Manifestation of Kerala Women's Wall relevant for whole country: CPI(M)

Kerala women's wall protest is relevant for the whole country, said CPI(M) on Thursday stressing that it was within 12 hours of the human chain being formed that two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala temple and prayed at the inner sanctum.

On new year's day, January 1, over 35 lakh women in Kerala participated in the 620-km-long state-sponsored "Women's wall" campaign stretching from the northern tip of Kasaragod to the southern end in Thiruvananthapuram to uphold gender equality and renaissance values.

"The manifestation of the Women's Wall is relevant not only for Kerala but for the whole country which is ruled today by the Hindutva forces who stand for manuvadi values", said the latest editorial of the 'People's Democracy', the mouthpiece of the party.

State ministers and district collectors were in charge to make the initiative a big success. Schools in some districts had declared holiday while Universities had postponed examinations amid allegations of misuse of official machinery, which the ruling LDF has denied.

"The Women's Wall was a collective response to the three month-long agitation against the Supreme Court verdict on the entry of women to the Sabarimala temple. The agitation represents the regressive and communal forces who want to roll back the rights of women achieved through decades of social reform movements and struggles based on renaissance values", stated in the editorial.

It alleged that the agitation led by the BJP and the RSS has seen repeated attempts to intimidate and assault women wanting to enter the temple, hartals, destruction of public property and open defiance of the court verdict.

The CPI(M) mouthpiece editorial also slammed the Congress for its role in opposing entry of women of all ages into the famous Hindu shrine in Kerala.

"Shamefully, the Congress party has been acting in tandem with the RSS-BJP combine in challenging the Court verdict and undermining the Constitution", the editorial said.

The editorial also slammed Prime Minister Narebndra Modi and added that on the day the Women's Wall came up, Modi sought to justify the BJP-RSS stand on Sabarimala.

Criticising the PM for saying that triple talaq and Sabarimala entry for women were different matters, the editorial stated that while triple talaq is an issue of gender equality, Sabarimala is a matter of temple tradition.

"By this false dichotomy, Modi has revealed the true Hindu communal mindset which advocates gender equality for Muslim women but refuses to extend it to Hindu women", the editorial added. "Fortuitously, within 12 hours of Women's Wall being formed, two women below the age of 50 entered the Sabarimala temple and prayed at the inner sanctum," it said.

They did so with a police escort - a step in line with the declared policy of the state government that any woman who wishes to pray at the temple would be given protection to do so, the statement said.

Bindu, 42, a college lecturer and CPI(ML) activist from Kozhikode district's Koyilandy, and Kanakadurga, 44, a civil supplies department employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram, stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by police three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.

The duo, draped in black and their faces covered in veils, entered the temple at 3:38 am on Wednesday.

Police contingents have been posted at their residences as protests erupted at several places across the state in protest, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets.

Hurling crude bombs and stones, Hindu fringe groups Thursday rampaged through the streets of Kerala, fighting pitched battles with police and political rivals, leaving scores of people injured including three BJP workers in a knife attack, officials said.

The dawn-to-dusk 'Hartal' called by Sabarimala Karma Samithi, an umbrella organisation of pro-Hindutva groups, and the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), to protest the entry of two women of reproductive age into the Sabarimala temple on Wednesday virtually brought the state down to its knees.