Even as the entire country is hotly debating the ban on the entry of women at certain temples, Parasuram temple in the Garhwal region of Dehradun has set the trend by revoking a 400-year-old ban on women and Dalits.
The decision has been taken “in a bid to move with the times… Dalits are hesitant to enter the temple premises because of certain beliefs. We want to send them a message that everyone is equal before the Almighty and no one can be stopped from entering a place of worship,” chairman of the temple management, Jawahar Singh Chauhan, tells ‘Times of India’.
The Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple In Kerala. Image Courtesy: Facebook
However, the Garwhal temple management holds that despite the revocation, women and Dalits would still be hesitant to enter the temple owing to certain age-old beliefs.
Fundamentalists and leaders of Hindu outfits question the need for such changes when ‘a large population of Hindu women and people from backward castes’ do not prefer to enter these temples by disregarding traditional beliefs.
Activists say that it is a long way ahead to end similar discrimination prevailing in nearly 339 other temples in the country. They say that the opinions of the fundamentalists could be seen as bigoted as these emerge from a deeply-ingrained caste and gender-based discriminatory policy.
The issue of ban on women’s entry to certain temples became a legal hot potato when the Delhi-based Indian Young Lawyers’ Association and social activists recently approached the Supreme Court seeking women to be allowed to enter the Lord Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala, Kerala. Conservatives claim that the abode of the deity, who is believed to be a brahmachari (celibate), would lose its sanctity, if women of a certain age group enter the shrine.
The famous ‘Vaikkom Satyagraha’ and ensuing ‘Temple Entry Proclamation’ by the Maharaja of the erstwhile Travancore in 1934 in Kerala still remain mere milestones from which lessons are yet to be learned.
