Women’s right to worship

The Maharashtra police acted predictably in detaining approximately 500 women activists who were planning to barge into the Shani Shingnapur temple in defiance of the four- to five-century-old ban on women. To avoid confrontation and maintain peace is the duty of the police and they cannot take a call on the equality of genders and the right of women to worship at the shrine to the Saturn god. It is up to more enlightened people and those in authority to resolve this conflict between tradition and modernity. The Maharashtra chief minister has already spoken on the desirability of doing away with an abominable practice that keeps half the Hindu population from worshipping. Even a so-called malefic god may agree that humans have devised these restrictions in his name. Such obscurantist practices as cleaning the temple with milk if a woman sneaks in to worship should find no place in a modern setting.

A Muslim group has also come forward to support the activists who are fighting to bring down another male bastion. Going a step further in the raging debate over gender discrimination at Shingnapur, and at Sabarimala where women of a certain age group are not allowed, they say religious trusts must amend such patriarchal practices, built up by gender prejudice rather than any principle of worship being vitiated. This is an argument that goes beyond even the constitutional rights as enshrined in Articles 14 and 15 and involves a higher natural principle of gender equality, which must be upheld. A huge change in attitude is called for if a genuine change of heart is to take place soon.