At a time when learned judges are being asked to decide every issue under the sun, ranging from dancing girls in bars to the severity of drought and whether a cricket league remains relevant in it, the key question of gender equality is proving most contentious. The question of discrimination against women while worshipping at some temples is raising hackles. This is where the Supreme Court is even prepared to play Devil’s advocate, asking some searching questions. The courts’ insistence on gender equality, as in the Shani temple in Shingnapur, is helping bring about modernity of thought.
As the Sabarimala issue of whether discrimination against females between 10 and 55 should stop rages, the court’s latest question — Is menstruation a tool to measure women’s purity? How will you measure men’s purity? — strikes at the heart of a gender-specific bias through which old “traditions” are allowed to trump modernity and equality. Faith, by definition, cannot be scientific and yet religious practices must evolve with the times, as must the faithful.
Menstruation, as the court suggested, is a mere biological process and its “impurity”, even in the context of the worship of certain gods thought to be hermit-like, and where fierce gender-based discrimination still exists, is a mere shibboleth. For the sake of argument, can it be asked if a man’s emissions, sometimes even when celibate, are “pure” as opposed to a menstruating woman? Regardless of centuries of “tradition” built by a patriarchal male-dominated society, all religions must strive towards modern thought. Otherwise, the courts will have to impose reason.
