Your question itself gives the answer. Our country has not yet learned how to get on terms with gender equality. It still is something very “radical” and even a falsified form of liberality for them.
To cite some examples, striking down
section 377 and
section 497 by Supreme Court, for promoting Gender equality never got full public acceptance. So is the case with Sabrimala verdict. The argument that these people have is if the state doesn’t want to interfere in someone’s personal matters, why it is interfering in a community’s religious matters.
Civilization indeed has a lot of discontents associated with it. In one way or the other people just want to continue the regressive practices because they feel comfortable with it, and these practices favor the domination of one set of human beings over another. Now Supreme Court has struck down the unreasonable law which prohibited the women in their menstruating age from entering Sabrimala temple in Trivandrum, as its presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa was a celibate.
Twitter, the platform which is known for amalgamation of all sorts of intellectuals, hosted two trending hashtags related to the verdict. #ReadyToWait was for opposing the verdict, as against our traditional values and a verdict which destroys a “great culture”.
Some popular tweets were:
“The phenomenon of universalization of rights as "advancement" constitutes a sort of subtle destruction not only of traditional cultures but ultimately the destruction of the nucleus of great cultures".
And
"Nuances of Sanathan Dharma,800 years of customs pertaining to temple, it's Sthala Purana are all destroyed by one judgement. Ardent women devotees will never break the established custom, wondering who and what type of women will be benefitted? SC is once again wrong".
Many people however, celebrated yet another step towards ending Gender Discrimination in this patriarchy induced country. The hashtag which favored the verdict was #RightToPray. A user tweeted:
"Women of all age groups can enter Sabarimala. To those who disagree, a woman brought you into this world. Menstruation is nature's way of telling us that our bodies are capable of giving birth. If there is anything impure, it is your thoughts".
(Source: newkerala.com)
The fact that the verdict is getting “mixed reactions” even on twitter, tells us that Gender Equality still has a long way to go in India. It would not have been so, had we thought of humanity as something greater than Religion, Caste, and other social taboos.
