Sabarimala is a symbol of secularism: Kerala HC
ENTRY FOR ALL Court refuses plea seeking ban of nonHindus into the temple THIRUVANANTHPURAM:
The Kerala high court on Monday rejected a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader’s plea seeking a ban on the entry of non-Hindus into the Sabarimala Temple, saying such demands will disrupt the state’s secular fabric.
BJP Intellectual Cell leader T G Mohandas had filed the plea arguing that the “non-idol worshippers’ entry into the temple violates the Kerala Places of Public Worship Act, 1965”. He had sought an inquiry into the alleged “police attempt” to take non-idol worshippers to the temple.
Mohandas’s plea was filed presumably in reaction to the police’s attempt to escort modelturned-activist Rehna Fatima to the temple on October 19. Fatima had tried to enter the temple after the Supreme Court’s September 28 verdict overturned the centuries-old practice of barring women in the menstruating age (10-50 age group) from the shrine since it is dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, a celibate deity. Hundreds of people have been arrested for defying the verdict and preventing women in the 10-50 age group from entering the shrine.
Fatima and Kavitha Jakkala, a journalist from Andhra Pradesh, had reached within 50 metres of the hilltop temple complex in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district when the police took them back after the Sabarimala priests threatened to close the shrine in protest. The BJP, which is trying to make inroads into Kerala, on Sunday announced a ‘Rath Yatra’ to save the temple’s customs and traditions. The party has opposed the entry of all women into the shrine as part of its efforts to increase its influence in the state. BJP chief Amit Shah had on Saturday extended the party’s support to devotees opposing the entry of menstruating women into the shrine.
The court on Monday said that the temple welcomed devotees from all faiths and remained a symbol of communal harmony. It noted the devotees of Lord Ayyappa have to pray first at a mosque named after his Muslim disciple, saint Vavar Swami, before offering prayers at the temple. “Sabarimala is a symbol of secularism. Anyone one can go to the temple,” a division bench of justice R Ramachandran and justice Devan Ramachandran observed. The bench criticized the petitioner. It said the tone and tenor of the petition tend to disrupt the society’s secular fabric.
The court said a devotee can go to the temple without ‘Irumudikettu (offerings including rice, ghee, camphor, incense sticks, and turmeric powder’. “...those who want to enter without it can go through another entrance,’’ it said. The court scheduled the next hearing in the case two weeks later to hear the state government and Travancore Devaom Board, which runs the temple. It separately disposed of a plea of four women lawyers for police protection to offer prayers at the temple.