The protests in Sabarimala against the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to enter the temple are being seen primarily as an issue concerning groups in Kerala. And there is little doubt that that State is the most affected. If nothing else, the political fallout of the mass mobilisation on the issue could be widespread.

The pilgrims to Sabarimala do not, however, come from Kerala alone. There are a large number of devotees of Aiyappa in other metropolises in the country, who follow the mandatory abstinence and travel greater distances for the pilgrimage to Sabarimala. Away from the clutter of Kerala politics they have an opportunity to ponder over what this controversy means for the relationship between worship, the state and the courts in India.

The overriding tendency in India to view all happenings through the prism of politics and the state has allowed a critically important aspect of the entire saga to be brushed under the carpet. The verdicts of the majority of the Supreme Court bench, and the State government’s commitment to enforce it, are based on the principle of the country needing a uniform civil code.

This may appear to be a surprising conclusion to arrive at since the votaries of removing restrictions in Sabarimala are not the usual supporters of a uniform civil code. The case for a uniform civil code is typically built by the cultural right in a poorly disguised effort to influence the religious and other civil practices of minorities.

Uniform civil code overtones

In contrast, the campaign for the entry of all women into the temple in Sabarimala is being led by those at the opposite end of the spectrum of cultural ideologies. It derives its moral strength from the larger, and long overdue, movement against male domination in Indian society.

Desirable as that goal may be, the process through which it is sought to be achieved could be seen as a step towards the implementation of a uniform civil code. There is a specific code — in this case identical practices for men and women — that is sought to be implemented across the country. This code, which is derived from outside the realm of religious practice, is to be applied uniformly across religious places in every part of India.

Once the idea that a code derived outside the realm of religious practice can, and should, be imposed on all religions is accepted, the basic tenets of a uniform civil code are in place. The debate then shifts entirely to which specific practices should be allowed and which should not. And this debate is not as straightforward as the rhetoric would have us believe. There was successful movement against nude worship in Chandragutti in central Karnataka.

The practice of nude worship, largely by Dalit women, was banned and the practice has quite effectively been stopped. While there are a number of reasons why this can be seen as an extremely positive move, it leaves us with the paradox that even as we accept nudity in cinema (which circumstances might in fact force on a woman seeking a career in films) we must use the entire power of the state to battle nudity in worship.

The efforts to enforce such uniformity on religious practice through a mixture of the state and the courts may not have too smooth a ride, as the events in Sabarimala tell us. Contrary to the expectation that a uniform civil code will be opposed by the minorities alone, Sabarimala tells us that the intensity of the resistance to enforced uniformity may in fact be much greater from the Hindus. The fact that Hinduism allows for considerable diversity in its practice will generate multiple mutinies against efforts to enforce uniformity.

This does not of course mean that religious practices that are clearly unjust should be allowed to continue. We are a country where there was religious sanction to such vile practices as Sati and untouchability. But religion operates in the realm of belief rather than that of reason. While the beliefs can be influenced by reason, there are typically other factors like a sense of right and wrong that come into play. The need to reform religious beliefs is better addressed by those who share some of their basic tenets rather than by those outside that religion. Raja Rammohun Roy famously used the Brahmo Sabha to effectively campaign against Sati .

Reforming religious beliefs in a country as diverse as India demands the continuous interrogation of these beliefs from within the religious discourse. This would be a long-drawn-out process, but as Gandhi and others showed during the temple entry movement, change is possible. And the events at Sabarimala remind us that the apparent short-cut of forcing down change through the state and the courts can generate a backlash.

The writer is a professor at the School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

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