Allowing women to enter a temple should be a no-brainer and
it is, for the most part. There are exceptions, as always, most notably at the
Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala, where women of “menstruating age” are banned on
grounds that the celibate deity wants to avoid the gaze of nubile women. So
when the Supreme Court recently upheld women’s right to enter the temple for
worship, all hell broke loose when small groups of women tried to walk up to
the hill shrine.
Despite a strong