Thiruvananthapuram: Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, giving a historic context to the Sabarimala verdict while briefing the media on Monday, said the entry of women to the hill shrine had the sweep of a Renaissance era reform.
But when told that hundreds of women, not necessarily inspired by the Sangh Parivar outfits, had come out in large numbers against the verdict, the chief minister had a crocodile story to narrate. “Once upon a time, our land was so besotted by the need to have boys that we used to feed newborn girls to the crocodiles,” the chief minister said. This utterly primitive practice was ended in 1862 by a government fiat, he said.
“But that did not mean that our society suddenly turned kind to the girl child. Our women continued to fling baby girls into the mouth of the crocodiles. The authorities found that, however hard they tried, it was virtually impossible to wean women away from entrenched customs. If the women were unwilling to change, they somehow had to find a way out to end the custom. And they did. They shot all the crocodiles to death,” the chief minister said. He was essentially trying to say that the opposition to the entry of women into Sabarimala was natural. It will die down in course of time, after the transition period. “But what we are against are concerted efforts to fan religious and communal hatred,” the chief minister said.
He said that something similar, this refusal to let go of a custom, had happened after lower caste women in the state were granted the right to cover their upper bodies. “There was a situation in Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple where angry bare-bodied, lower-caste women stood near the entrance of the temple waiting to flog women of their ilk walking covered to the temple. The temple then had to issue an order saying that covered women were allowed entry into the temple,” the chief minister said.
It was on 26 July 1859 that the then king of Travancore, Uthram Thirunal Marthanda Varma II, issued a proclamation granting Nadar women the right to cover their breasts either by wearing jackets, like the Christian Nadars, or by tying a coarse-cloth around their upper-body in the manner of fisherwomen. Many historians have stated that this was done under pressure from Charles Trevelyan, the Madras Governor.
Nonetheless, they were still not allowed to cover their breasts like upper caste woman. Nadar women, emboldened by the backing of prominent personalities like Ayyankali, ignored the narrow scope of their rights and developed a sartorial style that resembled that of rich upper caste women.
