The Meeting called by the Travancore Devaswom Board with all the collaborator of the Sabarimala temple is underway as tension mounts ahead of the hill shrine’s opening on Wednesday. Several devotee bodies, Hindu organisations and various political outfits are protesting against the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government’s decision to implement the Supreme Court order allowing women of menstruating ages to enter the temple.
Here are the top 10 developments:
Travancore Devaswom Board manages the hill-shrine hinted that the temple body is meeting tantries (temple priests), Pandalam royals and devotee groups like the Ayyappa Seva Sangam, Ayyappa Seva Samajam, tantri mahamandalam and Yoga Kshema Sabah to take a collective decision on the row.
According to reports of the temple board is likely to ask the Supreme Court to give it more time to implement its verdict allowing women to enter the hill-shrine, citing poor infrastructure that has bene further damaged by the recent floods in the state.
Another review petition against the Sabarimala verdict has now been filed in the Supreme Court. The All-Kerala Brahmins Association, also known as Kerala Brahmana Sabha, has moved the SC seeking a review of the Sabarimala judgment while insisting that the restriction on entry of women in the age group of 10-50 years cannot be seen as gender discrimination issue. It has stated that the court has made an error while judging the issue from the lens of individual dignity without considering similar restrictions placed on men in many other temples in the country. The petition stresses that the majority judgment failed to appreciate the distinction between “pilgrims” and “devotees’ while also highlighting how different temples across India follow different practices such as different time of opening and closing, donation of hair etc., and cannot, therefore, be questioned.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan is expected to address the press shortly. He has previously made his stand clear that the state government would not challenge the SC order.
Over 30 protesting organisations have sent squads to the base camp from where the yatra to the shrine starts to hold demonstrations against the SC verdict.
Women devotees and journalists alike said they were being stopped at the base camp from proceeding towards the Sabarimala shrine of Lord Ayyappa. The protesters have started stopping cars heading towards the traditional trekking routes that lead to Sabarimala temple to check if any women are headed towards the temple.
The Shiv Sena’s Kerala unit has vowed to send a group of activists, who will commit suicide if women who are barred from entering the temple as per its customs attempt to enter the temple. The party will also deploy hundreds of its activists at Nilackkal and Pampa to block women from the menstruating age group.
The state unit of the BJP, which has been leading protests against the implementation of the Supreme Court verdict, has also slammed the state government for refusing to file a review petition on the court’s ruling. It had given the Devaswom board 24 hours to come up with a solution that are set to expire today. The party, which took out a massive rally against women’s proposed entry to shrine on Monday, has alleged that the government is “conspiring” to destroy the hillock shrine.
Progressive women’s groups, meanwhile, have started coming in open to assert their right. While the women’s rights protection committee will hold a convention at Ernakulam in the evening demanding implementation of the SC verdict, another progressive women’s forum called ‘Samam’ has come forward to support the women who like to go to Sabarimala. It will be holding a meeting at state capital today to urge women to make use of the SC verdict.
The Supreme Court had last month lifted the ban on women in the 10-50 age group from entering the temple, leading to widespread protests in Kerala. The protests have been building up to a crescendo.
