By Sushil Kutty
There are a bunch of “free thinkers” in Kerala quoting the Constitution: “It is the duty of every citizen to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.” They wear constitutional morality on their sleeves and marvel at how the Supreme Court cut through chaff to deliver gender justice to women. They say it took 100 years for “lunatic asylum” Kerala to become “Navodaya Kerala” and the Hindutva cannot be allowed to return the state to the regressive it caters to.
Essentially, they say, the court asked three fundamental questions: Were there previous instances of women of reproductive age entering the Ayyappa temple? Is the Sabarimala shrine a public place? Is the Ayyappa sect a separate religious denomination? To the first two questions, the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. The third came up with a ‘no’. The outcome was the landmark Sabarimala judgement, which ruled that women of reproductive age could like any man go where he can.
The Kerala free thinkers cheered. But not before they stopped thinking! The SC forgot to ask follow-ups: Did the previous entries take place by breaching long held custom? If Sabarimala is a public place, why were women of reproductive age not allowed entry? If the sect is not a separate and distinct religious denomination, why the reluctance to identify Sabarimala as an exclusively Hindu shrine?
It was a custom (however dated or recent) breach which made it possible for some privileged women of productive age enter the shrine. The custom of age-restrictions stood but a breach was deliberately perpetrated to clear the way for these women of barred age. Among them royalty and influential citizens like PM Manmohan Singh’s “PMO secretary” TKA Nair’s mother. TKA claims his mother took him to Sabarimala when he was aged one, and the ‘A’ in his name stands for ‘Ayyappan’.
To the “public place” query, the court failed to note that a public place by definition does not discriminate, but a “private” place often does, and openly at that, like the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple. There are other Ayyappa temples in Kerala which don’t allow men in and, therefore, those too are not strictly public spaces. That all of them are administered by the Travancore Devaswom Board doesn’t make a difference.
As for the third point about the separate religious denomination, the court dwelled on it and ruled ‘no’. Kerala Sahitya Academy award winner Sunil P Elayidom agrees, insisting that the Sabarimala temple is essentially part of Hinduism and there is no running away from that fact. But delivering a lecture to insurance agents on October 30, he contradicted himself and scoffed at the Hindutva applications asking for the Sabarimala shrine to be declared a Hindu temple! “How can that be possible?” he asked. “People of all religions go there.”
Clearly, the Kerala free thinkers have stopped short of “inquiry” and aren’t putting their vaunted “scientific temper” to use. Elayidom and Dalit thinker Sunny M Kapicad provide intellectual ammunition to the Pinarayi gun aimed at the Hindutva gut. They speak of “humanism”, gender equality and fundamental rights. The ‘Raja’ and ‘Thantri’ and the resurgence of ‘Brahminical hegemony’ are anathema to their logical minds.
Kapicad and Elayidom are ardent spokespersons for the Malayara Adivasi, whose claim on Ayyappa was forced to make a climb down from the Sabarimala hilltop by the scheming ‘Raja’ and cunning ‘Thantri’. Kapicad holds aloft the ideal of the ‘Modern Malayali’ – break the shackles of customs and traditions and march forward, out of the purgatory and into Heaven! But giving back to the Malayara “his Sabarimala”, however justified, will only substitute one set of tradition-keepers with another equally custom-bound medieval mendacious mendicant monk order.
The free thinkers are shy of demanding a surgical strike on the caste system. Their method is to bring down traditions, one by one, till there are none left. But that will take a long time and wouldn’t that mean unending strife and public disorder. The barbarian Hindutva sort will not relent, locked as he is in a do or die battle. Elayidom asserts ‘aacharams’ – customs and traditions, rituals – will all fall to reason and logic and there is no stopping Utopia. He is perhaps living in Utopia!
The Bhagwats and Bhayyaji Joshis are no less adamant. Besides, banishing the Brahmin priesthood will not rid the system-politic of caste divisions. The Nair Service Society will still have hegemony and the SNDP Ezahava will not stop throwing his weight around. Lacking hard cash, the Adivasi Malayara will enter into pacts with vested interests and moneybags to run Sabarimala. Elayidom quotes Sree Narayana Guru, Ambekar and Gandhi to make his case and it is impossible not to agree with him. He speaks in anecdotes and he has everything pat and only an idiot will try to halt his caravan of logic and reason.
But it is important to rein in tradition-busters. What is wrong with faith if it helps keep order in society? Remove the ‘Raja’ and ‘Thantri’ and the Sabarimala Ayyappa will still survive, but dump Sabarimala customs and traditions in the depthless valley and Ayyappa will be a dead deity, impotent not celibate. “Fertile women” have an Ayyappa temple to carry their menstruation to, why insist on spoiling the male party, gatecrash!
Traditions and customs have a certain logic about them, the likes of Elayidom and Kapicad don’t see. For instance, the 41-day ‘vratham’, which is part of the Swami Ayyappan tradition, has a reason to exist, the ‘ready to wait’ women understand: The “41-day crash course and spiritual journey” help women discipline their men. And that is not a joke. Then again, if busting customs is the new tradition, why stop at Sabarimala? Go on to mosque and church, bar and pub; unchain D’jango and set him loose on caste in all its compartments, destroy the entire illegal structure. Sunny M. Kapicad suggests as much but not aloud. He is inmate of the halfway house, and the parole officer is on his case. Bottom line: Everybody has the fundamental right of freedom of expression and speech and it’s not Kapicad and Elayidom alone who are free thinkers. We’re not, this or that side of the aisle, people who apologize. (IPA Service)