Two women defy protests to sneak into temple
Two women made history yesterday by sneaking into one of India’s holiest Hindu temples in defiance of hardline activists blockading the shrine from female worshippers.
The Sabarimala temple, in southern Kerala state, has been at the centre of a highly politically charged stand-off after the Supreme Court lifted a centuriesold ban on women of childbearing age from praying within its sacred walls.
Violence erupted as news spread that the women had defied traditionalists, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), by entering the temple for the first time since the court ruling in September.
Police in Kerala fired tear gas, stun grenades and used water cannon as clashes between rival groups erupted across the southern state, local media reported. Several officers were reportedly injured.
The two women entered the temple under police escort before dawn and left undetected a short while later after offering prayers inside the shrine.
‘‘It is a fact that two women entered the shrine,’’ state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan confirmed, adding that police have to offer protection to anyone wanting to visit the temple.
Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanaka Durga, 44, had tried entering Sabarimala last month, but were forcibly turned back by Hindu activists committed to violently enforcing the ban,
Judges ruled that banning women aged between 10 and 50 from entering Sabarimala was an unconstitutional infringement of their human rights and against equality of worship laws.
Immediately after the ruling, protesters, with the support of the government, disregarded the decision and began preventing women devotees from entering the temple.
They maintained that age-old religious sentiments prevailed over judicial rulings and the ban was essential to appease and protect Ayyappan, the temple’s deity who is depicted as a celibate yogapractising god.
Officials at the temple yesterday said the two women had entered the shrine stealthily through the staff gate.
Video images circulating on Whats-App reveal the two women, dressed in black tunics, rushing into the temple with their heads bowed.
‘‘We arrived early in the morning and had a darshan [visitation to the idol] for a few minutes,’’ Ms Ammini later told the BBC. ‘‘We left before protesters stopped us.’’
After news of the two women entering Sabarimala became public, the temple authorities accused them of ‘‘defiling’’ the shrine and closed it for an hour while it was ‘‘purified’’.
Local BJP leader Sreedharan Pillai, strongly criticised the lifting of the ban calling it a ‘‘conspiracy’’ by Kerala’s Marxist government to ‘‘destroy’’ Hindu temples.
‘‘The BJP will support all struggles against the destruction of [the Hindu] faith by the Communists,’’ Pillai told TV news channels.
On New Year’s Day, around five million women formed a 620km-long chain across Kerala in support of gender equality and to protest against activists enforcing the Sabarimala ban.
Women of all ages stood shoulder-to-shoulder for 15 minutes in the afternoon in a show of female solidarity.
– Telegraph Group
‘‘The BJP will support all struggles against the destruction of [the Hindu] faith by the Communists.’’
Sreedharan Pillai, local BJP leader