Hindu retreat in southern India attacked
October 28, 2018
Police have arrested at least 3,347 people since Friday for protesting the entry of women into a Kerala Hindu temple.
A Kerala police spokesman said Sunday the arrests were made for rioting and unlawful gatherings. The authorities later released all but 123 people on bail.
At least two cars and one scooter were set on fire on the premises of a Hindu hermitage, or ashram, in south India early on Saturday. The incident comes after thousands of protesters clashed with police in an attempt to keep women of menstruating age out of the Sabrimala shrine dedicated to celibate Hindu deity Ayyappa.
Hindu extremists are enraged by the idea of allowing access to the Sabarimala temple for females between 10 and 50 years of age. They say their presence would besmirch the rites dedicated to Ayyappa, the god of growth. Banning women or men from attending certain ceremonies is relatively common in the polytheistic Hindu religion.
The traditional ban was formalized by law in 1972. Last month, India's Supreme Court revoked it and ordered for women of all ages to be allowed entry.
The founder of the Kerala religious center targeted on Saturday, Swami Sandeepananda Giri, is also an activist urging for women to be admitted to the Ayyappa temple. Giri blamed the ruling party for the attack on his ashram.
Modi's government against Kerala state
The top court's decision to allow women into the Sabarimala temple was decried by officials from the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which holds power at the federal level.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP accused Kerala's state government – run by a coalition of communist parties – of insulting Hindu sentiments by insisting on opening the temple to women of childbearing age.
"The Kerala government should stop the brutality in the name of the Supreme Court judgment," BJP state chief, Amit Shah, said Saturday at a rally in Kerala.
Thomas Issac, Kerala's finance minister, said the state government was complying with Supreme Court's orders, accusing the BJP of politicizing the temple issue for electoral gains.
General elections in India are due by May of next year.
Communist 'conspiracy'
Fueled by religion and gender issues, the dispute also feeds into a larger showdown between the right-wing government of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Kerala administration steered by the Communist Party.
The head of BJP party, Amit Shah, already slammed the Kerala government for using "brute force" against protesters and said that BJP would stand by those who were arrested.
Read more: Social media fuels vigilantism and mob attacks in India
"It's a well-planned conspiracy to destroy the sanctity of temples in Kerala by the communists," he told BJP supporters in Kerala on Saturday.
Government critics accuse the BJP of fanning nationalist violence, with extremist Hindu mobs lynching Muslims and other minorities for breaking Hindu religious norms, such as eating beef.
India's Supreme Court is due to hear petitions challenging their ruling on women's access to temples on November 13.
shs, dj/jm (AP, AFP)