All of a sudden Sabrimala Temple in Kerala is converted into battleground for all the wrong reasons by all the wrong players. In arguably secular country like India where state should not have anything to do with religious affairs as long as no laws are violated. It gets embroiled regardless, one way or the other. This Hindu temple in Kerala which is in the eye of storm, has presiding deity Aiyappa which is considered a celibate male. Therefore any fertile female is not allowed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, which translates into women between ages 10 and 50 being barred. Not going into the merits of convention or the tradition of this yardstick, purely looking at this as is, leaves many questions unanswered. On one side of the aisle there are crusaders who armed with the Supreme Court verdict want to break this tradition at any cost, on the other side of iit are right wingers who want to protect the sanctity of the temple and preserve the tradition. Few of these crusader actually succeeded doing so, but the state of affair are not tenable in long run.
This is hundreds of year old tradition if not thousands. Guess who solidified it! High court of Kerala in 1991 in a judgement endorsed it, which was eventually reversed by Supreme Court of India in 2018. Question is why did court went into the business of legislation? Are judges religious experts deciding on religious affair? Anyway, this restriction is not based on gender as woman outside the fertile age group are actually allowed in the temple. The restriction is also not based on caste or sect which could again form the basis of discrimination. The restriction is purely based on the certain age which is not a permanent disqualification as well, this does not add up to the discrimination stigma theory resulting in some kind of human right violation. The trumped up discrimination charges and attracting an army of crusaders are definitely not warranted.
This is purely a matter of faith and belief of the devotee, religious customs and traditions. Courts cannot decide on these and should not have any business doing so. If the women devotees believe in Aiyappa then they will have to believe in everything about the deity, including it being celibate and the custom of not going inside the sanctum sanctorum. They cannot pick and choose to believe in one thing and not believe in other. On the other hand if they do not believe in the deity at all then they have no reason to visit the temple, either way there is no conflict. Crusaders like Trupti Desai should clarify whether she is just a crusader who believes in cutting the ribbon at Mahalaxmi Temple, Shani Shignapur Temple, Trimbakeshwar temple and even Haji Ali Dargah or she is truly a devotee, either way it makes no sense. Woman’s equality, non discrimination, Human rights and all those modern values are good but then which religion vouches to uphold it all! You can be either be rationalist or religious bot not both at the same time. Then the opposing group who are bent on the violence to protect the sanctity of the temple are also not right, the religious matter is purely between the deity and the devotee, leave the lord Aiyappa to punish the devotee if they break the rule. He definitely does not need your help as he is already so powerful.
There are many traditions in hinduism which the rationalist will scoff at for instance prostrating before the God or Guru. People bend down and touch the feet of parents and guru, this may look very demeaning for someone unaware of the culture but not to a Hindu. It’s part of their culture and shows the respect of the prostrating person for the other. Should somebody take this to court to enforce that nobody touches feet of anyone as it is some kind of discrimination? No. Should courts entertain this kind of case, definitely not. In hinduism married woman also apply vermillion on their forehead and wear mangalsutra(a kind of neckless), not all the women do that but that is purely their personal choice. The question now is should there be a brigade to enforce that all the Hindu women do it? Suppose there is a bunch of Hindu men who also want to apply vermillion and wear mangalsutra, just like the women crusaders trying to enter Sabrimala. Should the same brigade stop the men from doing so? Of course not. Should the courts deliberate on this? Good God, don’t they have tons of backlogs to dispense with. Similarly Hindu men sometimes wear sacred thread(Janeu), should anybody have any business telling women that you cannot wear that thread. It should be left with the practitioner and their religious belief and state should not get tangled into it anyway.
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