Meenakshi Lekhi said that the “narrative is coming from people who neither understand Hinduism nor do they know the practices of rituals”. (Photo: PTI)Defending the actions of the Kerala government to uphold the Supreme Court order on women’s entry into Sabarimala temple, CPI(M) leader P Karunakaran told the Lok Sabha that “according to our Constitution, each and every citizen has a right to go to the temple or to any other place”. He said that the court “has given that verdict and we are upholding that” as “the Government of Kerala has to protect” it and uphold it.
Karunakaran was responding to a discussion started by Congress MP from Kerala K C Venugopal, who was wearing a black arm band in protest. Venugopal had said that the Kerala government “is promoting violence” and asked for a “legislative intervention” from the Centre. He said that after two women entered the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala temple, “the minds of people, the devotees of Sabarimala, have become very much upset” and there is a “lot of apprehension among the people of Kerala especially among the believers of the Sabarimala temple and religious people also”.
Speaking for the BJP, lawyer Meenakshi Lekhi mentioned the idea of Constitutional morality. She said that the “narrative is coming from people who neither understand Hinduism nor do they know the practices of rituals”. Mentioning deities who are worshipped in their menstruating form, Lekhi said, “We have a space for everything and one such ritual in a small temple like Sabarimala has its own ritualistic practices.” The narrative being set “where men are made to feel small and anti-feminist if they pass any order which is logically correct though religion cannot be seen from any logical angle”, she said.
Lekhi said that one person died in Kerala during the protests and the state government “is squarely responsible”, and is doing it to “provoke community”. The people, she said, “have a right to be anti-religious but they have no right to transgress”.
