The issue of whether women of fertile age should be allowed to enter the hill shrine of lord Ayyappa in Kerala’s Sabarimala has now turned into a political controversy with leaders of various parties adopting divergent stands.
The latest row was triggered by State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan with his allegedly impertinent statement that the hills were not going to crumble if women were allowed to enter the shrine. Kodiyeri also said that the ban on women at Sabarimala could not be viewed merely as a matter of rites and customs but it was a sign of some people’s feudal tendency.
Kodiyeri’s statement was in response to the protests aired by Prayar Gopalakrishnan, president of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), the body administering the Sabarimala shrine and several other temples in southern Kerala against certain suggestions put forward by Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at a review meeting held on Sabarimala on August 18.
While several political leaders criticised the TDB president for speaking in an allegedly defiant tone to the State’s Chief Minister just because he had put forward some suggestions for the smooth conduct of the three-month pilgrimage at the shrine, people representing devotees’ community described Gopalakrishnan as a “Hindu with a strong backbone”.
As per the worship system at the Sabarimala shrine, women between the age of 10 and 50 are not allowed to enter the lord Ayyappa shrine. While a section in the society, mainly communists, leftist intellectuals and women’s liberation activists wants the ban to be removed, the believers’ community and temple authorities are vehemently opposing this viewpoint.
In an article published in CPI(M) mouthpiece Deshabhimani daily, Kodiyeri said his party favoured allowing women into Sabarimala shrine and the biological process of menstruation in women should not be viewed as a shortcoming. He said the former lDF Government had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2006 favouring women’s entry into the shrine.
“The ban on women at Sabarimala cannot be reduced to an issue of religious customs. Only those who stand for the restoration of the feudal system can accept this as a matter of custom,” Kodiyeri said in the article, adding that the TDB president and certain BJP-RSS leaders had reacted to the issue as though the mountains would come down if women entered Sabarimala.
State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan lashed out at Kodiyeri for his statement by asking what authority the State CPI(M) secretary had to intervene in a matter related to religion and belief. “Is it up to the CPI(M) secretary to decide how worship should be conducted in templesIJ What do people with no belief in religion or God have to with such subjectsIJ” he asked.
However, the Congress party chose to adopt a middle path on the issue with the Opposition leader in the State Assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, stating, “What is needed here is not an emotional approach.” Stating that a consensus was necessary on such matters, he said, “If customs are to be changed, certain procedures are to be followed.”
Kantararu Rajeevaru, Tantri (traditional chief priest) of the Sabarimala shrine, however, rejected all the proposals put forward by the Chief Minister in relation to the temple. Referring to the issue of women’s entry into the shrine, he asked why they were showing unnecessary haste to have Darshan at the Sabarimala temple. “Can’t they wait till they achieve the age of 50IJ” Rajeevaru asked while interacting with the media.
Meanwhile, Kadakampally Surendran, Marxist Minister in charge of Devaswom affairs, said that the TDB president, whom he described as a hardened communalist, had no authority to comment on the issue. “The Devaswom Board chief should be governed not by emotions but by thinking,” he said referring to the argument Gopalakrishnan had had with Pinarayi at the review meeting.