Click to play videoNew Delhi: Call it cosmetic changes or a sign of the changing times but the managing committee that runs Kerala's famous Guruvayoor temple have decided to allow women wearing salwar kameeze inside the temple premises.
So far women were allowed to go inside the temple only in saris and mundus.
The decision follows demands by women's groups for a change in the outdated dress code followed by the temple.
But even the new norm may not get the thumbs up from activists as women in jeans and trousers are still not allowed inside the temple. Men, too, are not allowed inside if they are in trousers and shirts.
The Guruvayur Devaswom Managing Committee says the change is part of an ongoing process of reforms triggered by the outcry over a purification ceremony held after a visit by Union Minister Vayalar Ravi's son Ravi Krishna for the naming ceremony of his son.
The thantris (priests) had said that Ravi Krishna is a Christian and so shouldn't have been allowed to enter the temple.
Ravi's wife Mercy Ravi, a former Congress legislator of the Kerala Assembly, is a Christian by birth. The temple board, however, later apologised to Ravi's family.
Last month the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing of the CPI-M, staged what it called the 'second Guruvayoor Satyagraha', calling for a revival of renaissance values.
The very same day, the BJP undertook an all-women's day-long fast to protest the CPI-M's demand to bring about legislation to open up Kerala temples to all devotees regardless of their religion.
The issue of allowing entry to non-Hindus was first raised by Kerala Devasom Minister G Sudhakaran, who wrote to the temple board that eminent singer KJ Yesudas, a Christian, be allowed to sing Hindu devotional compositions in the temple premises.
Skeptics say the Dewaswom's latest missive is just a half-hearted effort at change because the main demand, that of allowing non-Hindus entry into the temple, is yet to be met.
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