Women turned back after Sabarimala shrine opens
Experts say police action a violation of SC order; security increased at base camp
PAMBHA (SABARIMALA BASE CAMP): Police stopped five women from trekking up to the Sabarimala temple on the first day of the pilgrimage on Saturday, sparking criticism from activists and experts who said the move violated the Supreme Court’s orders allowing the entry of female devotees of menstruating age in the Kerala hilltop shrine.
The five women, part of a group of 18 travellers from Andhra Pradesh, were asked to go back from the base camp of Pambha in south Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district.
“We checked their identity cards and found that they were in the barred age group and informed them about the current situation in Sabarimala. They did not proceed further,” a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.
The development came barely two days after the Supreme Court referred to a larger bench petitions challenging its 2018 judgment overturning a decades-old ban at Sabarimala on female devotees between 10 and 50 years of age. The new sevenjudge bench will also look into seven other matters linked to faith.
In its 3:2 ruling delivered on Thursday, the apex court did not suspend its landmark order, with justice Rohinton Nariman, who authored the minority dissenting judgment, explicitly asking the Kerala government to ensure strict compliance with the 2018 verdict. But the state administration has since refused to provide security to women devotees of childbearing age, saying it will consult with experts before deciding on the issue. A posse of at least 10,000 security personnel have been deployed to maintain order at the base camp. Women police officers asked all female devotees to show documents to prove their age. “We are simply following the orders of our superiors,” a woman inspector said on condition of anonymity.
PAMBHA: When Padmavati Naidu left her home in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijaywada city earlier this week to make the 1,100 km journey to Kerala’s Sabarimala temple, she didn’t think she would make news. Travelling with 18 relatives, Naidu had heard that the Supreme Court had cleared the way for women between 10 and 50 to visit the hilltop shrine, and hoped to fulfill her life’s dream of offering prayers to the presiding deity at Sabarimala, Ayyappa.
But on Saturday, the 42-yearold woman’s hopes were shattered at the Pambha base camp when a team of women police officers stopped her. She was told that her entry will pose a law-andorder problem and she was asked to go back. After trying to talk to the police officers, she walked back to her vehicle.
“I had not expected such a fate. I was told that the court lifted all restrictions on women. When I told police officers this, they had no answer,” she said, fighting back tears.
Naidu was one of five women devotees between 10 and 50 years of age who were sent back on the first day of the pilgrimage on Saturday. This came two days after a five-judge bench of the top court referred to a larger bench petitions challenging its landmark verdict last year that overturned a decades-old ban on women devotees of childbearing age.
“I thought these restrictions were gone with last year’s verdict. It is sad that the police who are supposed to give protection are dissuading us. But I don’t want any trouble due to this,” said another woman devotee in her forties who was stopped and requested to not be identified.
At Pambha, tens of thousands of male devotees, many of them barefoot and dressed in the traditional black clothes, got ready for the five-km trek through thick forests and streams for a glimpse of the Ayyappa. Traditionalists contend that the entry of female worshippers of childbearing age into the sanctum sanctorum in Sabarimala is a sacrilege because Ayyappa is celibate.
The orderly pilgrimage stood in contrast to scenes a year ago, when violent clashes broke out almost daily between police and enraged devotees, who slept in nearby shops and the steps of the temple.
This wall of obstacle created by devotees managed to stave off the entry of women devotees for almost three months. Some women pilgrims were pelted with stones and curses were hurled at them. At least one male devotee set himself on fire to protest against the entry of women of menstruating age.
In the early hours of January 2, two women – Bindhu Ammini and Kanaka Durga – took advantage of the darkness and entered the temple, becoming the first women to offer prayers at the temple. They had their faces half covered and walked under a heavy shroud of police security.
Within hours of their daring entry, the Sabarimala temple area had turned into a virtual war zone. Temple authorities closed the shrine to conduct a purification ritual. On the streets of many of Kerala’s biggest towns, mobs set buses ablaze and hurled bombs at the houses of prominent leaders. Over the next few weeks, police arrested nearly 10,000 people in order to tamp down on simmering tensions across the coastal state.
On Saturday, there was no signs of violence but Ammini said she felt let down by the state government. “It is sad that the police are back to the same-old tactics.,” she added.