The much-publicised attempt by women activists of the Bhumata Ranragini Brigade to storm the five-century-old Shani Shingnapur temple was foiled on Tuesday evening as the police intercepted and detained 500-odd activists at Supe toll naka in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.
The women activists who took off for Shani Shingnapur in seven buses and 15 cars from Pune were stopped by a posse of police personnel, comprising a large number of women constables, on the border of Ahmednagar district, where the lord Shani temple is located.
After her election as the chairperson of the temple trust on January 11, Anita Shetye had announced that she would continue to enforce the five-century-old tradition of barring women from climbing up to “chauthara” housing, the presiding deity, to offer prayers.
On their part, the temple and local police had made elaborate security arrangements in and around the temple to prevent the activists from storming the temple’s sanctum sanctorum and offer prayers to the presiding deity on Tuesday.
The activists, led by Trupti Desai, resisted the efforts of the police to prevent them from heading to Shani Shingnapur, located 70 km from Supe.
The activists squatted and lay down on the Pune-Ahmednagar highway and raised anti-police slogans for half an hour, disrupting traffic.
Following this, police personnel, led by Additional Superintendent of Police Pankaj Deshmukh, detained the women and took them to the Supe police station. The detained activists were, however, released later in the evening.
Talking to mediapersons after she and other women activists were detained at Supe, Trupti Desai said: “The police have conducted themselves in a most improper and autocratic manner by detaining us while we were on our way to Shani Shingnapur. There were young and aged women in the group. All were eager to have darshan of lord Shani. It is our right to visit the temple and offer prayers. That was what we were demanding.”
“However, the manner in which the police have detained us on Republic Day is an insult to our Constitution. The Constitution gives men and women equal rights. By indulging in this kind of gender discrimination against us, the police have done us injustice. That’s why I declare today as a black day for women across the country,” Desai added.
Desai threatened that women activists belonging to her organisation would court arrest in protest to gain entry into the temple. “Come what may, all of us are bent on going to the temple of lord Shani at Shingnapur,” she said.
Desai had also threatened that her organisation would airdrop activists onto the open air sanctum sanctorum through a chopper, if they were prevented from entering the temple premises. She had also claimed that she had booked a helicopter for the purpose.
Even as the protests continued at Supe Village till late in the evening, jubilation broke out at Shani Shingnapur as the news of the women’s detention broke out. A group of women from the village and activists belonging to the ladies’ wing of Hindu Janjagruti Samiti had formed a protective ring around the temple and were waiting since morning to prevent the Bhumata Ranragini Brigade from entering the sanctum sanctorum to offer prayers to lord Shani.
In two other preventive measures, the Charity Commissioner’s office had restrained the entry of agitating women into the temple, while the Ahmednagar district administration banned the assembly of five or more people in that area. There were also clear-cut instructions to the police that the women activists should be prevented from entering Ahmednagar district.
The brigade had announced its plan to storm the temple’s sanctorum on the occasion of Republic Day in the wake of a sensation that a still-to-be identified woman from Pune had created by breaking a five-century-old taboo and climbing up to the platform housing the idol of lord Shani on November 28 last year.
The act of her performing puja had been captured on the CCTV of the temple the following morning. Irked by the incident, the temple management sacked seven security personnel and “purified” the idol by performing an “abhisheka” with milk on the following day.
On an average, 10,000 to 40,000 people visit the Shani temple every day. The pilgrims climb up to open-air”chauthara” and offer prayers to lord Shani, a five-and-a-half-feet high black rock with a trident placed alongside and a Nandi statue installed on the southern side of the quadrangle symbolising the presiding deity.
The protest action by Bhumata Ranragini Brigade came a fortnight after the temple management created history of sorts by electing unanimously Anita Chandrahas Shetye as the first-ever woman chairperson of the temple trust.