Will you take pads soaked in menstrual blood to friend’s place: Irani on Sabarimala

On September 28, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court, headed by then chief justice Dipak Misra, lifted the ban on entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine.

Women have been stopped by Ayyappa devotees from climbing up to the Sabarimala temple as protests against the Supreme Court order opening the hilltop shrine to women of all ages continued across Kerala.

“I am nobody to speak against the Supreme Court verdict as I am a serving Cabinet minister. But just plain common sense is that would you carry a napkin seeped with menstrual blood and walk into a friend’s house. You would not. And would you think it is respectful to do the same when you walk into the house of God? That is the difference. I have the right to pray, but no right to desecrate. That is the difference that we need to recognise and respect,” Irani said.

The Union textile minister was speaking at the “Young Thinkers” conference organised by the British High Commission and the Observer Research Foundation here.

“I am a practising Hindu married to a Zoroastrian. I have ensured that both my kids are practising Zoroastrians, who can go to the fire temple and pray,” she said.

Irani recalled that when her children were inside the fire temple, she had to stand outside on the road or sit in the car.

“When I took my newborn son (to the fire temple), I would give him at the (temple) entrance to my husband and wait outside, because I was shooed away and told not to stand there,” she said. ( The video below has the minister’s context. Her statement about her children being practicing Parsis starts at approx. 11.25 minutes)

-with PTI inputs