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വായന

23 October, 2018

Political battle on the hill

BRP Bhaskar

The small Sabarimala hill shrine in Kerala, which attracts about 20 million devotees annually, received worldwide media attention last week as a few young women joined the pilgrimage and goons, donning the role of protectors of tradition, blocked them.

The women were exercising their right to visit the temple, upheld by the Supreme Court in a recent judgment. Orthodox elements, led by erstwhile caste supremacists, oppose the judgment, claiming a long-standing tradition bars women of menstruating age from the shrine as the deity is an eternal celibate.

Four of the five judges on the Supreme Court bench declared the ban violated the Constitutional guarantee of equality of sexes. Ironically, the lone woman judge dissented, viewing the issue as one of religious practice in which the court should not interfere.

Discrimination against women at places of worship is not entirely a new issue. Shrines of different faiths which barred women have ended the practice recently following public pressure and court orders.

The trustees of the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai threw open its sanctum sanctorum to women two years ago. The Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district lifted the ban on women last year.

The Sabarimala deity is referred to variously as Ayyappa and Dharma Shastha, both of which are names used to denote the Buddha. It is believed to be a part of the large Buddhist centre in the Western Ghats to which Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (Huan Tsang, in earlier renderings) refers in his seventh century travel accounts.

A 1931 official document of the erstwhile princely state of Travancore mentions that all Shastha temples, including the one at Sabarimala, were originally Buddhist shrines. 

The current tussle between pro-form and anti-reform groups over Sabarimala is not so much a battle over religious practice as one for supremacy by political parties with an eye to next year’s Lok Sabha polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which now heads the Central government, has not won a single Lok Sabha seat from Kerala so far. Even an Assmbly seat had eluded it until 2016. 

The BJP was unable to make headway in the state as its Hindutva ideology is widely seen as one that runs counter to the secular ethos of the renaissance movement which swept Kerala in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Muslim and Christian minorities account for about 45 per cent of the state’s population. The comparatively low proportion of Hindus in the population has also limited the BJP’s growth.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological parent, has said it is not against women’s entry into temples. It modified its position last week to allow the BJP’s state unit to spearhead the agitation against the Supreme Court verdict.

In the last four decades, two alliances, the United Democratic Front led by the Congress and the Left Democratic Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), have alternated in power in the state.

During the 12 years the Sabarimala issue was before the Supreme Court UDF and LDF governments filed contradictory affidavits, the former opposing women’s entry and the latter favouring it. Both the UDF and the LDF have found it necessary to mollify the faithful to safeguard their electoral interests.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who welcomed the Supreme Court judgment, has allowed his party’s Kerala unit to sing a different tune. While Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has affirmed the LDF government’s commitment to implement the court verdict, CPI(M) State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has made nuanced comments to pacify those protesting against it.

The President of the Devaswam Board, who is a CPI(M) leader, has been flip-flopping in a bid to please both sides. Since last year the BJP was trying, with little success, to whip up a national campaign against the LDF government with focus on the recurrent clashes between the RSS and the CPI(M) in the Kannur district, which has claimed many lives. It views the Sabarimala issue as one which can bring all Hindus together and propel it forward.

The temple is located three to five hours of trek away from the nearest road. Goons mobilised by Hindutva elements are camping along the route to prevent women, including media persons covering Sabarimala developments, from reaching the temple. 

The Central government has asked the state to provide women pilgrims a safe passage. However, eager to avoid a major law-and-order incident, the state police has been playing it safe. It provides security to women devotees on the trek but dissuades them from entering the shrine.

Various steps taken by both the Congress and the CPI(M) in the last few decades to appease caste and religious vote banks have eroded the renaissance spirit considerably. It is, however, not clear to what extent this will benefit the BJP. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, October 23, 2018.

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