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CLASHES ERUPTED TODAY as Hindu hardliners prevented women visiting one of India’s most sacred temples, with baton-waving police charging stone-throwing protesters.
Police reinforced 500 officers already present at the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala.
Last month, India’s Supreme Court overturned a ban on females of menstruating age – judged between 10 and 50 years – entering and praying at the hilltop temple in the southern state of Kerala.
This enraged traditionalists, including supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with thousands protesting in the days before the scheduled opening this afternoon.
Kerala’s state government insisted it would enforce the court ruling and ensure free access to the remote complex, reached by an uphill trek that takes several hours.
At Nilackal, a base camp below the temple, police cleared protesters early this morning and arrested seven people who were stopping vehicles.
“Stern action will be taken against anyone who prevents devotees from going to Sabarimala,” Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said yesterday.
Turned back
Later police struggled to control the situation, fighting running battles that left five devotees and 15 policemen injured, according to EP Jayarajan, a minister in the Kerala government.
News channels CNN News 18 and Republic TV both showed footage of their reporters’ cars being vandalised. Online publication The News Minute said its reporter was kicked in the spine.
One 45-year old woman identified as Madhavi who wanted to enter the temple abandoned her attempt after activists prevented her climbing the hill, the Press Trust of India reported.
Even though police gave the woman and her family protection and allowed them to move further, they gave up as irate activists surrounded them.
Biju S. Pillai, a local man in his 30s, was one of those opposed to the court ruling, saying that he returned from working in Dubai to “protect the sanctity of the temple”.
No one should be able to change the way this temple has functioned for centuries,” he said. “If any change is made they will have to kill us and go over our bodies.
“I am here to protest the Supreme Court decision,” said engineer Anisha S. (23) one of a group chanting religious slogans.
We want to save our traditions. Ayyappa needs to be respected.
Impure
Women are permitted to enter most Hindu temples but female devotees are still barred from entry by some.
Two years ago, activists successfully campaigned to end a ban on women entering the Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra state.
Women were also permitted to enter Mumbai’s Haji Ali Dargah mausoleum, a Muslim place of worship, after the Supreme Court scrapped a ban in 2016.
The entry of women at Sabarimala was long taboo but was formalised by the Kerala High Court in 1991, a ruling overturned by India’s Supreme Court last month.
The restriction reflected an old but still prevalent belief among many that menstruating women are impure, and the fact that the deity Ayyappa was reputed to have been celibate.
The Sabarimala chief priest, Kandararu Maheshwararu Tantri (25) warned this week that “anger could easily escalate into violence if a few egotistical women try to enter” the temple.
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Sounds like a Ponzi scheme… Buy a share over the Internet in a place that could be a very artfully photographed Priory hall. Demand is high, the asset is way over valued. The initial investors cash out at the maximum and when the asset plummets in value and the shares become unsellable, the late investors loose everything. Also seems like it’s completely unregulated and open to abuse by those with inside information as to the value of the assets and property shares.
This sort of scam is nothing new, been several schemes shut down the UK selling people ‘shares’ in London green belt land and selling them on the fact that it could be reclassified for development and increase in value 100 fold.
Well, I guess we have learnt over the last few years that there is no shortage of gullible people out there when it comes to property, especially the Irish!
Crowdfunding? a bid like NAMA in ways.
Fianna Fail would love this…..
i doubt mr tully would appreciate seeing his house thats for sale for almost 450,000 being used at the top of this article
So more foreign direct investment ready to make our property crisis even worse. Good man Enda look the other way as usual.
Hmmmmm.
No bona fide purchaser for value without notice. What could possibly go wrong?
What has equity’s darling got to do with this; what am I missing?
Does this solve the homeless crisis in Ireland? Do we have the same population as the UK with ready cash? This business solution is well on the way by an Irish company by Irish people and they will only be investing in Social houses so we can solve our own problems thanks!
Some tips to reduce rents: (1) govt cancel new 4% prsi tax on rental income (2) govt cancel new 7% usc tax on rental income (3) treat landlords as a business meaning cancel the 25% reduction in mortgage interest against rental income for purpose of calculating tax liable income. All 3 plus property tax have lead in my case to an effective 26% increase in the cost of renting out property which ive not yet passed on. But many landlords in dublin have. Guys THE GOVT HAS TAXED RENT INTO OBLIVION and wonder why rents increase but oh yeah they dont tell Joe Soap this little secret. …..
A lot of women in UK. are using this type of “crowdfunding investment”, to have a property portfolio to eventually make themselves a good pension, time will tell if it works, to me there seems to be a lot of costs involved, for what you might get out of it. Will this start another property bubble? I think so I wouldn’t like to see this happening here again. I am very interested in what Louise has said, how would that work? Would there be rent controls, I heard a TD. talk about that, and said the leases would be 20 years, but these are families, only investors would tuff them out of their home! That won’t work., people need homes of their own,for life, to rent or buy,That is a real need in Irish people.
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