Rationalising perspectives

Is it just casual reductionism to say that the raging controversy surrounding the shrine at Sabarimala is a matter of perspective? Are there really two separate frames of references that guide the viewpoints of those that seek to preserve tradition and those who seek to question it?

Clearly it appears that what one side views as a practice in difference, the other views as gender discriminatory. Are the rules of play really so different? 

Let us plunge into the world of differing “perspectives”, where each side is assiduously holding on to their perspective.

What appears to be a fact in one frame of reference can appear to be fiction in another. Take for example the story of a passenger sitting inside a moving train, lobbing a ball up in the air and catching it on its way down. He sees the ball as moving up and down, i.e. in a straight line. In contrast, a bystander standing on the railway platform, watching the former play ball, sees the ball follow a parabolic path. Both observations are correct, it is just that each observer is positioned in a different frame of reference and thinks of the other’s observation as false.

The court needs to be cognisant of this distinction while dealing with the temple situation.

This also reminds one of the dilemmas that exist when trying to understand the Indian idea of “dharma”, which operates on the principle that one person’s dharma could be quite different from another person’s dharma.

Viewing one person’s conduct from another’s dharma could lead to wrong conclusions and injustices. History suggests that in the past, this perspective of dealing with the differing dharmas had delivered justice, worked well and generally come to be acceptable to the people. 

Our people, though quickly adapting to the rules of modern society, continue to be bound into tradition. This is what makes us Indian. But this hybridisation creates a different set of problems, one outcome of which is the social friction generated around Sabarimala.

But then what does a court of law do in this situation? One view of the Indian Constitution is that it calls upon the court to rule upon the absolute truth in law. But then can there be an absolute truth, which is regardless of its frame of reference?

The dharma of the temple tradition imposes a restriction, which the supporters of tradition would describe as recognition of a difference.

However, the dharma of the Constitution is to invalidate any practice of difference that cannot be explained in reason. The conflict therefore arises when the dharma of the temple tradition is tested in the context of the dharma of the Constitution.

There probably are two basic approaches to finding a solution. The first, being the approach adopted by Justice Indu Malhotra, i.e. that matters of faith ought not to be adjudicated upon. The problem with this approach is that it feels like the court ducked a bouncer.

The other approach would be to get under the skin of tradition and understand its very existence, its dharma, before ruling on its reasonableness.

Most of us understand the frame of reference within which the Constitution works, i.e. the dharma of the Constitution. This leaves us with the need to investigate the frame of reference within which the temple tradition operates, the dharma of the temple tradition.

This is where things get complex. Most defenders of the Sabarimala tradition come from the Bhakti school of Hinduism, which operates in a frame of reference that does not include scientific reasoning.

This makes it next to impossible for a court of law, which operates in a scientific rationality frame of reference, to appropriately test temple traditions. Hence, the Justice Indu Malhotra approach of avoiding testing matters of faith in a constitutional context.

The other approach might be to go beyond the Bhakti school’s explanations and seek out the very origins of that tradition.

In this context, there is value in recognising that the temple tradition also alludes to the deity at Sabarimala as having been consecrated by people based on the Tantric tradition.

This tradition views the universe as a manifestation of energy in various levels of gross and subtle forms. Modern science too recognises such an idea.

In this school of Hinduism, people are said to have devised different mechanisms to tap into the various levels of energy manifestations, from the gross to the not-so-gross, for the benefit of mankind.

The temple traditions at Sabarimala is the outcome of one such effort, where the individuals that consecrated the deity devised a mechanism for ordinary mortals to tap into the subtle being, i.e. Lord Ayyappa, for spiritual benefits.

However, to preserve this specific mechanism, certain rules were prescribed, adherence to which would keep the mechanism alive, i.e. the deity functional and capable of delivery to mankind.

A failure to keep the rules going is said to compromise the deity’s ability to deliver to mankind what was promised.   

For the court to truly judge the reasonableness of this argument, it would need to get into understanding this original tradition, i.e. into the train compartment and watch the passenger play ball. 

It simply cannot stand on the train platform and rule that the ball travels in a parabola, when the man inside the train experiences a straight up and down movement of the ball. That is why the people of Kerala, an otherwise modern and secular people, and in many ways Left-oriented in their thinking, are up in arms. They experience the ball going straight up and down and not in a parabola.

Author is the founder of firm Trilegal