The women’s wall will be totally a CPM show of strength in Kerala before the general elections. ‘Ayyappa Jyothi’ is BJP’s political answer to the women’s wall.
New Delhi: Battle lines are being redrawn over Sabarimala in Kerala. Even as the question of religiosity is being raised from different quarters over the Left Front government-sponsored “Wall of Women” on 1 January, the decision of Sabarimala Karma Samithi to hold “Ayyappa Jyothi” across the state on 26 December, has added a new dimension to the ongoing controversy. The Samithi, comprising various Hindu bodies formed in the wake of the Sabarimala struggle launched by the state BJP, is led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Ayyappa Jyothi programme will be held from 6 pm to 6.30 pm along the National Highways, with the Jyothi lit on every 2.5 km from Manjeswaram in the north to Parasala in the south. The LF’s Renaissance Wall of Women is from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram and is said to symbolise the secular values of the state. It is actually a political initiative by the CPM to recapture lost ground among the majority community after the BJP launched its Save Sabarimala campaign following the Supreme Court verdict allowing entry of women of all ages into the shrine. In simple terms “Ayyappa Jyothi” is BJP’s political answer to the Women’s Wall. Over 120 Hindu organisations, besides sadhus, are participating in the event. “The Ayyappa Jyothi is for love and inclusiveness, unlike the women’s wall, which is for separation and hatred. Around eight lakh devotees will take part in the programme and each devotee will be standing at a distance of one metre from the other. No slogans will be raised during the programme; only Lord Ayyappa hymns will be chanted,” state BJP president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai said. The BJP will be using this as a platform to rejuvenate its waning Sabarimala movement at least till such time party president and Prime Minister make a trip to the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to address two rallies in the state, one at Pathanamthitta, the abode of Lord Ayyappa on 6 January and the other at Thrissur, the cultural capital of the state, on 27 January. Amit Shah is likely to address party workers in Palakkad on 31 December.
The LDF’s Wall of Women had run into difficulties right from the word go, mainly due to its own contradictions. To begin with, no one believes that such an idea came up at a meeting called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan last month. But it clearly bore the stamp of CPM, which in the past had successfully organised such “human chains” in the state as well as its erstwhile strongholds of Bengal and Tripura. The government claims that 170 organisations out of the 190 invited attended the meeting and it was they who decided that a women’s wall was the best answer to prove the secular credentials of the state in the light of women’s entry into Sabarimala. While the Nair Service Society chose to stay away, the SNDP, representing the lower caste Ezhavas, put in their lot with the government. However, no women’s organisations were invited or any women named in the committee formed to implement the programme. Though women were represented later, the government had no answer as to why it had not invited any organisations from the Muslim or Christian communities. It was as if those communities had no contributions to renaissance in Kerala. Subsequently, the Church and Muslim bodies have decided to boycott the wall. As days passed, it became evident that the CPM was trying to use lower caste organisations to counter BJP. Even veteran communist leader V.S. Achuthanandan had pointed out the dangers in joining hands with caste-based organisations in the party’s “fight against fascist forces”. The Congress has outright termed it a “communal wall” and is now planning to organise its own version of the wall. Ironically, SNDP’s Vellappalli Natesan, who is heading the committee, is openly using the platform to bargain for economic benefits for his community. His grouse is that the government had set up a welfare corporation for forward communities and not backward ones.
In such scenario, the government seems to be totally confused about the 600-km, three-million human wall. The latest confusion is about the funding of the wall. A day after the government submitted before the High Court that Rs 50 crore set aside for prevention of atrocities against women lying unused would now be utilised for the wall, CM Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday said that “not a single paise will be taken from the exchequer”. According to him, the campaign that the government would spend Rs 50 crore on the wall was misleading. However, he or his Finance Minister did not spell out where the money for such a mass movement of people would come from. But nobody doubts the ability of CPM in mobilising people in such a mass scale. In fact, that is what is going to happen. The women’s wall will be totally a CPM show of strength in Kerala before the general elections.
Still, the core aspects regarding the wall of women remain vague, except that decisions are being made by men. Women are just a pawn in their larger political games. There is no clarity as to what the wall really stands for. Is it for the Sabarimala cause, fight against divisive forces, for gender equality or for women empowerment and to end atrocities against women? The government and the CPM have no answers to such questions other than branding anyone who doubts their motive as a ‘Sanghi”. “This is no different from BJP’s rant branding detractors as anti-nationals,” said one political observer. Meanwhile, the government’s intentions regarding the entry of women in Sabarimala will be put to test when a group of 60 women from Chennai descend there on 23 December for a darshan of Lord Ayyappa.