Scores of women gathered to form a 620-km long human wall across the fourteen districts of Kerala as a part of state government’s gender justice campaign called ‘vanitha mathil’ or women’s wall on January 1st. During the protest, the participants took a pledge to insulate the society against regressive forces that sought to push Kerala back to the dark ages of casteism and discrimination. The pledge went on to hail the Kerala government for organizing the wall. “The lives of men and women become creative with mutual respect and collaboration. Equality for women is part of the social reformation. That is why people who loved this place supported this idea. We hail the government for supporting this movement,” read the press release of the aforementioned pledge.
The wall stretching from Kasargod in north Kerala to Thiruvananthapuram in the South was organized under the aegis of the Left Democratic Front(LDF) to back its stand on the entry of the women in Sabarimala Temple. The wall was bookended by KK Shylaja in Kasaragod and the senior CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat in Thiruvananthapuram. It was envisaged to counter Sangh Parivar’s campaign against the entry of women of all ages in the shrine, following the Supreme Court’s verdict. Women from all walks of life, including trans women, participated in the event and vowed to ensure gender justice and oppose the Hindu-right-wing forces in their attempt to turn Kerela into what they call it as a ‘lunatic asylum’. The wall had no apparent cracks except at Chettukundu in Kasaragode where the Bhartiya Janta Party Workers created a violent ruckus targeting those who tried to line up the road. They attacked police officers, journalists, passerby, and damaged vehicles. In retaliation, the police fired tear gas shells to subdue the mob.
Apart from the LDF, the campaign is backed by the leaders of community organizations like Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam – which represents the Hindu Ezhava community and Kerala Pulaya Mahasabha’s faction Punnala Sreekumar faction that represents the SC community. Several public intellectuals like writers, thinkers, activists, actors, among many others also participated in the movement.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in his Facebook post said, “The women’s wall has become the largest women movement in the country to protect their rights enshrined in the Constitution and defend the attempts to deny them gender justice. This wall is a warning to the conservative-communal forces, which try to deny women their legitimate rights and renaissance values. The women’s wall has emerged as a loud announcement that Kerala women are with the progressive thought.”
Congress boycotted the wall and called it “communal” as various Hindu organizations were actively involved in the campaign. Further, BJP and upper caste Hindu organizations such as the Nair Service Society (NSS) also kept their distance from this campaign. The BJP had last week lighted an ‘ayyappa jyothi’ in the state to counter the women’s wall. Denouncing the campaign, NSS general secretary Sukumaran Nair said that Kerala would become a “Satan’s land” if women are allowed to enter Sabarimala.
In September last year, Supreme Court overturned the ban of entry of women of menstruating ages to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Sabarimala Temple as it amounts to gender discrimination which goes against the ethos of the Indian Constitution. The Sabarimala shrine prohibits the entry of women of “menstruating age” – defined as between 10 and 50.
The issue took a political color when Sangh Parivar along with other right-wing groups launched a violent agitation claiming that the entry of women of menstruating ages would defile the sanctity of the temple. Many women have tried to enter the temple since the SC’s ruling last year but as of now, only two women under the age of 50 have claimed that they managed to reach inside the temple at around 3:30 am on January 2nd.