It would appear that some of those who came together to decide on having a human chain of women in Kerala on January 1, did not know what it stood for. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had met with representatives of 176 Hindu groups to talk about a women-centric event in light of the mounting issues at Sabarimala. Criticisms have been pouring in ever since the announcement of ‘the women wall’ got published. The newest is the selection of CP Sugathan as Joint Convener of the general council for the big event that many find disturbing.
Sugathan, state general secretary of the Hindu Parliament, had attended the meeting the CM called on Saturday, but apparently he wasn’t aware what the women wall stood for. Ever since the SC verdict allowed all women to enter the temple at Sabarimala there have been protests, mostly by the right wing, about the state government implementing the verdict. Sugathan was, it would seem, right in the thick of these protests. Sneha Koshy, NDTV’s Kerala Bureau Chief, tweeted today about being heckled by protestors including Sugathan when her team was reporting at Sabarimala. She posted a picture too of the man in action.
“We were at the Pampa base camp when a vehicle suddenly came and these protestors started running towards it, shouting slogans and all. So we thought there might be a woman and ran behind them. The protestors were creating a scene but it was police personnel inside the vehicle, going undercover. Once the vehicle went away, their attention got diverted, they saw me standing there, and heckled us,” Sneha says.
Her short tweet points out, “CP Sugathan, man among those who stopped us (NDTV) team at #Sabarimala,where we were heckled has been appointed by CM as Jt Convenor of committee to oversee human chain of women from Kasargode to TRV.”
It seems Sugathan too suddenly realised the women wall might be in support of young women entering Sabarimala and says if that is the case, he would withdraw from the programme. Sugathan is also known for the distasteful remarks he had made on Hadiya, a woman whose conversion and subsequent marriage to SDPI man Shafin Jehan created a controversy in the state. He had reportedly written a Facebook post asking Hadiya’s father to kill her and go to jail.