In Kochi, there aren't snow days, but there are... hartals. A general all-Kerala hartal has been called for tomorrow, January 3. Everything will be closed from 6 am to 6 pm. That means the children's much-anticipated first day of school has been pushed to Friday, as has the program we were planning to participate in at the college tomorrow afternoon. The USIEF briefed us about this when we had our orientation meeting, but I didn't expect we'd get to experience our first hartal so soon!
A hartal is a general strike; Gandhi used them in his anti-British protests. Kerala uses them frequently, so much so that a local business association declared a week or two ago that in 2019 they would stop going along with hartals because it is too much loss to the economy. Different groups call them; historically, it is a way to demonstrate to the government that it is taking actions that the populace disagrees with. Kerala has a long history of freely-elected Communist government and is quite a leftist place; we walked by the Young Communist headquarters in Fort Cochin a few days ago. But this hartal is being called by Hindu nationalist groups who are upset about women entering the Sabarimala temple. There is a temple in the Periyar national park, in the mountains east of Kochi, which has its most important pilgrimage period right now. These are the pilgrims I mentioned (and photographed) in an earlier blog post.
A few months ago, the Supreme Court ruled that women should be allowed to enter the temple, because there was no historic/religious reason to ban them. Everyone is arguing about whether it has always been traditional since time immemorial to ban women from the temple, or not. Certainly there are many documented instances of women in the temple prior to the official ban in 1991. One strong tradition is to bring your baby there for his first feeding of solid food; women were involved in that. But the Hindu nationalists argue that those were exceptions and the rigorous religious practice involves only men ascending the 18 holy steps and making their pilgrimage to the deity in the sanctum sanctorum. Since the Supreme Court ruling, several women have tried to enter the temple, but they have been repulsed by protests. Last night, accompanied by police officers "dressed in mufti," (according to the newspaper) two 40-something women entered the temple and made their darshan-- the first women to actually enter the temple since the ban was lifted. They did not walk the 18 steps but rather entered from a side entrance reserved for VIPs. They started their ascent around midnight and entered the shrine at 2:45 am. Today, all hell has broken loose at the temple. The shrine was closed for purification, and the BJP, the ruling party of the Prime Minister Modi, is outraged and staging protests and waving black flags at government ministers wherever they appeared today. The official committee that governs the temple called for the hartal this afternoon.
Will the merchants observe it? My local friend advised me to head out tonight to the grocery store, because even though they made this strong statement, there is fear of retribution if a hartal is not observed, so most likely everything will be closed. In this case, the BJP is the ruling party-- they are hardly an aggrieved minority, so a hartal seems like a dubious tactic. Do St Teresa's College and the children's school, both Christian organizations that support the education and empowerment of women and girls, support the cause of the hartal-calling protestors? No. But they are still observing the hartal.
Will the crazy traffic suddenly cease tomorrow? Will the call to prayer still blare from the neighborhood mosque every few hours? Will the ferries still cross the bay every few minutes? I will watch, and report.
A hartal is a general strike; Gandhi used them in his anti-British protests. Kerala uses them frequently, so much so that a local business association declared a week or two ago that in 2019 they would stop going along with hartals because it is too much loss to the economy. Different groups call them; historically, it is a way to demonstrate to the government that it is taking actions that the populace disagrees with. Kerala has a long history of freely-elected Communist government and is quite a leftist place; we walked by the Young Communist headquarters in Fort Cochin a few days ago. But this hartal is being called by Hindu nationalist groups who are upset about women entering the Sabarimala temple. There is a temple in the Periyar national park, in the mountains east of Kochi, which has its most important pilgrimage period right now. These are the pilgrims I mentioned (and photographed) in an earlier blog post.
Will the merchants observe it? My local friend advised me to head out tonight to the grocery store, because even though they made this strong statement, there is fear of retribution if a hartal is not observed, so most likely everything will be closed. In this case, the BJP is the ruling party-- they are hardly an aggrieved minority, so a hartal seems like a dubious tactic. Do St Teresa's College and the children's school, both Christian organizations that support the education and empowerment of women and girls, support the cause of the hartal-calling protestors? No. But they are still observing the hartal.
Will the crazy traffic suddenly cease tomorrow? Will the call to prayer still blare from the neighborhood mosque every few hours? Will the ferries still cross the bay every few minutes? I will watch, and report.
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