Open Access Research Article
THE SABARIMALA, A VIOLATION OF RIGHT TO RELIGIOUS PRACTICE?
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Article Details
THE SABARIMALA, A VIOLATION OF RIGHT TO RELIGIOUS PRACTICE?
AUTHORED
BY - SAKSHI MISHRA
1. Does the
Sabarimala Temple's ban on menstruating women entry violate the right to equality, to be free from discrimination,
and to be untouchable?
2. Are followers
of Lord Ayyappa
a distinct religious group with the authority to conduct their own internal religious administration?
3.
Does Article 25 consider the exclusion of women to be an "essential religious practise"?
4.
Can a ‘religious denomination' prohibit women between
the ages of 10 and 50 from entering
Hindu places of public worship under Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship
(Authorisation of Entry) Rules, Rule
3?
5.
Do the Public Worship Rules, which permit the practise,
conflict with the original law, forbids discriminating practises?
These were the questions that stroke the mind first,
when people heard of ‘The Sabarimala’ case
from a legal perspective. The tags associated with the case were of Equality,
Freedom of Religion, Fundamental
Rights, Gender Equality, Religion, Religious Practice, Right to Equality
and Women’s Rights.
In the Indian state of Kerala's Pathanamthitta
District, there is a Shasta temple called Sabarimala.
Shasta is a celibate god, thus traditionally women and girls of reproductive
age were not allowed to attend
services there. Women and girls (between the ages of 10 and 50) have been legally prohibited from
entering temples since 1991 as a result of a Kerala high court's legal
explanation for this custom.
According to the Supreme Court of India’s September 2018
judgement, all Hindu pilgrims, regardless
of gender, are welcome to visit the temple. According to the Supreme Court's Constitution bench, "any exception
given to women due to biological differences violates the Constitution." The court ruled
specifically that the restriction violated both Article 25's guarantee
of religious freedom and Article 14's guarantee of equality.
Millions of male admirers of Ayyappan who disagreed with the
judgement protested it. A month later,
despite threats of physical harm, roughly ten female campaigners tried to enter the shrine. They didn't succeed. In
defiance of continuous protests, two women activists entered the temple through the back entrance in the early hours
of January 2, 2019. The temple priests
and authorities immediately closed Sabarimala for purifying rites after learning
that women had entered the site. Yet there have been attempts which were positive.
Those in favour of allowing women entry to the
Sabarimala temple concentrate on the specific
point that menstruation is not impure, and the more general point that women deserve
equal rights. Some in favor of women's
entry state that their opponents
are motivated by taboos surrounding menstruation.
According to the historian Rajan Gurukkal there is "neither ritual sanctity
nor scientific justification" for the argument
of menstrual pollution.
Over 100 temples in Kerala are dedicated to Ayyappan. Women
are allowed to enter all other temples
of Ayyappan, so some argue that making an exception for Sabarimala is unusual
and inconsistent. Out that gender
segregation exists in other Hindu temples. Some prominent temples also restrict men's entry. For
example, the Brahma temple in Pushkar prevents
married men from entering the inner sanctum. Other temples prevent men
from entering on certain days. A few
reporters have pointed There is also a rule for men who want to pray at the temple; they have to take a vow of
celibacy for 4 weeks leading up to their visit.
Women being admitted
would be disrespectful to the male deity. In the Supreme
Court case, J. Sai Deepak, the
lawyer for two women's organisations and a devotee sangam, has contended that the god Ayyappan should be
treated as a person, granting him the constitutional
right to privacy under Article 21. The argument then goes on to say that it is an invasion of Ayyappan's privacy when
women and girls of reproductive age visit him without his consent. Some Hindu women hold the opinion that Ayyappan
himself imposed the ban on women
attending the temple because he desired celibacy and felt that the presence of
women would divert him from this goal.
It doesn’t make any difference if India is a secular country
or not, because a place of worship is
not a secular place; by definition it is a religious place. So it is not
nonsense to apply our secular logic
on religious places because people would themselves not like religious
practices in secular places. “By
just being the citizen of this country you cannot go to the supreme and say I wish to practice in the supreme court without having the necessary
qualification, without following necessary rules; now
here the argument arrives these rules
are not uncertain and that they are
same for everyone, then why don’t you recognise the fact that when it comes to the Hindu faith there are
diversity of spaces. There are specific spaces
dedicated to a specific form of energy and there are specific spaces
open to everyone. If this particular
faith on diversity is finished to the weaponised form of equality which is
nothing but standardization, it will
result in unwarranted diminishing of Hindu faith and it’ will lose it’s originality
which is against Article 25 and 26.
Article Information
THE SABARIMALA, A VIOLATION OF RIGHT TO RELIGIOUS PRACTICE?
Authors: SAKSHI MISHRA
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2023/06/24
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Access Open Access
- License CC 4.0
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