#ABC of #Sabarimala case #TheBeginnings
So, lets get to the basics.
Since the whole case is about the Equality and Rights of Women between the age group of 10-50 to Pray in Sabarimala temple ...
One would assume the petitioners are
1. Women in the age group of 10-50
2. Devotees of Lord Ayyappan
3. Who have been denied the right to pray in the temple.
4. They are not in agreement with this denial
5. They approach the court saying we want to pray too
Right?
Well, Wrong.
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According to the Civil Original Jurisdiction Writ Petition (civil) no. 373 of 2006, the petition has been filed by a registered association of young lawyers called: Indian Young Lawyers Association.
In the application they have ' ... averred that they are GenderRightsActivists working in and around the State of #Punjab, with a focus on issues of gender equality and justice, sexuality, and menstrual discrimination.'
These lawyers are obviously not devotees, they have never been to Sabarimala. So how did they come to know?
From three newspaper articles published from New Delhi in Hindustan Times and Times of India dated July 2006.
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So how come this story reached Delhi?
What happened in 2006?
The exact stories cannot be sourced online but to get a sense of the flow of events, you need to know two names.
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#ParappanangadiUnnikrishnanPanicker
An eminent astrologer and tantric scholar frequented by several high-profile politicians and businessmen, famously gifted 10 lakhs for predicting Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa's win in 2001.
"Meet Parappanagadi Unnikrishnan, astrology's most successful ambassador, official adviser to the Government of Sri Lanka, consultant to Condoleezza Rice and Bill Clinton, friend of Embekki, Finance Minister of Uganda: You need a 5GB hard disk to store the list of his international contacts alone.
Unnikrishna Panicker crossed the shores of Tamil Nadu to
advise Sri Lanka on war, crossed the pacific to reach US before travelling to other developed nations. For obvious reasons, he refuses to divulge details of his connections with nations and world leaders. Every astrologer has similar stories. But not many have mastered the art of translating success into riches. "
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#Jayamala, a former Kannadiga actress. Born in 1959. Now, Minister for Women and Child Development in the Government of Karnataka.
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The story plays out something like this.
The year is 2006. No one can say what happened. The astrologer says one thing. The priests another. The actress yet other. Police, yet, yet another.
What we get is this sketchy picture.
In June 2006, the astrologer, also a tantric scholar, was checking the efficacy of the temple space, an esoteric ritual called Devaprasnam. He found something amiss. Hugely amiss. He blamed the priests for not following the practises of the Lord.
And suddenly, strangely, within a day or so, the temple authorities received a #Faxed confession ... from an actress in her late 40s, of having touched the Lord's idol twenty years ago, in 1986.
Everybody was shocked.
The investigators claimed that it was the astrologers conspiracy, some internal politics to prove that affairs in the temple were not well handled.
Case was filed in Kerala against him and the actress for purposely hurting the #ReligiousSentiments of people.
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And, while all this was going on in the state of Kerala.
Delhi based Journalists - who had never been to Sabarimala - were reporting on it. Delhi based Young Lawyers Association, - who again had never even heard of Sabarimala, what to say of its traditions - were reading/listening to the reporting.
"When I read about the news of purification ceremony (after the claim) I felt that it was very derogatory. That is how it triggered me. I felt this needed reform."
Thats is how, says Bhakti Sethi - one of the Lawyer Petitioners, actually the one who initiated it - the case was filed in the Supreme Court, again, in Delhi. Year 2006.
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Mid way through the petition, one of the petitioners of the Young Lawyers Association, realised she had made a mistake.
Prerna Kumari, in a deeply telling interview to journalist Murali Krishnan, for Bar&Bench, says:
' When I filed petition in this matter, I was not fully aware of the facts of this case. Further, I am not from Kerala. Justice Indu Malhotra has also said that no petitioner is from Kerala and hence petitioners cannot give a real picture of the case.
I think she is right because after I filed the case I received a letter from a woman devotee. The devotee told me that there are many Lord Ayyappa temples in Kerala where women are allowed to enter and can worship.
Further, there are woman priests also in Kerala. Importantly, she told that women in Kerala are themselves not interested in entering the temple so why was I taking the initiative for them?
I then did some study and felt that I might have unintentionally hurt the sentiments of the devotees there. I realised that I was wrong. I came to know about many facts at a later stage.
So what did Kumari do?
I tried to withdraw my petition but the Supreme Court had already been seized of the case.
Then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra even remarked in open court that the Court will hear the case even if the petitioners withdraw their petitions since it was a public interest litigation.'
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So, net, net, this is how the 2006 case #Began ...
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As i reflect upon this, i wonder.
Can just about anyone sitting in Delhi, with no roots in local culture intrude into any peoples rights, any where in India to practise their tradition based on an abstract notional universal concept of Rights ... and that becomes #PublicInterest?
Who is this homogenous Public of India?
I can understand if some customs directly cause serious physical or psychological harm, but alluding emotional hurt to yourself, sitting thousands of kilometers away in a metropolitan, with no direct stake in the issue?
Even in the worst case scenario, without taking the community along, law just remains on paper, as has been seen many times in the past.
Tomorrow - and that tomorrow will be sooner than we can think - if the same happens to minority religious or indigenous tribal community customs, then? Then what will be our stance?
Is the Indian constitution meant to guard our #Plurality or enforce notions of #Sameness irrespective of people's customs on ground?
Between the Government and the Individual, is there any space for local community traditions in a language of their own without the need to explain that to the metropolitan elites?
For each citizen of our land, now is the time to ask. We are all, thanks to #Sabarimala, taking a long deep look at the fabric of this diverse experiment in nationhood, again.
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For More:
https://bit.ly/2E8zh1N
https://bit.ly/2PGMccm
https://bit.ly/2AmrSYD
https://bit.ly/2AltYaZ
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