The question of an age-old traditional ban on young women from entering the Sabarimala temple is being misinterpreted as an example of discrimination or injustice. It has been firmly believed by devotees that the deity, Ayyappa, exists as an adolescent celibate (Naishtika Brahmachari). His power rests on his celibacy and it is a belief that goes beyond any human logic or rule. The question here is a matter of faith and not of rationale, and I wish all those raising the issue look at it from this point of view (“SC questions Sabarimala ban”, May 3).
Babu Kilimanoor,Thiruvananthapuram
The Sabarimala temple, the pilgrimage and the ritual are held sacred by millions of ardent devotees. Women generally play a willing support role to the men planning a pilgrimage, at every key stage of the 41-day vrattam . This entails a lot of extra work for the women and a change in their daily routine. From a liberal standpoint, the exclusion of women from the temple and their mere support role are not acceptable. However, on the flip side, do we, activists and courts, need to question a widely accepted and apparently socially benign matter of faith?
Srikanth Moorthy,Kochi
The most pertinent question the Supreme Court’s stand has thrown open to an otherwise orthodox and conservative society is whether religion is still a private affair. Can a society, religious community or its so-called patrons claim universal and irrefutable superiority of its tenets? Can irrational, patriarchal customs acquire precedence over modern, logical forms of accepted morality? Gone are the days when we blindly accepted and worshipped forces of nature treating them as sermons of god. Twenty-first century India is too impatient to not question any practice in civil society and revere it without putting it to the litmus test of rationality and accepted norms and empirical beliefs.
Shivendra Srivastava,Jamshedpur, Jharkhand
