Entry of women continues to trouble Sabarimala

To allow women to enter or not the holy portals of the Sabarimala temple is an issue that continues to rock Kerala, and Friday it got a fillip with the Supreme Court issuing notice to the state government seeking a direction to allow women to enter the temple against its age-old tradition.

The temple, dedicated to Lord Ayyappa and located in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, bars entry of women between the ages 10 and 50 - or in the menstruating age.

Friday, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, and judges S.H. Kapadia and C.K. Thakker issued notice to the Kerala government on a petition by Indian Young Lawyers Association and five women advocates challenging the ban.

The bench also issued notice to the Travancore Devaswom Board (the custodian of the temple), the Devaswom commissioner, the chief 'thantri' (priest) and the district magistrate of Pathanamthitta.

The petitioners said that women between the ages of 10 and 50 were being denied entry into the temple and their touching the feet of the deity was considered a desecration of the Hindu deity.

They contended that discrimination in matters of entry to temples was neither a ritual nor a ceremony associated with the Hindu religion. Such discrimination was totally anti-Hindu, they said and pointed out that the religious denomination could only restrict entry into the sanctum sanctorum and could not ban the entry on the basis of sex.

Adding more fuel to the controversy, Kerala Devaswom Minister G. Sudhakaran said that the state government had no problem in allowing women to enter the Sabarimala temple.

"We are very clear, if the Supreme Court asks the Kerala government point blank if the government would allow entry of women to the Sabarimala temple, our answer would be 'Yes'. If they do not ask us a straight question, we will not have a straight answer," the minister told a TV channel in an interview in Thiruvananthapuram.

However, the same minister had stated at a press conference on Aug 3 that the Sabarimala temple would continue to remain out of bounds for women in the menstruating age. "There will be no change in the religious practices being followed in Sabarimala for centuries," Sudhakaran had then told reporters after a special meeting of the temple officials.

According to G. Raman Nair, president of Travancore Devaswom Board, what the minister had said was his own opinion.

"We follow the division bench verdict of the Kerala High Court in 1991 which clearly stated that women between the age of 10 and 50 should not be allowed. Please understand that these are customs and rituals being followed. We will give our opinion that there should be no change in the customs of the Sabarimala temple," Nair told IANS.

Kantararu Maheshwara, the chief thantri (priest) of Sabarimala, said he did not agree with the views expressed by the minister.

"The temple customs are clear that anyone who comes to the Sabarimala temple has to observe a 41-day penance (during which men are expected to observe cleanliness). Can menstruating women observe the 41-day penance? I am very clear that such women should not be allowed entry to the temple," he said.

The Sabarimala temple has been in controversy ever since astrologer P. Unnikrishna Panicker's claim in late June that through a 'devaprasanam' ritual he had found out that the temple has been "defiled".

After he went public with his claim, Kannada actress Jaimala, in a letter to him, claimed that she had touched the idol in 1987 when she was young, thereby violating the temple traditions.

The priests had performed a special ceremony to purify the deity.

In an earlier decision, the Kerala High Court had upheld the ban and directed the Devaswom Board not to permit women above the age of 10 and below the age of 50 to trek the holy hills of the temple during any period of the year.

(IANS)

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