Religious obscurantism sends Kerala spiraling into chaos

Hindu elite not above the law despite their role in protests that erupted after women were allowed to enter sacred temple.

File photo.

By Reverand Valson Thampu
New Delhi:  It is to Kerala's discredit that this southern Indian state known for its progressive outlook has become the focus of national attention as a theater of religious obscurantism and communal irrationality.

For a long time, Kerala has been touted both at home and abroad as having a progressive society; a place where the common man is politically well informed.

The public sphere, though politically vibrant, is free from rancor and ill will. Kerala remained a model, until recently, of social sanity and political temperance.

Then came the Supreme Court's ruling on Sabarimala temple last September, stressing that all women have a right to enter this sacred venue that hitherto only men could gain access to.

Traditionally, only women aged below 10 or above 50 have been allowed in the temple. Those not in these age brackets were deemed "impure" because they were prone to menstruation, and so forbidden access. Critics decried this as a draconian form of discrimination.

Few imagined the decision by India's top court to legitimize a woman's right to equal treatment at the Lord Ayyappa shrine would set the stage for such a religio-political drama, which is threatening to set the state back decades.

After several months, the frenzy whipped up by communal freebooters appears to be fizzling out, but that doesn't mean the matter is settled.

There are issues here neither we, nor the Christian community in Kerala, can afford to overlook.

The foremost aspect of the Sabarimala face-off is its agenda of caste elitism. The strategy of the religio-political elite throughout history has been to keep the attention of the people focused on issues irrelevant to their welfare.

Readers acquainted with the arguments presented in Thorstein Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899), would realize that the social-economic-political-elite have always distinguished themselves by avoiding productive labor. (Aristocrats, as Tolstoy pointed out, are parasites.)

In fact, being productively engaged was considered a mark of inferiority. India took this a step further by designating those who live a life of service as lower castes and "untouchables." The parasites were, and still are, admired and applauded.

The lowest-caste Shudras, for instance, are assumed to have sprung from the feet of Purusha, the creator.

Unlike the other parts of the deity from which the priestly, warrior and trader castes are said to have originated — the head, hands and thighs, respectively — the feet are associated with labor and service.

Typically the hands, as depicted in the "Purusha Sukta" — a Vedic Sanskrit hymn used to worship the deity of Vishnu or Narayana — are only associated with warfare.

The natural complementarity between hands and feet, for example in terms of labor, is denied.

Scorning anything to do with labor, which sustains people's lives, the socio-religious elite spend most of their time and energy on trifles.

Framed in these terms, whether a woman is menstruating or not is an issue of far greater consequence than if she is granted opportunities for development and fulfillment, or if her worth as a human being is properly recognized.

This is assumed to be the disposition even of the gods!

One may wonder why a seemingly trivial issue such as allowing women to enter a shrine has become so politically charged, even casting the integrity of a deity into doubt.

Those who railed against young women's boldness in breaking with taboo in the wake of the controversial court ruling claimed that admitting them to the shrine would render the deity powerless!

This is nothing new in India, however.

Rather, this is how the religious and social elite have always functioned. While societies in Europe were beset in earlier times with serious issues — the Black Death, poverty, wars, and other scourges — there were theologians who deemed it of greater consequence to decide how many angels could dance on the tip of a pin.

Deflecting the attention of the people from their real-life issues has always been part and parcel of the elite's agenda.

This brings us to the second major issue: what is conspicuously absent from the advocacy of the "defenders of the faith" in Sabarimala is rationality.

How the proximity of a menstruating woman can undermine the "eternal" brahmacharya (celibacy) of a deity — this is strange logic as that which is "eternal" cannot be affected by anything temporal — is a question they will neither ask, nor allow to be asked.

How the biological cycles of women, aligned to the mystery of life, can be sources of pollution is also a question not to be asked.

This should not surprise anyone.

Rather, this deafness to reason is intrinsic to the class-and-caste nature of this imbroglio. The characteristic privilege that the Brahmanical priestly caste have long enjoyed has been exempt from the need to explain rationally the practices and dogmas they prescribed.

Moreover, it was considered impious to demand explanations. This has since been re-phrased as "faith is above reason." But it should read, "Brahmanical myths and canards are above reason."

Why is this so?

The problem with reason is that it militates against the domination of one class or caste by another. No agenda of domination is rational. It cannot be defended rationally. Hence the parasites of inflated privilege turn viciously against rational ideals like liberty, quality, and fraternity.

Modern education itself is viewed with fear because it is a carrier of liberal values and ideals. It is not an accident, therefore, that institutions of higher education — especially those founded on a liberal vision of education — have been targeted of late.

Throughout the world, there is a collusive partnership between fascist forces and the religious right. Both are parasites on the status quo. They perceive the rule of law, founded on the basis of liberty and equality and justice to all, as a threat.

This brings us to the third point, namely, the frontal challenge this presents to India's Supreme Court.

The orders of the highest court are declared law and as such they apply to all citizens from the date they are pronounced. Complying with the law of the land is not optional or discretionary. Citizens cannot cherry-pick the laws they will obey. The authority of the court, especially the Supreme Court, is universally binding.

There is a tacit assumption in the collective psyche of the elite that the law is only for commoners, and that children born into privilege should not be bound by them.

Hence the elite show off their power by flouting the law. The vigor of the anti-Supreme Court battle formations related to the Sabarimala issue lay precisely in the thrill of proving oneself to be above the law.

The elitist dogma that the more privileged members of society somehow hold rank over the law of the land was the basis for the hype and hysteria that ensued.

The fourth significant feature of this episode was the ease with which common folk are misled and co-opted into following the agenda of the elite.

As a rule, the socio-religious elite do not fight their own battles. They conscript unpaid mercenaries, people who get carried away by a feeling of vicarious privilege in being used as partners in arms by the elite.

Since this is an embarrassing role, its true nature has to be masked with a façade of piety; piety defined as blind adherence to whatever is deemed to be religious practice.

They lose sight, in the process, that humankind has progressed in history only by breaking and discarding irrational, anti-human and discriminatory practices in religion, politics, and culture.

For the first time since Kerala was formed on Nov. 1, 1956, the mettle of its people is being put to a stern test. But this is also an exhilarating time.

It is time for people to wake up to the mission of "rebuilding Kerala" after last year's merciless floods, not along old obscurantist, orthodox lines, but on the foundation of rationality and constitutional morality.

Reverend Valson Thampu belongs to the Protestant Church of South India. He was English professor and principal of New Delhi's St. Stephen's College.

Source: UCAN