1) Sulabha’s descendants
GS1: Issues related to Women
Context:
- The author talks about the need for giving women full rights on all temple rituals.
Editorial Insights:
What's happening?
- Recent remarks of TN Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments Minister that women could be appointed priests in the 35,000-odd temples in the state is long overdue.
- This transformative idea has to be emulated across the country’s temples & also there are also no religious obstacles for doing it.
- But the main obstacles are Convention, Patriarchal power & Politics.
Women’s Right to become Temple Priest:
- The term “Priest” denotes a vast range of social, ritual & redemptory functions.
- Women have already performed duties of purohits to pandas, to be a medium of divine power.
- These duties/functions are embedded differently in different Hindu traditions.
- In states like TN & Maharashtra, women have performed all rituals many times.
- But for generations, the priesthood was an inherited office.
- However, the SC in Raj Kali Kuer vs. Ram Rattan Pandey 1955, held that women have the right to succeed to the religious office.
- Though it ruefully noted that standard codifications, disqualified women from performing certain ritual functions, But held that this disqualification was not sufficient grounds to deny women priestly office.
- This judgment also notes that many Indian temple's priestly offices are hereditary & hereditary is not a principle of competence.
- So even if Women could not participate in particular rituals, that could not be grounds for denying them priestly authority.
- But despite these precedents, Women’s participation in temple authority structures or ritual processes is very rare.
The obstacles for Women:
- Fear of women coming in contact with men,
- Notions of purity & pollution associated with Menstruation.
- But the above principles are complex because of social bases & differential notions of principles of temples.
- For instance, Tantric temples in South & Kashmir with reasonable restrictions allow Women to perform forms of worship that are prohibited elsewhere.
- But historically, some pujas are cannot be touched even by non-menstruating women.
- Overcoming this taboo is a mammoth task like Sabarimala Case.
- The purpose of opening up ritual functions to women cannot just be social engineering but there also good religious grounds for opening all ritual functions to women such as
- The authority of men or Brahmins to conduct rituals is not vested in their bodies.
- This authority is created through a liturgy of signs & symbolic substitutions.
- They are not pure or worthy but they are made pure or worthy through ritual.
- The single biggest achievement of the Bhakti movement was to marginalize ritual conformism & exalt the dignity of the emotion of the bhakt.
- Opening up all modes of worship to all people IS completing the Bhakti revolution that has been resisted for a long time by Brahmanism.
- Finally, there is a metaphysical point in Mahabharata where a great Yogini Sulabha questions King Janaka, society being binary of gender distinctions.
- Janaka with his realization says that if temples are to be the true gateways to something higher than the temple rituals not to socially enact our failures, attachments & limit by one's bodies or birth.
- The politics around a large-scale transformation of temple authorities are anxious because it will disrupt the existing monopolized franchises over the ritual power.
- However, the situation would become tricky if a secular state involves in the reforming process because it will lead to communal politics.
- But Hindu reforming their own practices through their own institutions will liberate religion from patriarchy without arousing any communal tensions.
- The Same Spirit of reformation has to be followed in other religions too.
Conclusion:
- The time has come in giving women full rights on all temple rituals. This transformation & reformation would not only be the last & final death blow to the patriarchal notion/ institution but also the foremost & spirited step for gender equality.
2) Delimitation in J&K: How, Why
GS2: Election Related
Context:
- The author talks about the delimitation process for J&k.
Editorial Insights:
What’s Happening?
- The recent invitation to key political leaders of J&K by the Union govt has led to speculation about the possible scheduling of the Assembly elections.
- In this regard, Delimitation is crucial for kick-starting the political process in J&K.
Delimitation & Need for it:
- Delimitation is the act of redrawing boundaries of an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat to represent changes in population over time.
- This exercise is carried out by a Delimitation Commission whose orders have the force of law & cannot be questioned before any court.
- The objective is to redraw boundaries in a way so that the population of all seats is the same throughout the state.
Frequency of Delimitation carried out in J&K:
- The Delimitation exercises in J&K in the past have been slightly different from those in the rest of the country because of the region's special status.
- Until revoking special status, the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats in J&K was carried out by the Indian Constitution, while the delimitation of the state’s Assembly seats are governed by the J&K Constitution & J&K Representation of the People’s Act 1957.
- The last exercise was conducted in 1995 by Justice KK Gupta Commission based on the 1981 census.
- There was no delimitation commission set up by the govt after the 2001 census as the J&K Assembly passed a law putting a freeze on the fresh delimitation of seats until 2026.
- After the abrogation of J&K’s special status in 2019, the govt in 2020 march set up a delimitation commission as per the Indian Constitution headed by Justice R P Desai with a task of winding up the delimitation in J&K in a year.
- As per the J&K Reorganization Bill, the number of Assembly seats in J&K would increase from 107 to114.
- But due to the COVID pandemic, the commission was granted a year’s extension & the commission start functioning properly only from this year.
22nd June Mains Questions From Indian Express
1) “The time has finally come in providing Women full rights on all temple rituals”, In this context Discuss the Challenges & Steps to be taken to do so. (250 Words)
Topic: GS1