By Aditya Aamir
After menstrual age women Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini’s wee-hour intrusion into the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple, there’s need for a reckoning. One leading newspaper termed the accomplishment, “red-letter day” and “emancipation of women”. The two women broke a “long-standing taboo”, the paper declared. Hardly. The taboo was broken time and again in the years before 1991. Then, too, they were dismissed with “purification” rites. And even after Kanaka Durga and Bindu, women of 10-50 age continue to be barred by cops and devotees.
So, Kanaka Durga and Bindu can stop applying the kohl to their triumphant eyes. Emancipation of women is a whole big different elephant. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s plan to emancipate Sabarimala, turn it into a pilgrim tourism hub, sucks. He should procure a panda from Sichuan, China. Build a Sabarinagari – ‘Never-Never Land’ – in the vicinity of the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple. Neon-lit ‘Sabarinagari’ with Russian and Chinese attractions will tempt 41-day fasting Ayyappa celibates to break vow, leaving free the hill for women devotees of all age to climb. .
That is not what is happening. Since so-called “red-letter day”, one menstrual-age woman and a transgender have been barred entry. A 47-year-old Sri Lankan ‘yuvati’ left, cursing the Kerala Police for halting her, pissed off that husband and teenage son made it, but not she. The transgender from Tamil Nadu found a wall of Ayyappa devotees blocking her route. So, it is an either-or situation prevailing in Sabarimala. Police or devotee stand between women’s emancipation and bondage. The police, if they are not in mufti, will not assist. The devotees, if they are not asleep, will resist.
By all reckoning, the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple continues to remain out of bounds for ‘yuvati’. The police cannot be always at beck and call. And Pinarayi Vijayan cannot be CM forever. The January 22 Supreme Court hearing of review petitions may go either way. Kanaka Durga and Bindu made a difference to an extent, but there is the ordinance way. Congress MPs are talking of taking that way. Congress has sort of lagged in Ayyappa stakes and wants to make amends.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected in Pathanamthitta “in three days” and the Congress will bring up ‘ordinance’. If Modi delivers, good for him. If he doesn’t, good for the Congress. It will have something to cradle, crow about. Beat the BJP with. Most probably, Modi will not bite, not after he refused to take the ordinance route to Ram Mandir. Even, otherwise, ‘kaamdar’ Modi likes to keep up the impression that he is too hard at work to bother over such mundane things.
Wily! Modi and Pinarayi share that trait. The atheist and the theist. Materialists at the core. It will leave both of them in the red. Pinarayi, definitely, is in the red. The 10-50 age restriction was the Kerala High Court’s doing after women entered before 1991 and were reported. The SC jettisoned the HC ruling on September28, 2018. But neither “long-standing taboo” nor “red-letter day” holds for Ayyappa devotees. Meaning, Pinarayi Vijayan is no great sheikh, shakes!
Sneaking two women into the temple in the wee hours makes no “red-letter day”, and cannot be “emancipation of women.” In current terminology, it is “surgical strike” negated Pakistani-style! Besides, the definition of “woman Ayyappa devotee” is restricted: 10-50 age bracket; respects Ayyappa’s celibate status and is ‘ready to wait’ till after age 50/55. The clandestine foray of January 2, 2019 does not qualify on any of these aspects.
The secrecy of the visit and the “purification” of the temple take away from the triumph. The “purification ploy” is built into the Ayyappa-tradition system to deny such claims. If a pair of commie women activists sneak into a Malappuram mosque and offer Friday prayers, will that amount to “emancipation of woman”? The Muslim clergy will react most indignantly and there would be consequences. Similarly, a breach of Christian church customs.
Kanaka Durga and Bindu Aminni were ‘programmed’ to buck tradition. Chosen because no classified woman Ayyappa devotee would undertake the journey. For Bindu and Kanaka Durga, Ayyappa traditions do not count. There is no belief, there is no devotion, there is no sense of guilt. The duo’s entry was planned. December 24, 2018 they did a “recce”. Thereafter, they vanished. To surface in a Kadagu lodge. January 1, 2019 they took part in the Women’s Wall. January 2, 2019 they “made history.” Women’s emancipation was never the goal.
The five Kerala cops, who escorted them to Sabarimala, into the temple, were Vijayan handpicks. All five hail from his village Pinarayi. Only nine people knew of ‘Operation Breach’: Kanaka Durga, Bindu Ammini, Pinarayi Vijayan, Kottayam police superintendent Harishankar and the five Pinarayi cops. It helped that ‘Chief Minister’ Pinarayi is also ‘Home Minister’ Pinarayi. The Devaswom Board was kept in the dark. So was DGP Loknath Behera. And what do we have? A Tamil Sri Lankan yuvati cursing cops, and a Tamil Nadu transgender shying away from bare-chested Ayyappans. (IPA Service)