Sabarimala: #ReadyToWait Women Campaigners Move SC Supporting Entry Restrictions

They are countering campaigns popularly known as ‘Happy to Bleed’ and ‘Right to Pray’” who are already arguing in the SC for complete lifting of restrictions vis-avis entry of women. #ReadyToWait campaigners say they want to preserve traditional customs.

A group of women devotees of Lord Ayyappa under the banner of ‘People for Dharma’ have moved the Supreme Court seeking intervention in the Sabarimala case saying they are not against the traditional customs and restrictions and are ready to wait till the age when they are allowed to enter the temple that is at the age of 50.

They were already running a campaign to preserve 'ancient customs', which they have named #ReadyToWait.” The said campaign started by the intervenor organization was to counter campaigns popularly known as ‘Right to Bleed’ and ‘Right to Pray’”, said the application filed through advocate Suvidutt M Sundaram

“That the intervenor organization named ‘People for Dharma’ with thousands of members and followers have started a campaign popularly known as ‘Ready to Wait’. The said campaign started by the intervenor organization was to counter campaigns popularly known as ‘Right to Bleed’ and ‘Right to Pray’. That the intervenor organization is making this application seeking indulgence of this Hon’ble Court for permitting them to intervene in the above matter which involves questions that may seriously affect the sentiments and belief system practiced and preached by the Intervenor organization and by its followers”, it says.

They say they understand and respect the temple traditions regarding the entry of young women into the temple and do not want those traditions to be discarded. They are asserting that women devotees of Kerala are ready to wait till they attain the age of 50 years to enter the Sabarimala temple and the demands by non-devotees to discard the tradition in the name of gender equality amounts to the infringement on the religious freedom

 “By appointing themselves the champions of the rights of women devotees, what the feminist petitioners actually imply is that the devotees are incapable of fighting for themselves. That’s one kind of classism too. It is a modern version of the White Man’s Burden to civilise unwashed pagans,” said their application

The temple entry case is likely to come up for hearing before a three-judge Bench led by Dipak Misra as soon as the court re-opens on November 7.

People for Dharma said the “feminist petitioners” had “absolutely no clue to the scientific and philosophical basis of a temple and falsely and foolishly equate the practices of Santana Dharma with the inborn discrimination in Semitic religions.”

 “Some temples like Kamakhya temple in Assam and the Devi temple in Kerala’s Chenganoor even celebrate the menstrual phase of women. This alone is enough to expose the hollowness of the claim that Sanatana Dharma discriminates menstruating women,” the application said.

Last week the Haji Ali Dargah Trust submitted in Supreme Court that women will be allowed till its inner sanctum sanctorum of the dargah

Read the intervention application here.

This article has been made possible because of financial support from Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation.