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Article:
- Sundar Sarukkai, professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, analyse the implications of the recent Supreme Court observations in the Sabarmila temple case.
Important Analysis:
2. Recently, the apex court has held that temple is not a private space.
3. The court observations came while hearing the case relating to the ban on women aged 10 to 50 from entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
4. The Supreme Court’s observation on the same case:
- The CJI observed that the temple draws funds from the Consolidated Fund, is a “public place of worship” and there is “no concept of private mandirs”.
- The court said that the “right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion” is a constitutional right.
- Final judgment is yet to be delivered.
5. However, the author has put forward the following arguments on temple being not a private space.
- Temple takes public funds, but there are many public institutions, such as scientific institutions and government buildings like legislatures, which subsist on public funds but do not allow everybody the right to entry into their premises.
- There are many other religious places of worship which do not take government money.
- God may be ‘housed’ in a temple (or any other place of worship) but cannot be imprisoned and restricted to that private space alone.
- A temple or any place of worship cannot claim a right to the deity who is being worshipped in that place, since the deity by definition is present to all at all other places.
- God is not an entity who can be privatised and put under the control of certain individuals or communities or some dominant males.
- Temple is not a private space because of its dependence on the idea of god as the supreme ‘public entity’ has an important corollary.
6. According to the author, any demand for the right to privacy in a place of worship will ultimately imply the privatisation of god.
7. The author highlights that in Sabarimala temple, it is not just the link between the right to pray and the right to enter the temple space because the restriction is only applicable to menstruating women.
8. The author said that it is more about differentiating between menstruating and non-menstruating women in a public space and for a public activity.
9. The author said that “If there is one important idea similar to god and prayer, it is that of education. Like prayer, the right to basic education is also a constitutional right.”
10. He suggested that places of learning such as schools, colleges and universities are often referred to as temples of education. Education, like god, should be accessible to all, irrespective of gender, caste, class or any other obstacle.
