By Prarthana Mitra
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that denying women entry on the grounds of menstruation amounted to discrimination. During the hearing of the controversial Sabarimala Temple case, the top court asserted how the ban was against constitutional mandate, a point it reiterated on Wednesday.
Welcoming the challenge
The court, having repeatedly questioned the ban on the entry of women aged 10-50 years into Keralas Sabarimala temple, has now made it clear that such exclusion has to pass a Constitutional test. On Tuesday, it tasked the temple board with establishing that the gendered restriction they practised was “essential and integral” to religious faith.
In response to the Travancore Devaswom Boards challenge for the court to adjudicate on similar practices in other religious places, the apex court directly indicated that it was willing to put such rules to test regardless of the state, board or religion they were affiliated with. Open to examine PILs challenging such discriminatory measures, the bench nonetheless added, We cannot strike down all such practices in one go.
A taboo in the way of true faith and progress
Once you open it [temple] for public, anybody can go, Chief Justice Dipak Misra had ruled last Wednesday.
“The moment anyone comes to the court and points out that her/his fundamental right has been violated because of a discriminatory practice, to shore up evidence to defend the practise is integral to their religion. The problem is that women are being barred only because of their physiological characters during a certain age group, a bench comprising CJI Misra and Justices Nariman, Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra said.
One of the biggest pilgrimage destinations in India, the Sabarimala Temple authorities consider the exclusion of women of menstruating age an essential religious practice. The gendered ban is based on long-standing taboo that prohibits menstruating women from engaging in religious rituals on unreasonable grounds such as impurity. However, the top court bench, observed during the hearing that the rule had a glaring loophole that allows menstruating women below the age of 10 and above 50 to enter the temple compounds.
Tagging a womans right to enter the temple with her menstrual cycle was not only preposterous but bases itself on untouchability, which is a social evil abolished by law, said the apex court. What is good law for Harijans is good law for women, senior advocate Indira Jaising had submitted in her arguments.
Senior advocate AM Singhvi however argued on behalf of the board, saying, Its a matter of faith and belief of Sabarimala followers. The custom has been in vogue uninterruptedly for decades .There are several such practices in other Hindu and non-Hindu religious practicesm which a progressive modern mind would not approve of. However, they were still protected by the Constitution, he claimed.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius