Mangaluru: Veteran Congress leader B Janardhan Poojary has challenged age-old practices time and again and this time he has questioned the practice of barring menstruating women from gaining entry into Hindu places of worship.
Addressing a news conference in the city, Poojary said that in a land where women are revered as ‘goddesses’, it is inhuman to refrain them from being a part of their spiritual quest during the menstrual cycle, which is a natural phenomena.
Condemning the mentality of the people who support such a practice, Poojary said that it was unjust for a man to take birth from a woman’s womb and then ‘ostracize’ her during a natural phenomena.
“Isn’t it inhuman to keep the woman away from entering her own home and temple during the cycle,” he questioned specifically calling upon the ‘Brahmins’, the bearers of supreme knowledge as the word etymologically means, to lead the campaign demanding entry for women into temples throughout the year.
Referring to the Kudroli Gokarnatha Temple, he said that a woman irrespective of her background or her physical condition, is allowed to take part in all the rituals on any given day.
He opined that every temple which advocate barring the entry of women must take a cue from the Kudroli temple.
It may be recalled that a woman from Pune last week managed to perform puja at the Shani temple in Shingnapur as a protest against the age-old practice, causing an uproar following which the locals carried out a ‘purification ritual’ at the temple.
It may also be recalled that under the leadership of Poojary various reforms revolving around women were initiated in Kudroli temple. Asking women to continue wearing symbols of marriage (mangalsutra, vermilion etc) even after death of their husbands, making these women take part in pooja rituals in the temple, and appointment of women priests at the temple were some of the reforms that were initiated by Poojary in Kudroli temple.
