ENTRY OF LADIES IN SABARIMALA TEMPLE

It is unfortunate a fresh controversy has been started by the observation made by Supreme Court regarding the denial of entry to Sabarimala to ladies.

I fully support the observations made by the Court as I have been very strongly arguing on this issue for the past about 30 years. Just in the name of tradition it is not fair to bar anybody their constitutional rights, I feel. If thee is a ritual, it should be based on some logic reasoning and not merely on the gender of the pilgrim.

Before proceeding further let me state that I am a hindu by birth and I am also a member of the local NSS Karayogam. Today a statement attributed to the NSS President also has appeared in newspapers saying that NSS will get impleaded in the petition and argue for continuing the existing tradition. I do not know who have him the mandate to speak on behalf of all members of Nair community. I would like to know whether NSS had conducted a referendum on the issue to know the opinion of the members before making such statements on a controversial issue.

While it is true that traditionally ladies in the age group of 10 to 50 years are not permitted to visit the shrine, on the plea that the deity is a "brahmachari". I have not read in any scriptures that ladies should not go in front of a Brahmachari. I would light to get enlightened on this point from others. Even if this argument is taken on face value, why the age group of 10 to 50 years? Another argument put forward is that the visit to the shrine involves strict "vrutham" for 41 days involving personal purity and it may not be possible for the ladies in the particular age group to observe this , possible a hint to the monthly menstrual cycle. Two questions arise on this argument. One, how many people visiting the shrine observe this strict vrutham for 41 days? Is there any mechanism to check this? If not why only target ladies on this? Second is the question of individual purity. Who has said the monthly menstrual cycles makes the body of a lady impure? Isn't it a biological process to keep her body fit always? Why should we treat it as impurity? Again, even if we take this also for argument's sake, what is the guarantee that girls below 10 years and ladies above 50 years are beyond this? There have been instances where girst below 10 years attains puberty and ladies above 50 not reaching menopause. So how would you differentiate such persons?

Finally, if you consider all these, we can come to a conclusion that the tradition has not been based on either of these counts. As far as I believe it might be based on the arduous journey people used to undertake for the pilgrimage to the hill shrine in the olden days which used to take days and months together , which might have been difficult for the ladies to undertake given the transport conditions, absence of other basic infrastructural facilities etc. In the modern days, people go to the shrine in the morning and return in the evening and hence it has become more or less a picnic for many and hence I do not think denying the right of entry to ladies to this shrine on whatever ground is not correct and it needs to be changed. I hope the court will consider all the above points and give a ruling  to this directions and the government and other so called "religious" and communal leaders will accept the verdict with humility without creating more problems.