Women Barred- A Black Day For Democracy!

As temples try to keep women out of their inner chambers in the name of gods, women take recourse to their constitutional rights to worship at par with men.

- Damayanti Datta

An enchanted village. A magical black stone as its guardian. And a sense of the miraculous. That’s Shani Shingnapur, tucked away in remote Maharashtra. A happy place, they say, where for 400 years there has not been a single theft, riot, murder or rape. There’s no home with locks, doors or windows, no ailing elderly, no bad blood, no unhappy spirits walking by night. Just ancient peepal trees that people touch reverentially every Saturday as they fast. Watching over the village is its dark lord, Shani dev, a five-and-a-half-feet rock, in his open-air temple. Beware his great malefic eye or suffer seven years of tough luck.

It’s the stuff of fairy tales. But in an unbelieving 21st century, the fairy tale has turned into a soap opera. On January 26, Republic Day, the nation couldn’t take its eyes off the television screen as 1,500 women—activists, housewives, students—marched toward the Shani temple. Their demand? To enter and worship in the sanctum sanctorum, traditionally off limits to women for the “harmful vibrations” the god apparently emits when the fairer sex comes up close. “Our Constitution guarantees women equality and equal right to worship. This is a black day for democracy,” shouted someone, while others chanted devotional songs. In the ensuing tussle with the police, interspersed with placatory tweets from Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, a jarring question cropped up: are we in the midst of an unusual constitutional crisis?

THE ODD COUPLE