Women Gain Entry Rights at The Temple (And Need A Temple Be Destroyed?)

Wait.

This is not about the Temple Mount, or the egalitarian Western Wall pray area in Jerusalem.

But it is riveting.

A two-year old ruling is coming to a clash in India.  We learn that

Tensions mount after India’s top court revokes ban on women’s temple entry

NEW DELHI — Thousands of devotees joined street marches in southern India on Monday as tensions mounted over a recent Supreme Court verdict revoking a ban on women entering a famous Hindu temple.

The Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala — considered one of the holiest for Hindus — in Kerala state has traditionally barred all women of menstruating age, between 10 and 50.

But India’s top court revoked the ban on women entering the temple in September...Those protesting against the court’s decision on Monday, including hundreds of women, warned they would step up their protests before the temple reopens on Wednesday, when it will have to allow all women entry as per the court order.

...“We will meet each villager in Kerala and chalk out a massive agitation plan to protect the temple, its centuries-old traditions and sentiments of Lord Ayyappa devotees,” Kerala BJP president P.S Sreedharan Pillai told NDTV.

Millions of devotees visit the temple every year to seek the blessings of Ayyappa, the presiding deity who is believed to be celibate. According to the temple website, pilgrims have to observe celibacy for 41 days before entering the shrine. 

And on Tuesday

India deployed hundreds of police Tuesday in southern Kerala state where protesters have threatened to stop women from entering a Hindu temple, despite a court ruling they can pray there. India's Supreme Court in September overturned a prohibition on women of menstruating age, between 10 and 50, from entering a temple for the deity Ayyappa.
Activists have said the long-standing ban reflected an old but still prevalent belief that menstruating women were impure.

By the way, there is another Temple problem there:

Rajasthan BJP today condemned Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor's remarks that no good Hindu would want the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, by destroying somebody else's place of worship and asked the opposition party to clarify its stand on the issue....

...Mr Tharoor, who is Congress legislator from Thiruvananthapuram, made the controversial comments at an event in Chennai on Sunday.
"As a Hindu, obviously, I am conscious that a vast majority of my fellow Hindus believe that that (Ayodhya) was the specific birthplace of Ram," Mr Tharoor had said.
"For this reason, most good Hindus would want to see a Ram temple at the site where Ram was supposed to be (have been) born. But I also believe that no good Hindu would have wanted that a temple be built by demolishing somebody else's place (of worship)," he had said.
However, he later claimed that his remarks were distorted out of malice. 
"I condemn the malicious distortion of my words by some media in the service of political masters. I said: most Hindus would want a temple at what they believe to be Ram's birthplace. But no good Hindu would want it to be built by destroying another's place of worship," he tweeted.

Does UNESCO need to get involved? 

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UPDATE:

Crowds of agitated protesters in Kerala attacked female devotees, many of whom turned back as a result. Several people including an old woman were injured as crowds threw stones at vehicles and attacked police officers.The Sabarimala temple has historically been closed to women of "menstruating age".Hinduism regards menstruating women as unclean and bars them from participating in religious rituals.

2nd UPDATE

Suspected Hindu radicals attacked a spiritual retreat founded by a preacher who backed letting women enter a renowned Indian temple, police said. The incident heightened tensions in southern India where police have rounded up more than 2,000 people suspected of taking part in protests to stop women from worshipping at the Sabrimala shrine.

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Temple and Mosque

I have noted the seemingly parallel situation between India's Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, previously.

My attention has been drawn to this RotterNet entry which sent me here, to the Navbharat Times, where I read this:

पूर्ण बहुमत मिला तो बनेगा भव्य राम मंदिर: BJP नेता

लखनऊ।। भले ही बीजेपी अध्यक्ष राजनाथ सिंह सहित कई केंद्रीय नेता यह कह रहे हैं कि राम मंदिर उनके चुनावी अजेंडे में नहीं है, लेकिन पार्टी के यूपी के अध्यक्ष का कहना है कि पूर्ण बहुमत मिलने पर हम संविधान संशोधन कर अयोध्या में भव्य राम मंदिर बनाएंगे। यूपी बीजेपी के अध्यक्ष लक्ष्मीकांत वाजपेयी ने कहा कि यदि 2014 के आम चुनाव में पार्टी को पूर्ण बहुमत मिला, तो जिस तरह डॉ. राजेंद्र प्रसाद के समय में संविधान में संशोधन कर सोमनाथ मंदिर का निर्माण कराया गया था, उसी तरह बीजेपी भी राम मंदिर बनवाएगी। वाजपेयी ने साफ तौर पर कहा कि गठबंधन धर्म की मजबूरियों और पूर्ण बहुमत न मिलने की वजह से ही आज तक राम मंदिर नहीं बन पाया। वाजपेयी ने ये बातें एक न्यूज एजेंसी को दिए इंटरव्यू के दौरान कहीं।

It reports this:

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s aide and party’s Uttar Pradesh in-charge Amit Shah led the entire top state leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to Ayodhya on Saturday to kick up a political storm and in the process bare its blueprint for 2014 in which, “Ram and his makeshift temple” are again expected to make an impression in the saffron scheme of things.

The BJP leaders are actually taking the storm that Shah’s Ayodhya visit has kicked up as a ‘ good omen’. For the party’s best years in Uttar Pradesh (UP) – 1991 to 1998 – were those it spent chanting Ram, whipping up a religious frenzy that catapulted it to power both in UP as well as at the centre. “We feel that Ayodhya temple issue could again provide much needed oxygen, breathing life into our ‘Congress-mukt-Bharat’ campaign with the Rajnath-led and Modi-inspired BJP expected to hardsell the twin and contrasting models of Hindutva and development before the electorate,” a BJP source said.

A party leader said, that the “Ayodhya visit by Shah was also aimed at uniting the VHP and other constituents of the Sangh Parivar that had been blaming the BJP of shunning its core issues. Shah’s temple commitment message was as much aimed at attracting the party’s core voters as indeed the saffron brigade.” That clearly explains why the BJP thought of holding its party meeting at Ayodhya’s Karsewakpuram – where the saffron rabble-rousers affirm their temple commitment annually on December 6 -- the demolition day – for the first time in nearly a decade. (The makeshift Ram temple was built after Hindu activists razed the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has vowed to construct a grand Ram temple at the site.)

And this provides some explanation:

Gujarat chief minister and BJP's campaign committee chairperson Narendra Modi's attempt to revive hardline Hindutva in UP for gains in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls is a double-edged sword...For this, Sangh Parivar is moving in a planned manner to create a Hindutva wave - On June 9, Modi is elevated. On June 12, VHP announces statewide campaign in August for Ram temple. On June 18, RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh; Nathuram Godse, a former RSS member, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi] chief Mohan Bhagwat says in Meerut that Hindutva is the only solution for India. On June 28, a VHP leader arrested for Mathura blasts. On July 6, Modi's right hand man Amit Shah visits Ayodhya, vows to build Ram temple. And, on July 16, RSS chief formally approves Ram temple as an election issue.

Petitions are also being filed claiming the right of Hindus on 'disputed places' where mosques were constructed during medieval period...The attempt is to create a situation similar to 90s when the BJP rose due to Ram Temple movement led by Lal Krisna Advani and charisma of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. However, after demolition of Babri mosque, the hardline appeal declined and caste factor has been dominating since then. However, hundreds died in communal violence across country in 90s.

...A section of people also think that the Ram Temple issue will have little impact today as young voters (18-25 years), who are 40% of the electorate, were either not born or were below five years of age when Babri mosque was demolished in 1992. However, hate messages in social media show a different picture...

This additional elections commentary also noted the Ram Temple issue:

...Shah created a flutter in some quarters when he resurrected the dormant Ram Temple issue on a visit to Ayodhya in the first week of July.

Another critical view.

India indeed.

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India Textile Industry Supplies Temple Threads

Not a Hindu Temple. A Jewish Temple.

The story?

Well, the Temple Institute in Jerusalem started production of 120 sets of linen garments for Lay Priests and the specially prepared flaxen thread, wound into six-ply strands, according to the Torah-prescribed requirement, is being imported from India.

The individual spools of thread then are spun into larger 1.7 meter long spindles in order to accommodate the next step: the weaving of bolts of fabric 1.7 meters wide. The prepared spindles are then transported from the textile factory in the town of Gedera to a second factory in the city of Tel Aviv. There they will be woven into kilometer (3,280 foot) long bolts.

The first orders have already been received.

Seems India is graduating - from the 2004 controversy over strands of hair now to Temple threads.

"Hinjew" You Know? "Ju-Bu"?

Leave it to the NYTimes to publish this material on the links between India and Israel:-

In a less obvious way, too, soldiers have forged ties. About 30,000 Israelis visit India each year, many of them on lengthy vacations after having finished their army service. They, in turn, have brought back to Israel the food, fabric, music and mysticism of India, particularly its Hindus.

The popular Israeli band Sheva has incorporated Indian instruments and chordal structures into its music. Yoga classes proliferate in Israel. Hindu food, with its emphasis on vegetarian dishes, has been easily adapted for kosher cuisine. An annual festival called Boombamela celebrates all things Indian, if with a somewhat naïve, New Age tilt.

For American Jews of the baby boom generation, the fascination with India began with spiritual searches during the 1960s. Over time, Buddhist meditation became a staple of the Jewish renewal movement and a book by Rodger Kamenetz, “The Jew in the Lotus,” a revered text. By the past decade, enough Jews were practicing some Buddhism to give birth to a new proper noun: Jew-Bu.

Even more recently, the term “Hinjew” has emerged. It does not reflect a religious amalgamation, which would be nearly impossible given Hindu polytheism, as much as it does the cultural common ground of American Jews and Indian Americans who have grown up and gone to school together.

...The comfort level between Jews and Indians has allowed for a specific strain of self-mockery, too, which might be some psychic balm in this time of atrocity. As an imitation news story on the Web site SatireWire put it:

“Hinjew leaders today conceded the merger of Hinduism and Judaism has not worked out as planned, as instead of forming a super-religion to fight off the common Islamic enemy, they have instead created a race of 900 million people who, no matter how many times they are reincarnated, can never please their mothers.”

Chabad at Mumbai

1103 GMT

Security forces have also surrounded Nariman House, a five-story residential building near the Trident Oberoi hotel that contains an office of the Jewish outreach group, Chabad Lubavitch. Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the group's main representative, is thought to have been taken hostage. Reports say his wife and daughter have been freed. The Reuters news agency says that four gunmen remain in the building. There have been reports of gunfire.

Anyone Here Hear of Ghandian Non-Violence

From the NYT:-

Suspected Maoist rebels stormed a police post in the heavily forested center of India early Thursday morning, killing nearly 50 officers and their recruits from a village militia. The attack was one of the biggest since the resurrection of armed leftist rebellion in the last several years.

According to the government, Maoist rebels are present in pockets of nearly half of India’s 28 states. They are largely entrenched in the forest belt, which is rich in natural resources like timber and iron ore but home to some of the poorest communities of indigenous people. Nearly 900 people were killed in the Maoist conflict in 2005, according to the most recent available official government statistics.

In central Chhattisgarh State, where the attack took place, the conflict has turned ever more brutal in the past two years with the emergence of an anti-Maoist counterinsurgency force made up of armed villagers and known as the Salwa Judum.

Hundreds of its young men and women, barely trained, have joined state law enforcement agents as so-called special police officers. In remote rural corners of India, particularly in conflict zones like Chhattisgarh, police ranks are woefully understaffed, and isolated police posts are among the rebels’ favorite targets.

Dozens of those special police officers were killed Thursday when rebels ambushed a makeshift police post with gasoline bombs and other explosive devices near the town of Bijapur around 2 a.m., said Rajinder K. Vij, an inspector general of police in Chhattisgarh State, when he was reached over the telephone. Among the 49 killed, the Indian Home Ministry said in a statement, a vast majority were special police officers. Twelve more people were wounded.

Sort of dissonates you're traditional thinking, right?

Read on:-

Because the Image of Mahatma Gandhi and the ultimate success of his nonviolent methods have dominated western views of the movement for India's independence, many believe that India achieved its freedom without resorting to violence. In fact, violent resistance was preached and practiced throughout the independence movement and had a significant effect on its course and outcome. Gandhi himself was forced to acknowledge the sincerity of revolutionary terrorists. He claimed to admire the patriotism of the terrorists, though he had "no faith whatsoever in their method." Most scholars agree that the existence of terrorism made it easier for Gandhi's nonviolent movement to accomplish its goals.

Violence in the form of terrorism was a significant aspect of Indian resistance to British rule in 1900-47 despite the widespread impression that Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent strategy dominated the independence movement. Political terrorism developed first in Bengal in the early 20th century and was then disseminated elsewhere in India.

(Source)

Amazing what you don't learn at school.