Religion And Law- The Sabarimala Debate
KIIT School of Law, KIIT (deemed to be University)
Odisha, India
Volume II, Issue II, 2018
For a considerable length of time women in our society have needed to battle for an equivalent portrayal out in the public spaces. The battle has not exclusively been about portrayal however an ideological fight with the profound established standards and traditions in male centric culture that see women in a position of subordination. Regardless of whether it is the Shah Bano case, a case that negated the act of moment triple talaq and laid the ground for assurance of privileges of muslim ladies, or the passage of ladies inside Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai, we have seen that the battle has been a progressing one and reformatory in its methodology. The ongoing hearing by the constitution seat of the Supreme Court on July 27, 2018 on the entry of ladies to the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala is another long standing battle against the male centric doctrine of the religious request which does not permit the entry of women into the temple. The Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala district in Kerala has been in the news for its dubious arrangement of restricting entry to women of menstruating age (ten to fifty years). This temple is situated in the Periyar Tiger Reserve in the Western Ghats mountain scopes of Pathanamthitta area of Kerala, which happens to be a standout amongst the most celebrated journey locales for Hindus. The preclusion to temple passage for women can be followed in the legend that the god of the temple Lord Ayyappa was a ‘Naishtika Brahmachari’ (who pursued abstinence), and according to the supporters of the temple boycott, women of menstruating age are viewed as “not unadulterated” to enter the temple as that would bother the chastity of the divinity. In the previous three decades, this issue has drawn opposition and challenges from different areas of society and has offered ascend to a legitimate question. The sequence of the long-standing appeal in the Supreme Court on the boycott of women entering temple can be followed back to 1991.
Keywords: Women, Society, Sabarimala