Actor Kollam Thulasi says women who come to enter the Sabarimala temple, the revered Kerala shrine thrown open to them by a landmark Supreme Court judgment, must be ripped in half.
That horrifying remark, made by the Bharatiya Janata Party supporter at an NDA rally in Kollam, wasn’t the end of it. Thulasi said one half of the woman must be sent to the Chief Minister’s office in Thiruvananthapuram — Kerala’s capital — and the other half to Delhi.
The Supreme Court’s striking down of an entry ban on women of menstruating age has drawn praise, but the opinion that the verdict is progressive and welcome is far from unanimous.
Temple authorities had said the ban was essential to the rites related to the temple’s chief deity, Ayyappa, considered eternally celibate.
Kerala has witnessed widespread protests, and review petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court — which recently refused to urgently hear one of them.
The Sabarimala temple opens on October 17 — Wednesday — for a monthly puja. Rahul Easwar, the leader of the Ayyappa Dharma Sena, says thousands of devotees will lie down on the path leading to the temple. If women want to enter, he adds, they can walk on the lying devotee’s chests with their boots and slippers.
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