see a different type of protest from us. We will make it very clear that we are not trying to make political capital through this campaign."

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan called both parties out to say, "The Congress has joined the BJP in trying to drive a wedge between the devotees and the government and they are trying to break the secular tradition of our state."

Malayalam actor Kollam Thulasi “helped” the situation in his own unique manner by saying that "Women in the restricted age group who visit the Lord Ayappa Temple should be ripped apart."

But as Firstpost pointed out even the Supreme Court judgment cannot ease women into a stringently forbidding shrine where  even unisex toilets and other supportive facilities are conspicuously inadequate.

Just as the tide of gender crimes against women cannot be stemmed just by formulating laws that fall by the wayside when confronted by ground realities, a verdict, regardless of its progressive intent can only do so much to grant women their full humanity. The notions of purity and impurity in the meanwhile continue to dictate where women and their bodies can go and not go.

The juxtaposition of the MeToo movement and the goings-on in Sabarimala could not be more Indian.

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