A temple in southern India that’s one of the largest Hindu pilgrimage centres in the world is set to open its doors to females of menstruating age following a ruling by the country’s top court.
Some 1,000 police officers cleared protesters from the vicinity of the Sabarimala temple in Kerala state on Wednesday, hours before the temple’s doors were to open to females ages 10 to 50, said police officer Manoj Abraham. But the protesters bullied and attacked some devotees and journalists elsewhere.
Police arrested 11 protesters when they tried to block the path of some females. On Tuesday, hundreds of demonstrators stopped buses carrying devotees to two of the temple’s base camps and asked females to show documents to prove their age.
Television video showed the protesters turning violent and attacking the cars and vans of some female reporters and TV crew members some distance from the temple.
Pooja Prasaanna of the Republic TV channel said the protesters hurled stones at a police van where she and her crew members had taken shelter after their car was targeted, and snatched away batons carried by some police officers who tried to shield them.
The NewDelhi Television channel reported that some 20 protesters surrounded a bus in which a reporter of The Newsminute channel was traveling and tried to pull her out. The reporter was kicked by angry protesters who also hurled abuses at her, NDTV reported.
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For centuries, the Sabarimala temple in Kerala has banned women or girls older than 10, but that was judged illegal by the Supreme Court which ruled last month that it infringed the right to worship.
Temple management and the protesters argue that the celibate nature of the temple’s presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa, is protected by India’s constitution. Some religious figures consider menstruating women to be impure.
Meghna Pant, a female activist, said the celibacy of the deity was not more important than the equality of women.
“Who are men to decide where women can go or not?” she said.
Supporters of the ban have been angered by the state government’s decision not to seek a review of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Rahul Easwar, an attorney for the temple, appealed to the female devotees not to enter the temple and give temple authorities until next week to file a review petition in the Supreme Court.
Sabarimala is surrounded by mountains and dense forests in its location at the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Up to 50 million devotees visit the temple every year.
Several temples across India have banned women, saying the policy is intended to preserve the purity of their shrines. The operators of a temple in the northwestern state of Rajasthan believe the Hindu god Kartikeya curses women who enter the temple, instead of blessing them.
India’s secular courts have intervened recently in cases in which a religion’s gender beliefs were seen as discriminatory.
—With files from Reuters