As outraged women around India posted pictures of themselves on social media with the hashtag #HappyToBleed, G Sudhakaran and CK Guptan in Kerala couldn’t help but feel proud. The change they had advocated for so long was moving forward in another form.
Sudhakaran, a former Kerala minister, and Guptan, former president of Travancore Devaswom Board, had supported a plea some years ago to allow women entry into the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala. Their stand left conservatives in Kerala rattled. It was recounted that women in the age group of 10-50 years are not allowed on the premises since it may “shake the celibacy vow taken by the presiding deity” who, as per legend, remained a Brahmachari throughout his life.
Nothing came of Sudhakaran and Guptan’s calls. They became relegated to the fringes.
That is until earlier this month, when Prayar Gopalakrishnan, current president of the Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the Sabarimala temple, justified keeping menstruating women out of the shrine. According to news reports, he said that women will be allowed into Sabarimala only after the invention of a machine that can scan and judge their purity.
The reaction was swift. A college student, Nikita Azad, riled by the sexist remarks, launched the Happy to Bleed campaign on Facebook. She and her supporters asserted that menstruation is not impure.
Gopalakrishnan now claims that the controversy over women’s entry into Sabarimala was a creation of the media. He says he had made a reference to the scanning machine when a reporter at a press meet asked him about the incidents of police disallowing women aged above 50 into the temple.
“When I pointed out that this could be because women now look healthier than they were earlier, a reporter asked whether machines used for scanning human bodies for weapons could not be used for determining whether a woman was fertile or not,” he said. “I replied that there were no such machines currently available to do this function and I would consider the suggestion whenever such a machine becomes available.”
Still, his defence didn’t explain his stand on women’s entry into the temple.
Calls for change
Sudhakaran, the former Communist Party of India (Marxist) minister, says it’s time the devotees of Lord Ayyappa Temple agree to drop the custom. Quoting the lines of Malayalam poet Kumaranasan, he said there was nothing that can defy change. “If we do not change a rule, it will change us.”
Sudhakaran says the previous CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government had backed a public interest litigation filed in 2006 in the Supreme Court by the Indian Young Lawyers Association challenging the partial ban on women at the temple. It was filed following the registration of a police case against Kannada actress Jayamala when she claimed that she had touched the feet of Lord Ayyappa 20 years ago.
The petitioners challenged the validity of the provisions of Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1956, under which the curbs on women are imposed. They said it was a violation of the right to equality and the right to freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court referred the issue to a three-judge bench, saying it involved substantial legal issue. A verdict in the case is still awaited.
Sudhakaran says he does not believe that a custom followed for centuries could be changed through a judicial or executive order. That is why, he says, the previous Left Front government had proposed setting up a commission of religious scholars, social scientists and lawyers to look into the issue.
“We know there is nothing godly in the custom,” he said. “Restrictions might have been imposed on women earlier as it was not easy for them to undertake the arduous trek through the forest inhabited by wild animals. Records show that Maharani of erstwhile Travancore kingdom had visited the shrine in the last century.” Today, devotees can travel part of the pilgrimage in vehicles.
Bizarre logic
Guptan, son-in-law of Communist patriarch the late EMS Nampoothiripad, questions the logic behind the custom at Sabarimala. “There are several temples in India dedicated to Brahmacharis. None of them consider it impure to allow fertile women in their temple precincts.”
He says that Sabarimala, which has shown others the way by welcoming men of all faiths, should end other discriminatory practices as well. During his two-year stint in the Travancore Devaswom Board, he says, he found that the very people who spoke about the temple’s purity were indulging in “unholy activities like theft, alcohol consumption and even prostitution”.
Guptan alleges that a sizeable chunk of the offerings made by the roughly five million pilgrims visiting the temple every year is going into the pockets of the temple authorities and the employees. Last year, the shrine collected Rs 203 crore in revenues. Likening some of the people in control of the shrine to the mafia, he said, they are more “powerful than the Mumbai underworld. They do not allow anybody to change anything in Sabarimala”.
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Sudhakaran, a former Kerala minister, and Guptan, former president of Travancore Devaswom Board, had supported a plea some years ago to allow women entry into the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala. Their stand left conservatives in Kerala rattled. It was recounted that women in the age group of 10-50 years are not allowed on the premises since it may “shake the celibacy vow taken by the presiding deity” who, as per legend, remained a Brahmachari throughout his life.
Nothing came of Sudhakaran and Guptan’s calls. They became relegated to the fringes.
That is until earlier this month, when Prayar Gopalakrishnan, current president of the Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the Sabarimala temple, justified keeping menstruating women out of the shrine. According to news reports, he said that women will be allowed into Sabarimala only after the invention of a machine that can scan and judge their purity.
The reaction was swift. A college student, Nikita Azad, riled by the sexist remarks, launched the Happy to Bleed campaign on Facebook. She and her supporters asserted that menstruation is not impure.
Gopalakrishnan now claims that the controversy over women’s entry into Sabarimala was a creation of the media. He says he had made a reference to the scanning machine when a reporter at a press meet asked him about the incidents of police disallowing women aged above 50 into the temple.
“When I pointed out that this could be because women now look healthier than they were earlier, a reporter asked whether machines used for scanning human bodies for weapons could not be used for determining whether a woman was fertile or not,” he said. “I replied that there were no such machines currently available to do this function and I would consider the suggestion whenever such a machine becomes available.”
Still, his defence didn’t explain his stand on women’s entry into the temple.
Calls for change
Sudhakaran, the former Communist Party of India (Marxist) minister, says it’s time the devotees of Lord Ayyappa Temple agree to drop the custom. Quoting the lines of Malayalam poet Kumaranasan, he said there was nothing that can defy change. “If we do not change a rule, it will change us.”
Sudhakaran says the previous CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government had backed a public interest litigation filed in 2006 in the Supreme Court by the Indian Young Lawyers Association challenging the partial ban on women at the temple. It was filed following the registration of a police case against Kannada actress Jayamala when she claimed that she had touched the feet of Lord Ayyappa 20 years ago.
The petitioners challenged the validity of the provisions of Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1956, under which the curbs on women are imposed. They said it was a violation of the right to equality and the right to freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court referred the issue to a three-judge bench, saying it involved substantial legal issue. A verdict in the case is still awaited.
Sudhakaran says he does not believe that a custom followed for centuries could be changed through a judicial or executive order. That is why, he says, the previous Left Front government had proposed setting up a commission of religious scholars, social scientists and lawyers to look into the issue.
“We know there is nothing godly in the custom,” he said. “Restrictions might have been imposed on women earlier as it was not easy for them to undertake the arduous trek through the forest inhabited by wild animals. Records show that Maharani of erstwhile Travancore kingdom had visited the shrine in the last century.” Today, devotees can travel part of the pilgrimage in vehicles.
Bizarre logic
Guptan, son-in-law of Communist patriarch the late EMS Nampoothiripad, questions the logic behind the custom at Sabarimala. “There are several temples in India dedicated to Brahmacharis. None of them consider it impure to allow fertile women in their temple precincts.”
He says that Sabarimala, which has shown others the way by welcoming men of all faiths, should end other discriminatory practices as well. During his two-year stint in the Travancore Devaswom Board, he says, he found that the very people who spoke about the temple’s purity were indulging in “unholy activities like theft, alcohol consumption and even prostitution”.
Guptan alleges that a sizeable chunk of the offerings made by the roughly five million pilgrims visiting the temple every year is going into the pockets of the temple authorities and the employees. Last year, the shrine collected Rs 203 crore in revenues. Likening some of the people in control of the shrine to the mafia, he said, they are more “powerful than the Mumbai underworld. They do not allow anybody to change anything in Sabarimala”.