Opinion The gods must be laughing: Sabarimala is more than a battle between tradition and modernity

But it’s not such a simple dichotomy between tradition and modernity, or the alien and the indigenous, either. Our version of the movie should probably be called “The Gods Must Be Laughing.” After all, the visual coincidence is striking. You search for “Sabarimala” on the internet, and the images show two very different yet rather similarly attired people — both in black! One group wearing black heaves its way to the feet of the divine Ayyappa Swami in his hilltop abode. Another group dressed in black weaves its way through reams of words in a courtroom, embodying yet another sacrosanct reality of India today.

One wonders what a distant traveller from the past might make of this curious spectacle. Perhaps they will recognise the Ayyappa pilgrims and their fervent devotion. But what will they make of the other group of seekers, especially if they were told that this was the group which would determine the fate of the other one, even their all-powerful deity? Would our time-traveller perceive them as a rival army, as in a showdown in a cataclysmic zero-sum monotheistic game? Or simply as yet another fascinating, different strain of human culture in the vast diversity of polytheistic traditions that one would figure out how to get along with?

That choice, simply, seems to be what modern India has to deal with around the issue of its temples, its gods, and its modern institutions.

For decades, modern Indians have grown up believing that “religion” was a thing of the past, and the “past” itself was an awful, terrible, incurably evil thing. Politics fed off this belief, and of course, ensured that it was fed too, constantly.

One could be from the Left or the Right. Each side had its bad-news-bugbears from the past to blame. Be it Brahmins, Muslims, Hindus, Savarnas, Nehruvians, Leftists, or Macaulayputras, anyone could be made to play the part of a scapegoat. Some scapegoats could even be claimed by both the Left and the Right for the opprobrium! But in any case, the past was always the canvas, the blank slate if you will, on which to write grievances.

But with the latest turn over Sabarimala, we are seeing perhaps a most unusual thing: Different political parties actually figuring out that the past needn’t be demonised in the pursuit of votes or power. India’s leaders seem to be realising that neither the serene boy-god on his ancient sacred hill, nor his dedicated band of caretakers and ritual-preservers need to be brought into the calculus of today’s customs and arguments in the quest for justice.

Justice, of course, must be sought; because injustice exists, untruth exists, violence exists, cruelty exists, pain exists. Do women face it? Yes. But do women face it specifically, directly, demonstrably, because of Swami Ayyappa, or his temple, or his deeply mysterious and cosmic web of ultimately unknowable forces and blessings? Do women even face it because of some priestly Brahminical monopoly which has laid waste to every other temple and god and tradition in Keralam or India or the world, enjoining everyone to bow to Ayyappa and then cruelly excluding some converts from their right to worship or preventing the building of other temples with different traditions and customs?

The answer to these two questions is, of course, a “No”. In societies where concepts of gods and God coexist, the answer has always been to find a way to coexist, not coerce into homogeneity. Modern India has to respect that if it is truly a democracy, it has to honour the way the people think about their gods. Millions of women believe in the inviolable sacredness of Sabarimala’s customs, and many of them have made the arduous pilgrimage to see Ayyappa in his shrine.

For those of us who believe in Ayyappa but cannot meet the demands of this particular temple’s customs, temporarily or otherwise, we have other temples, or even home shrines, to make do. That has always been the way of societies where differences are not seen as innately evil or deserving to be exterminated. And for those of us for whom the name Sabarimala is only a stepping-stone to some other cause, however important it might be, a critical introspection is in order.

Destruction of the ancient in the name of progress, development, tourism, or homogeneity is not the “win” you want for your cause. Let us have our rights, and our deities, theirs.

The writer is professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco