Sacred Mission

Entry to a shrine in South India has sparked a national battle over women’s rights

- Rohini Mohan/Kerala

SLUMPED LOW IN THE BACK SEAT OF AN SUV, the two women switch on their cell phones. They had turned them offto avoid tracking, but the friend taking them to their third safe house in three days says it’s safe to use them en route. It is the first time the women have been able to call home in more than a week—a week in which they have found themselves on the front line of a gender-equality battle raging in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

At about 3 a.m. on Jan. 2, 40-year-old law professor Bindu Ammini and 39-yearold government supplies officer Kanakadurga Koylandi (both go by their first name) entered the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, Kerala. They became the first women to officially do so since the Supreme Court overturned a longstanding ban in September that prevented women of “menstruating age,” defined as ages 10 to 50, from entering the temple.

Thought to date back to before the 12th century, the Hindu temple receives more than 5 million visitors a year, making it the site of one of the largest annual pilgrimages in the world. Before they make the steep barefoot trek to Sabarimala, pilgrims forgo sex and avoid meat and leather in honor of celibate deity Lord Ayyappa.

Since the Supreme Court verdict, the Kerala government says about 4,200 women have booked online for a visit. Unconfirmed reports suggest eight other women have entered the temple since Jan. 1. Outraged male protesters surrounding the temple have threatened to beat up women entering and chased them away. After Bindu and Kanakadurga entered, the head priest shut the temple doors for a “purification ceremony.” Across Kerala, mobs claiming to be offended devotees have damaged buses, burned effigies and thrown stones and crude bombs in the streets. With one man dead and hundreds injured, police have arrested more than 5,700 people.