Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
In India, narratives of religion and politics - especially during election time - are at times intertwined and on other occasions running at cross purposes.
So, it is no surprise that just as the electoral campaigning in Kerala entered its 'silent' period on Tuesday (April 7), the legal din raging over the contentious issue of the entry of women into the Sree Dharmasastha Temple at Sabarimala for the past several years started its gradual rise to a crescendo.
Thankfully, the onset of this phase, expected to end in resolution of the legal conflict - not just of Sabarimala but also of other faiths - was not preceded by political hectoring of opponents in the electoral terrain.
In the first phase of this immensely significant hearing, the Supreme Court shall listen to the parties that have either filed, or are supporting the review petition, against the top court's 2018 order which allowed women entry into the Sabarimala temple.
The highest court of the country and the Election Commission of India would certainly not have peered into the calendars of the other while declaring crucial dates for the nation's jurisprudence and politics, but the coincidence is hard to overlook.
The former did so by kickstarting hearings by the nine-judge Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, on the Sabarimala review and related constitutional matters.
In contrast, the latter scheduled a more raucous bout and fixed the date of polling in the state where people have traditionally turned out in high numbers to press the EVM button.
Although a coincidence, this crucial legal narrative over one of Kerala's most revered temple and deity will first run for 3 days till the day of voting, April 9. Following this, the top court will listen to submissions from parties opposing the review.
Eventually, on April 21, the court will listen to rejoinders from both groups and on the next day, the judges will hear the arguments and opinion of Amicus Curiae, Senior Advocate K Parameshwar and Advocate Shivam Singh.
The hearings in the petitions, seeking a review of the 2018 judgment where a five-judge bench ruled by a 4-1 majority that nullified the ban on entry of women aged 10-50 (presumed reproductive age), will be carried further ahead; the top court will go through the entire timeline on hearings it scheduled in February, by April 22, after which it is expected to reserve its judgment. The suspense over the judges' verdict shall remain for a period that is difficult to predict.
The final phase of hearings in the Sabarimala case is critical for incorporating matters that impinge on both individual rights as well as social and religious tradition of specific communities and when these are opposed to the other. The hearing and eventual verdict becomes even more crucial because it would cast a shadow on matters pertaining to the entry of women into mosques and Parsi fire temples.
The moot point, however, even at this stage, is whether the judgment of the present 9-judge bench will put a stop to the legal debate over whether faith can justify the selective exclusion of women from a place of worship.
The answer to this question depends of fairly complicated interpretation of legal precedents and discretionary powers of the Chief Justice of India. Although technically, an even bigger bench can be constituted, the present one has been seen as an 'extraordinary' Constitutional Bench.
In history, there have been bigger benches, with the largest one till date being the 13-judge bench in the Kesavananda Bharati case in which the judges propounded the now contentious 'basic structure' doctrine.
Paradoxically, the basic issues that were first taken up for judicial deliberation in 1991 by the Kerala High Court, still remain the same; does not the ban on entry of a section of Indian citizens (women) to a place of worship, because it had been the 'tradition' from before the Constitution was adopted, violate the rights of those citizens?
At one level, based on the principle of equality, no citizen or follower of any particular faith can be banned from entering a temple, mosque, fire temple or any other place of worship.
But then, many in this country are of the view that faith knows little rationality. Although it is almost impossible to pin the exact date and the circumstances that led to the phrase 'blind faith' becoming part of daily parlance, most scholars opine that its usage is almost 500 years old.
Religion has been the pivotal issue in Indian politics for close to 4 decades, ever since the Ram temple-Babri Masjid imbroglio came to the fore in the mid-1980s. While religion was also a factor in Indian politics and electoral choices, this deepened as battle lines were more sharply drawn after the success of the Ayodhya agitation.
As the Supreme Court began the final hearing on Tuesday, April 7, on the long-drawn-out Sabarimala temple case, the key point from the political perspective was the change in the Kerala government and the CPM's stance on the Sabarimala temple issue.
The decision of the Pinarayi Vijayan government to back the petitioners seeking a review of the Supreme Court's 2018 verdict is an instance of a well-thought-out shift from 'confrontational activism' to 'electoral pragmatism'.
This alteration in the political strategy of the state government became sharply visible as the 2026 assembly elections in Kerala loomed closer.
But the moves toward it had been palpable -- even the LDF government's "progressive" stance over the 2018 verdict allowing women to enter the temple. For long it been at the centre of religious and political contest, not just in the state but across India too.
However, ever since the disastrous performance of the LDF in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the dilution in CPM's aggressive secularism was palpable.
Whether or not this benefits the ruling combine into votes once the first phase of hearing concludes is the moot point. The answer will be known only on May 4.
The CPM has assessed that it could not completely alienate the traditional "Hindu vote bank" that has backed the party for decades.
There is little doubt that the move has been aimed at appeasing bodies and its supporters like the Nair Service Society, among the most vocal opponents of the 2018 top court order permitting entry for women.
The Ezhava Community (represented by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam), an OBC group and backbone of the CPM's grassroots strength -- had also felt alienated by the government's perceived "anti-tradition" stance.
In the process, however, the CPM has angered some of its core ideological base, raising Congress hopes. But the GoP too has not backed the 2018 verdict, and this puts virtually all political parties, including of course the BJP, on the side of those seeking a review of the five-judge bench's verdict.
Given the central position of religion in political discourse, it does not appear odd that over the last few years, especially after the CPM-led LDF was virtually routed in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan began navigating on unchartered territories.
This has eventually led to the state government siding with the forces citing 'tradition and custom' insofar as religious practices are concerned. This has resulted in not so insignificant disillusionment among the hardcore supporters of the Left in the state.
Days before the hearing began in the Supreme Court, the Kerala government said it backs the plea for reviewing the 2018 verdict.
The moot point is whether this gesture is enough to draw the 'Hindu-minded electorate' to the LDF's fold, to the extent that this offsets potential desertions by the 'secular-minded' voters and members of the religious minorities, especially the Muslims.
The way the dice rolls will determine if the UDF will be able to wrest power after being out of power for two terms, or if the LDF will end up being thrice lucky.
(Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a journalist and writer)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
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