Journalism of Courage
AFTER THE Bombay High Court ruled on Wednesday that women could not be barred from entering the Shani Shingnapur temple, saying “even women can go where men can”, the Bhumata Brigade, the activist organisation which started the movement of demanding women’s entry in the temple’s core shrine area, is elated and keeping its fingers crossed for the final judgment. The matter will now be heard by the Bombay High Court on April 1 and the state government has been asked to make a statement then.
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The group, Bhumata Brigade, had taken up the cause after a woman entered the Shani Shingnapur temple shrine area in November and reportedly prompted the temple trustees to perform a “purification” of the area. Although the trustees had denied the charge, they were attracting widespread criticism from women activists for being gender-biased.
Balasaheb Venunath Bankar, sarpanch of Shani Shingnapur, said, “Our temple have some rules which we have been following since the past several years. We have nothing against women, we are just following rules. We will be sharing the papers of the temple’s rules and regulations with the state government which will present these papers in the next two days. We will decide our next plan of action after the Bombay High Court’s final judgment.”
In the last week of February, the Bhumata Brigade members were detained by the police in Ahmednagar on their way to Shani Shingnapur for a meeting with the temple trustees. Desai alleged that the members had been detained for at least two hours after which they were released. The group later reached Shani Shingnapur, but were again detained by the police as they started marching towards the temple. However, the group members were released after some time.
