Sabarimala is the Ayodhya of the South. Just as then UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had suppressed Ram Bhakts in Ayodhya back in 1990, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan is repeating the act in Sabarimala. This is not Adil Shah’s regime. This is not Joseph Stalin’s Russia. Leaders are answerable to the people.

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Under the garb of the Supreme Court verdict, the chief minister is terrorising poor believers who have thronged the temple premises. He is behaving like a dictator. The way women have been ill-treated by the security forces, assaulted, not shown any mercy, not allowed to eat or drink, is highly condemnable. India is not a police state. Pinarayi Vijayan has crossed all limits of decency. The state’s police has been unleashed on bhakts.

We demand that the Central government dismiss the state government immediately. Or else, we are prepared to go to any length and are willing to launch, if needed, a nationwide agitation to present our case. 

Things have reached such a stage that even the Kerala High Court has been forced to comment that the state government wants to turn the state into a battle ground. The state is not allowing free worship. Worshippers have been compelled to face every possible hurdle in their effort to reach the holy site. After such a steep climb, there is no place for the pilgrims to rest. Bus drivers who carry pilgrims have been threatened by CPM hoodlums against ferrying them. There is no arrangement for drinking water or toilets for pilgrims, which was always the case in this place visited by believers for hundreds of years. This is crucial for abhishekham in the morning, but the administration could not care less. 

There are few parallels in India about what was done to pilgrims on the night of November 18. Hundreds of Ayyappa believers were rounded up, assaulted and no provision was made for their daily ablutions, all under the grab of secularism and following court orders. They were treated like terrorists and sent to judicial custody for 10 days. The way the worshipers were beaten up and women bundled into vehicles, it did not appear that we are living in an independent Hindu country.

My question is why were prohibitory orders under Section 144 clamped? Was there any threat of riots or violence? The country wants to know what the threat perception was. The Kerala government is duty-bound to tell the people of this country about the impending threat. The attitude of the Kerala government is an insult not just to Hindus, but to Ayyappa followers around the world and there are millions. 

There are some people who are branding this people’s struggle as a fight between the Constitution of India and believers’ faith. In reality though, this is actually a defence of the values enshrined in the Constitution itself. The Constitution of this country gives people the right to worship who they like. Law comes into the picture only if people from other religions or a different sect raises objections. This is not the case here. 

The people who forced their entry into the premises were not Ayyappa followers. They were anti-social elements, which the state government did nothing to control. I would go as far as saying that these elements had the backing of the state government that seems hell bent on disturbing peace and order in this holiest of holy place.

The Communist government is keen to use force and suppress the aspirations of the pilgrims and believers. That the Vishwa Hindu Parishad will never allow. Let me also take this opportunity to warn Pinarayi Vijayan that at the moment, the struggle of the devotees is confined within the state, but if things are allowed to deteriorate, it would grow into an all India movement, like Ayodhya.

May I also take this opportunity to request the courts that by allotting January 22 as the next hearing in the case, they have given a chance to the Kerala government to further suppress the movement and carry on their atrocities, unabated. After all, if court hearings of terrorists can be held at a one or two-day notice, why should the plea of worshippers be postponed for months on end?

Also do remember, just as we had risen from the ashes of Ayodhya, the same thing is going to be repeated in the South.

Author is a senior VHP leader