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The social reformer Sri Narayana Guru who was born into the Ezhava community in Kerala and committed his life to fighting casteism did the unthinkable when he consecrated a Shiva temple at Aruvippuram,telling his offended interlocutors that it was only an Ezhava Shiva.

Kerala had been the site for some of the most intense contestations over the control of religious life. It was also in Kerala,in 1936,that the Temple Entry Proclamation by the king of Travancore first flung open the portals of state-owned temples to all Hindus,irrespective of caste,ending centuries of discrimination. They were prompted by the worry that the disenfranchised Ezhavas at the time were converting en masse to Christianity. Even though other states followed that lead,it was not an easy case to make. In a case on the Madras Temple Entry Authorisation Act,high-caste Hindus appealed to the courts,arguing that the order violated Article 26b of the Constitution,the freedom to manage religious affairs,as an enclave sealed away from the state. However,the court observed that religion was as much a matter of practices as beliefs,and Article 25 2b also made it the states prerogative to provide for social welfare and inclusion in religious institutions. And now,stepping up to that responsibility,a munsiff court in Thrissur has ended another enduring practice of discrimination allowing Hindus of all castes to participate in the management of temple affairs. So far,membership of the managing committee of the Thiruvambady Devaswom was limited,by a by-law in its constitution,to savarna Hindus: Namboodiris,Nairs and Ambalavasis. The court rejected this system as unconstitutional,discriminatory and untenable in a legal system.

Temple entry is one of the symbolic ways in which equality has been asserted,and any attempt to roll back those liberations,or close off certain areas within the temples affairs,defies those hard-won victories. A few years back,when Guruvayur temple was cleansed after a visit from Congress politician Vayalar Ravis son his mother happens to be Christian,there was much outrage. These insidious kinds of discrimination must be countered in the sharpest possible terms they offend human dignity,equality,and the law of this land.