Lord, Why Am I Banned from your Abode?
Women’s entry in Places of Worship
Ram Puniyani
One
is witnessing strange incidents where the women from Muslim and Hindu
community are facing similar obstacles. This relates to the issue of
entry into places of worship. While the women from Bhumata Brigade are
struggling to get entry into Shani Shingnapur temple (Ahmadnagar
Mahrashtra), the Muslim women are fighting a legal battle to restore
their access to mazar of Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai. In yet another
incident the women are trying to get the right of worship in Sabrimala
temple. The Hindu women in an act of brave initiative landed up in many
buses to the Shani Shingnapur temple, where they were denied the entry
while police had to resort to some force to prevent their entry.
In
case of Shani Shingnapur while men are allowed to the Chabutara (raised
platform) it is believed that going to the Chabutara will be of bad
omen for women as Lord Shani (Saturn) will cast an evil eye. So it is
claimed that prohibiting women to enter is a matter of spiritual
science. Sanatan Prabhat, the rightwing daily says that the movement of
women must be prevented to save the Hindu traditions. In response to the
agitation led by Trupti Deasai of Bhumata Brigade the spiritual Guru
Sri Sri Ravishankar of Art of Living tried to mediate between the
women’s group and the temple trustees. Interestingly he advised that
neither women nor men should be allowed to the Chabutara. The matter is
being negotiated; solution does not to be near the sight. Also the RSS
mouth piece Organiser opines that while initiating any move to amend the
existing regulations care should be taken to preserve tradition and
prestige of these places.
In
case of Sabrimala shrine, the argument is that Lord is a celibate and
the women in menstrual age group will be distracting him. One recalls
that one IAS officer, who happened to be a woman had visited the shrine
for overseeing the arrangements in readiness for the pilgrimage in her
official capacity. She was also denied entrance on the ground of her
being a woman. In case of Haji Ali in Mumbai the local women’s group
Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan has filed a writ in the court demanding
the entry of women to the mazar be
restored. The women’s groups have cited different clauses of the
Constitution where one have equality before the law and that one cannot
be discriminated against on the grounds of gender. The argument of
Dargah trustees is on the ground of security of women, which to say the
least is ridiculous. In case of Sabrimala the earlier argument that the
path to the shrine is difficult for women on the grounds of security was
later was clarified by the Devswom Board Travancore by stating the
‘real’ reason for denying entry to women is celibacy of Lord Ayappa.
Muslim
women have a varying degree of access to the mosques, much lesser in
South Asian Countries than in countries like Turkey for example. In
Hindu temples the entry is again not uniform; there are different
pretexts to prevent their full access to the places of worship. While in
many countries the law for equality is very much there, the traditions
and the controllers of these places have been preventing the women from
having full access to the holy deity. The patriarchal control over
access top places of worship is there in various degrees.
This
does not apply to Churches in general, where access is not the issue,
what is talked there is as to why women do not have the right to be on
the higher levels of priest hood. In Hindu temples, Muslim mosques and
shrines the women priests are practically not there, some claims of such
positions will be more as an exception than as a rule or norm.
In
case of India where the equality is guaranteed by law, these laws of
equality don’t have entry into the places controlled by the conservative
trusts. The controllers of institutions of religion are generally
exclusively male bastion, the degree of control and its expression is
varying though. In Hindu fold there is an additional factor is that is
that of caste. One understands there is ‘caste in the practice’ of
Muslims and Christians also, but so far as the places of worship are
concerned they are accessible to all, irrespective of caste. One recalls
the struggles of Babasaheb Ambedkar for temple entry, the Kalaram
Temple agitation, before he decided to renounce Hinduism calling it as
being Brahminic theology. As such most religions do have the
hierarchical structure in-built into the institution of religion.
Talking
of South Asia as a whole the Mosques, Dargahs and temples have lot of
rigid rules as far as women are concerned. These are the norms which are
imposed by traditions. Thus we see a bit of variation in different
religions, different religions as far as treating women is concerned. As
such it the differential treatment and this depends on the degree of
secularization of the particular institution and particular country and
region. By secularization we mean the extent of erosion of hold of
landlord-clergy combine on the society. No uniform pattern is
discernible but at the core there is the understanding which regards
women as inferior beings, secondary to the men, being regarded as
property of men so to say.
Earlier
it was regarded that their secondary position is purely due to
biological functions, with time and with the impact of women’s movement,
it is clear that the gender roles are psychological and social,
determined by time and location. In early matriarchal societies women
had a predominant role in the family and social affairs. With the rise
of slave society and later the feudal society, women’s subservient role
came to be the norm. Again with Industrial revolution and the values of
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity gaining political ground, women started
entering into social space and the social equations started changing
towards those of equality. As degree of secularization is different the
degree of success of women towards equality is different. The nations
which saw Industrial revolutions, the path to women’s equality were
paved by the underlining slogan of revolutions or social
transformations. Still the equality of women has not been automatic,
there is a path of struggle through which women expressed their
aspiration; longings and struggled for new equations towards equality.
The
movement for gender equality again has highs and lows; ups and downs.
Currently one understands that the politics in the name of any religion,
fundamentalism-communalism, is a politics of status quo to begin with
and then it aims to throw back the society to the earlier feudal values
of caste and gender hierarchy. Talking of recent times world witnessed
this first in the form of rise of Christian fundamentalism in America in
the decade of 1920, in the face of the rise of industrial society with
modern education and industrialization coming to the fore. In the
societies which had to undergo the painful experience of Fascism,
Nazism, there also the role of women were defined to be in the confines
of ‘Kitchen Church and Children’ by the
political ideology, which can be regarded as the close cousin of
religious nationalism. With coming of Islamic fundamentalism again the
attempt was made to further subjugate the women to lower positions in
society. The cover of Islam was used for this social-political agenda.
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan are few examples of that.
Here
in India we saw the rise of majoritarian and minoritarian communalism.
Both these again try to push back the women, to restrict their social
space, all in the name of religion. With the rise of religious
nationalism in India, various issues came up which gave a glimpse of the
attitude towards women. Many of these are not the fully blown up
pictures, but they have in root the goal of subjugation of women, in the
language of Sharia or a sophisticated version of Manu Smriti. In India
while the secularization process; the overthrow of the hold of
landlord-clergy combine; remained half way through. With the assertion
of religious nationalism primarily Hindutva, the striving of women for
equality is being countered strongly.
In
the ideology of dominating Hindutva the subordination and secondary
position of women is asserted by invoking the noble traditions. In
literature from Gita Press Gorakhpur, the major publication promoting
traditional conservative values amongst Hindus which is generally the
base of Hindutva politics, one can see millions of books being
distributed which advise the home making role, the ideal of Sati (women
being burnt on the funeral pyre of their husband), the stree dharma(duties
of women as ordained by their religion) are propounded. Instructions to
women about dress code and choice of life partner are handed down. One
of the major agenda of the divisive love jihad campaign is to restrain
the Hindu girls, to do away with their choice in matters of life and
choice of life partner.
Overall
the role of religious institutions has been to maintain the social
status quo, And the issues related to priesthood in holy places, the
entry to these shrines do reflect the same in varying degrees. It seems
that despite the obstacles, the women from different religious
communities are making their statement loud and clear that their march
towards equality cannot be halted by these institutions, and that’s is
the portent of these moves for entry to the abodes of the Lord!
Key
words: #Shani Shingnapur, #Haji Ali, # Sabrimala, #Trupti Desai, #
Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, #entry of women, # places of worship, #
Sharia, #Manu Smirti,# Organiser #Fasicm # Nazism # RSS # Dargah #
Temple # Mosque # Chavdar Talab # Ambedkar
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