Amidst a fierce debate over the quashing of restrictions on the entry of women into Kerala's Sabarimala Temple by the Supreme Court, Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani opined that every individual has the right to pray but not to desecrate.
"I have the right to pray, but don't have the right to desecrate. I am nobody to speak on Supreme Court verdict because I am a serving cabinet minister. But just plain common sense. Would you take sanitary napkins seeped in menstrual blood into a friend's home? You would not. And would you think that it is respectful to do the same when you walk into the house of God? So that is the difference. That is my personal opinion," Irani said at the Young Thinkers' Conference organised by the British Deputy High Commission and the Observer Research Foundation on Tuesday.
Sabarimala Temple witnessed a series of protests by devotees and priests as few women between the ages of 10 and 50 attempted to enter the holy shrine following the top court's ruling lifting all restrictions on women's entry into the holy shrine.
A five-member constitutional bench headed by former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra had, on September 28, lifted the ban on the entry of women in menstrual ages, terming the practice as "irrational and arbitrary".
The Ayyappa temple closed on Monday after it opened for five days as a monthly ritual in the Malayalam month of Thulam.
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