Facts of history can be questioned with new evidence, facts of science subjected to reasoning, but how do you question myths and beliefs since they do not submit to logic That is the challenge that reform movements in any religion always face, particularly when there is an entrenched majority that considers its beliefs to be above reason. In India, we have numerous beliefs to contend with, on the one side, and the Constitution of the land, on the other side – a Constitution that guarantees freedom of belief and choice, fundamental freedoms and equality of all.
On the issue of allowing women at the Sabarimala temple, the Supreme Court of the country stands on the side of fundamental rights. We ought to stand with it. It is not a problem of logic or reason. It is about justice. In a society that considers women as second-rate citizens even today, we must come down on the side of fundamental rights over beliefs in every instance.
Women’s ‘right to access’ is denied on account of age-old traditions that cannot be easily broken. One can imagine the clamour and outcry that must have happened when Sati was prohibited, or when widow re-marriages were allowed, or when Dalits were permitted to enter temples, all by invoking the law and the Constitution. By the way, what shall be our stand on the entry of transgenders -- whose rights were never even discussed when such traditions and customs were made – into temples !
Clearly, it is the system of power that manufactures such traditions and customs, and the ‘lesser identities’ such as women and Dalits are always outside it, a system of power maintained by rules set up by the Brahmanic clergy. The beliefs of the marginalised were always offended and their rights neglected. Every struggle against such age-old traditions and customs is in pursuit of that lost human dignity. Therein lies the relevance of the entry of women into Sabarimala.
Under these traditions, women are not supposed to enter any temple at all during their menstrual period, but Sabarimala bans all women for all the years that they menstruate – defined, arbitrarily, as girls aged 10 to women aged 50! But don’t those who make such ‘traditions’ realise that only a menstruating woman can give birth, and hence those who consider a blood-filled womb as ‘impure’ are disgracing their own existence!
Why do Ayyappans, the men who take the purity vow for 41 days, stay forever in their houses with the very same perpetually impure women Why do they eat the food cooked by those perpetually impure women Is impurity conveniently confined just to their bodies, not to their labours
Ah, physical labour. That brings us to the other argument that has been used to prohibit women from entering Sabarimala – they can’t take the rigours, they can’t trek through the forests and climb the hill to reach the temple! But, of course, we know it for what it is – a flimsy ruse.
Yet, when we say women should be allowed into Sabarimala, it does not mean that all women should go there, starting tomorrow. There is the difference between right and choice. A woman believer of a faith has every right to see and worship her god, just like her male counterpart. The ban must cease. Women must have the right to see Ayyappan. Let each woman then decide whether she wants to or not. After all, to counter myth with myth, Sabarimala is the hill of Sabari, a woman. If ‘bachelor’ Ayyapan can choose to sit on top of that hill, surely women can ascend it, too.
The march of empowerment movements cannot be stopped. ‘Untouchables’, who were once denied entry into temples, are now allowed. In time, they will enter the sanctum sanctorum, too. And a day will come when menstruating women are not considered ‘impure’. All traditions and customs that deny justice will be questioned in a democratic country that proclaims equality before law. Brahmanic and patriarchal hegemony will fall apart.
Yours Sincerely,a non-believer woman who has been to Sabarimala, and wishes to do it again.
(Arundathi B. is an actor and student activist who led the Kiss of Love campaign at the University of Hyderabad)
The letter that kicked off a storm Punjabi Hindu girl Nikita Azad’s open letter to the Sabarimala temple board president Prayar Gopalakrishnan in YouthKiAwaaz in November kicked off not only the ‘#HappytoBleed’ campaign, but also the storm over the ban on women at Sabarimala that the Supreme Court must now settle. An excerpt:
Respected Sir, I am a girl, of 20 I recently came to know that my blood pollutes the temple Sabrimala, and I am denied entry into it because I am a woman who menstruates I come from a Hindu family Each year, I go to Chintapurni, Naina Devi, Vaishno Devi, Chamunda Devi, Jawala Ji with my family Your statement has left me dumbstruck...
All men who enter the temple are a product of sexual intercourse done by a man and a woman. The woman keeps the baby in her womb for about nine months, provides nutrition through her uterus to the baby, and gives birth to the baby through her vagina. Aren’t all the men who enter the temple product of the blood formed in their mothers’ uteruses ...Sir, I have no interest in entering the temple, for I refuse to believe in a God that considers his own children impure
Yours sincerely, A young, bleeding woman
Force of patriarchy In Sabarimala we, women, are prevented from approaching in fear of the possibility that we can/we might/we could menstruate and sully the sacred. But in every other temple I know, a woman makes that choice herself – respecting the sanctity of the sacred space – and does not visit when she is menstruating.
But, and this is the bigger but than the one before, this means that the woman has accepted – or has been coerced by the dynamics of gender balances – to accept the patriarchal view, the oppressive edict that she is unclean during menstruation and is unacceptable, therefore, to the gods and goddesses whose blessings she seeks.
Does that societal opinion align with the woman’s own view Did women prefer to remain private and secluded, un-assailed by the traditional burdens of domesticity when they were menstruating Did women feel that the flow of blood that marks the profound reality of their fertility is unclean
Indira Chandrashekar, Founder and Principal Editor, Out of Print Magazine
