SABARIMALA REOPENS, STILL INACCESSIBLE FOR WOMEN

Amid heightened security and a renewed verbal battle, the Sabarimala hill temple opened on Monday, but the shrine in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district remained inaccessible to women between 10 and 50 years of age despite the state government’s offer of protection.

Video footage of a purported speech by Kerala Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president PS Sreedharan Pillai sparked the latest round of verbal exchanges over the temple between Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M), and groups affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor.

In the video, Pillai is apparently heard saying the BJP planned and executed the agitation in Sabarimala against the temple being thrown open to women of all ages. He is also heard saying he was in touch with the tantri (supreme priest) when two women came close to the shrine in October. Tantri Rajeevaru Kandarau eventually threatened to close the temple if the women entered the sanctum sanctorum.

Pillai later admitted that the tantri called him in his capacity as a lawyer to seek his legal opinion on the issue. “He asked me whether shutting the doors of the temple will invite contempt of court. I told him if customs were violated, he was free to do it,” he said, adding that his speech at a Bhartiya Yuva Morcha conference in Kozhikkode was deliberately leaked to create confusion among devotees.

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