Thiruvananthapuram: A bid to raise a 'women wall' on January 1, 2019, has weakened after several organisations threatened to dissociate from it.
C P Sugathan, state general secretary of Hindu Parliament, one of the organisations that attended the meeting, has now asserted that if the 'wall' drive is to support the entry of young women at Sabarimala, he will withdraw. VSDP chairman Vishnupuram Chandrasekharan also said 52 organisations will pull out of the event. Karimpuzha Ramachandran, state president of the Brahmana Sabha, has asked the chief minister to remove his name from the organising committee.
Sugathan, whom the meeting had elected as joint convenor of the event, said the unique campaign is not intended to support the entry of young women to the temple of the celibate deity. “I don't support the entry of young women. My position is that young women should not be allowed to enter until the Supreme Court takes a final decision on the matter.
His clarification comes as his inclusion as a joint convenor evoked sharp reactions on social media and other forums. The meeting elected him in the presence of the chief minister. Critics have pointed out that Sugathan, who had reacted fiercely in the Hadiya case, had ran a riot on social media then. (Hadiya is a Kerala woman, whose conversion and subsequent marriage to Shafin Jahan had triggered a controversy.)
Sugathan had also joined the BJP cadres as they tried to resist the entry of women at Sabarimala during the Thulam rituals in October. He had joined the protest with Rahul Easwar, who was later arrested by the police. It has also been alleged that Sugathan's Facebook posts are anti-women.
Besides, he is a critic of anyone who takes a pro-CPM stand. He had also accused the BJP leaders of a diluted stand on issues like Sabarimala. Sugathan is known to have attended the meet for a Ram temple in Ayodhya and has expressed fury that the temple has not been built.
Some leftist sympathisers have also raised a protest against the non-inclusion of women in the panel coordinating the event in which women are set to form a long chain.
The 'human wall' stretching from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod was planned at a meeting of community organisations called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan last week. The meeting decided to organise the event with the avowed aim of protecting Kerala's renaissance values which it felt were being threatened by the ongoing BJP-led agitation against the entry of young women to the Sabarimala temple.
