153 POSTS
Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of ‘Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire’, and the award-winning ‘Lords of the Deccan’. He hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti and is on Instagram @anirbuddha.
This is pathetic print team.
Like a dead body went on to be a god, a virgin became pregnant without sex and some idiot in desert started flying to moon on a donkey and made women independent by raping kids
The Print is getting high on Click Bait. And, falling into the trope of “I can make controversial / insulting comment about Hindus / Hindu Gods” and still pretend to be relevant. How else to read the title of this article – irrespective of the merits of the content one wonders if there will be a similar statement about calling “other” Gods “controversial”
The blogger starts with a conclusion—Brahmins corrupted a pure local god and invented women’s exclusion—then hunts for evidence to back it up. Treats folk ballads as historical fact. Ignores that women worship Ayyappa exclusively in Coorg temples.
Never proves when the exclusion actually started or whether forest peoples already practiced it. Uses a colonial-Marxist playbook: local good, Brahminical bad. Won’t ask the questions that matter because they’d destroy the narrative.
This is advocacy wrapped in academic language, not history. It’s what happens when someone with a platform has no accountability to get it right
Stop misinterpreting the temple customs.
It is not about restricting women. It is about asking men to stay away from women, during the 40-day penance, which ends at the temple.
And right when the penance ends, if you make women enter the penance, then what’s the point of doing the penance?
Believing women have no problem, because they understand.
It is holier-than-thou atheist women, who are doing drama.