The hypothesis that the unrest in Kerala over the Supreme Court’s Sabarimala verdict points to the failure of the State’s educational system to foster a spirit of dialogue and consensus appears to be far-fetched (Editorial page, “Failing to lead by example”, November 5). If liberal education is the panacea to internal conflicts, the West would have been free of undesirable social manifestations. In fact, universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, the torchbearers of liberal arts education, have turned into citadels of conformity where inconvenient views, especially those from the right, are either censored or violently opposed. The root cause of the Sabarimala unrest has been the adamant stand of the Kerala government not to approach the Supreme Court with a review petition in deference to the sentiments of the devotees. The overwhelming number of devotees in Kerala, including women, are not against the age-specific restriction on the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple because they view it merely as a localised, temple-specific custom and not as being discriminatory to women.
V.N. Mukundarajan,
Thiruvananthapuram