Why Sabarimala Verdict Should Be Reconsidered?

By looking at the heroic celebration, prima facie, it seems that recent Sabarimala verdict by
Supreme Court of India where the women between the ages of 10 and 50, are allowed to enter
into the Sabarimala temple is a kind of victory over bad by good backed by overdose of modern
values. But the moment you will land on reality after this philosophical journey, you will see a
blunder in making. Now, Peoples reaction to Sabarimala verdict shows that Supreme Court
should upheld the faith of Ayyapans and protect them from further exploitation of their belief.
For the Supreme Court, the Sabarimala case was a test of “constitutional morality” and the
majority judgment concluded that the exclusion of women between the ages of 12 and 50
violated the equality principles of Articles 14, 15 and 17. At the same time, the Court, by not
addressing the issue of whether this exclusion was “essential religious practice”, in effect
concluded that it was a mere embellishment. The Court applied the test of rationality and
implicitly concluded that Swami Ayyappa’s vow of permanent celibacy was too abstruse to
compromise absolute principles of the Constitution. That the deity’s seclusion from fertile
women was an integral part of the Ayyappa tradition and unreservedly accepted by devotees—
including women— was disregarded. Instead, primacy was attached to academic objections by
non-devotees.