For godmen like Swaroopanand, religion is an excuse to rape

Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, whose official designation is "Shankaracharya of Dwaraka-Shara Peeth", is now a name that will make regular rounds of news circuits, thanks to his blockbuster debut with comments made earlier today. His diagnosis of Maharashtra drought as a consequence of Sai Baba worship in the state and his prognosis of women's entry into Shani Shingnapur temple as something that will spur the rape epidemic further are bright shining jewels in a gem-encrusted firmament of politically-inclined babas and priests routinely airing superstitions as sentiments.

Women entered Shani temple inner sanctum, due to this, incidents of rapes will increase further-Shankaracharya Swaroopanand

— ANI (@ANI_news) April 11, 2016

Reeking of crusty old patriarchy's ugliest stenches, Swaroopanand's remarks unspool the tangled web of prejudices informing and bolstering each other, all leading to concentric circles of exclusions. Firstly, just like the temple administration of Sabarimala, the big bang moment of Swaroopanand's religious universe is a primordial banishment - that of women, and, of course, also of Dalits. The very sacredness of certain sanctum sanctorum is premised on those exclusions: of women, lower castes, and of those belonging to different religious orders.

Hence, when Swaroopanand says entry of women into Shani Shingnapur temple would "lead to more rapes", he conveniently shifts the responsibility for violence against women on the women themselves. Even in the 21st century, women, it seems, must "respect" the boundaries set for them by organised religion of different kinds, breaching of which would mean bringing upon themselves the necessary and logical, almost correctional and divine, consequence: rape.

Rape is therefore patriarchy's answer to women who transgress, cross over what is sacred, sanctified and hence, off limits for women (or/and the lower castes). Rape is punishment as cure for women who demand equal rights and access to their own bodies, their own cities, their own temples.

This traditionally handed over concept of sanctity is obviously at loggerheads with constitutional principles of equal rights to a) pray, that is freedom of religion, and b) access public spaces. While the Bombay high court has interpreted places of religious worship as public spaces, therefore legally accessible to all, especially women, the matter is being heard in the Supreme Court. Moreover, the top court is also debating what to make of so-called traditions that discriminate against the very tenets of the Constitution, that is on the basis on gender, caste and religion.       

In fact, the #RightToPray campaign, spearheaded by Trupti Desai and others, is less about religiosity than it is about access to places of worship which traditionally "forbid" women's entry, either at all times, or when they are menstruating, and therefore "contaminated". We see medical terminologies seeping into religious orthodoxies as fear of contagion and pollution (brought about by women's presence) becomes the primary engine of patriarchy as religion and/or family. Just substitute the temple with the kitchen to get the drift.

In November last year, the then newly-appointed Travancore Dewaswom Board president, Prayar Goapalkrishnan, caused a massive brouhaha when he said Sabarimala temple would need a "machine to scan women's purity" (indicating whether or not they are menstruating) in order to allow their entry into its hallowed space. That sparked the widely reported #HappyToBleed campaign, after a young woman, Nikita Azad, penned an open letter demolishing the "scientific sexism" of the Sabarimala head.

Swaroopanand's comments, therefore, are a throwback to this still predominant notion of sacredness and sanctity that "scientific temperament" hasn't been able to eradicate.

This co-existence of science and superstition in twenty-first century India isn't just an aberration: it is the norm. Our ministry of AYUSH is a glaring example of such institutionalised superstition, which gives the highest possible official stamp, that of the government of India, to unsubstantiated, statistically inadequate claims of half-baked practices in the guise of promoting traditional medicine. While Baba Ramdev proclaims to have, among other things, a "cure for homosexuality", and peddles cow milk and urine as the ultimate antidote to cancer, even central ministers such as Nitin Gadkari are not immune to housing such charming views.

It is interesting that while the current establishment presents itself as a technocratic utopia, scientific temperament and modern medicine are being systematically dismissed as a left-liberal conspiracy, a colonial hangover.

So it's not enough to rebuke or condemn Swaroopanand Saraswati's confident remark that the drought in Maharashtra is because of the cult of Shirdi Sai Baba, who Dwaraka peeth Shankaracharya says is a "false prophet". This isn't only about rival factions within organised Hinduism taking pot shots at each other. This is about the long hand of religion overwriting real scientific progress with competitive superstition disguised as belief.

And, of course, this isn't limited to just Hinduism. Obscurantist, misogynist strains are as ubiquitous in Islam and Christianity as they are in the former.

Ironically enough, even the Nehruvian consensus - the grand project of nation building premised on a staunch division of law, science and religion - has not just failed to plug the gaping holes in our understanding of what is modernity, but has actually emboldened the prejudices within various religions. Secularism, in the Congress era, has been a euphemism for each religion to its own, with arbiters and gatekeepers of religious orthodoxies gaining unchallenged powers to keep a staggering majority out of their ambit of sacredness.

So, the twin comments by the 94-year-old "seer" have been justifiably castigated by many as insensitive and irresponsible, but are they any different from the frequently broadcasted opinions held by say a Baba Ramdev, or a Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti? Or, what a number of Indian television soaps peddle in the name of dramatised "tradition"?

Not much, actually.