Bindu Ammini | |
---|---|
Nationality | Indian |
Occupation(s) | Lawyer, Lecturer, Activist |
Spouse | K.V. Hariharan |
Children | 1 |
Academic background | |
Education | Government Law College, Ernakulam (LL.B.) |
Alma mater | University of Kerala, Kariavattom (LL.M.) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Government Law College,Kozhikode |
Bindu Ammini is an Indian lawyer and lecturer at Government Law College,Kozhikode,and a Dalit activist. [1] She is one of the two first women between the age of 10 and 50 to enter the Sabarimala Temple after a Supreme Court of India decision allowed women of reproductive age to enter the temple.
Ammini is a Dalit who was raised in Pathanamthitta,Kerala. [2] [3] She is the youngest of five siblings. [3] After her mother left her father,Ammini and her siblings were raised in poverty by their mother,who was illiterate and worked at farms,factories,and hotels. [3] [4]
In 2001,Ammini became the first in her family to attend college. [3] [4] As a student,she was a leader in Kerala Vidyarthi Sanghatana,the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI [ML]), [5] [2] and became the youngest female state coordinator for CPI (ML). [3] According to Time ,"she clarifies that the party she was in is state-recognized and that she has never believed in armed rebellion",and she quit the party in 2011. [3] [note 1]
She attended Netaji Higher Secondary School in Pramadom,Pathanamthitta,and did her pre-degree course at Catholicate College Pathanamthitta. She earned a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Government Law College,Ernakulam and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from University of Kerala,Kariavattom Campus,Thiruvananthapuram. [5] [4]
Ammini has worked as a lawyer in the Koyilandy court,and has taught at Calicut University and the School of Legal Studies at the Thalassery campus of Kannur University. [2] [5] [4] She also runs a grocery store with her husband. [3] She is a lecturer at Government Law College in Kozhikode. [1]
Ammini is a Kerala state leader for the Bhim Army,a Dalit rights organization. [6] She ascribes to subaltern feminism,which has a focus on the rights of women in oppressed classes. [3] In 2022,after she faced ongoing violence and cyberbullying following her entry into the Sabarimala Temple, [1] she spoke about the casteist nature of the abuse targeted at her,stating,"The 'absolutely unprotected' is not just me,it is the women,Dalits and Adivasis" and "If you ask why I'm being targeted among all these women,caste is a factor",referring to other women who had attempted to enter the temple,such as Rehana Fathima. [7]
After Ammini was publicly assaulted in January 2022,she stated,"I am not safe here anymore,the only option is to leave the country and seek asylum." [8] Her legal advocate Prashant Padmanabhan has served a notice on the Kerala government,alleging a violation of the January 2019 Supreme Court order that requires the government to provide security for Ammini and Kanakadurga, [9] and Ammini has alleged her Dalit identity is related to the failure of police to provide her protection. [10]
After the Supreme Court decision allowing the entry of women between the ages of 10 and 50 into the Sabarimala Temple, [11] Ammini joined social media groups created by activists. [3] She met Kanakadurga on the Facebook page for Navothana Keralam Sabarimalayilekku (Renaissance Kerala),which was organized for women who wanted to visit the temple. [5] [4] Ammini has said she believes the protest against women entering the temple is politically motivated, [12] and,"We were not trying to start trouble",and "Our goal was only to visit the temple. For the next generation of women,this is motivation." [4]
On 22 December 2018,Ammini,Kanakadurga,and two other women,met in Thrissur and then attempted to go to Sabarimala. [3] The other two women quit during the trip,and on 24 December,Ammini and Kanakadurga were stopped by protesters. [3] [4] They then went on a hunger strike to protest the lack of police protection. [3] [4]
Ammini and Kanakadurga entered the Sabarimala temple around 3:45 am on 2 January 2019. [13] They wore black clothes and hurried inside,escorted by the police. [13] Videos of their temple entry were circulated in social media in India with messages of support and opposition. [14] Their temple entry was confirmed by the chief minister of Kerala,Pinarayi Vijayan. [15] After they entered,the priests closed the temple for a purification ceremony. [3] [16]
Ammini was placed under police protection after the entry to Sabarimala [17] [14] and went into hiding after the entry. [18] [19] Her house was mobbed by people belonging to Sabarimala Karma Samiti,and other organizations which opposed her entry to Sabarimala. [2] In February 2019,she said she was still receiving death threats. [11]
Some members of the Bharatiya Janata Party called their entry a "black day". [17] The chief minister of Kerala,Pinarayi Vijayan,a supporter of the Supreme Court decision,said the entry into the temple by Ammini and Kankadurga was a historic moment. [16] Senior lawyer Indira Jaising compared their entry to the temple entry movement led by B. R. Ambedkar,and represented Ammini and Kanakadurga in legal actions to obtain police protection. [1]
In November 2019,the Supreme Court kept its 2018 decision in place,but set the case for review by a larger bench. [20] The Kerala government then withdrew its support and police protection for women entering the temple,pending the decision of the Supreme Court. [21] [22] After this announcement,Ammini and other activists,including Trupti Desai,went to the Ernakulam City Commissioner's office in late November to seek police protection for another attempt to visit the shrine. [22] [23]
Ammini was attacked by chili/pepper spray outside of the commissioner's office,and was hospitalized. [24] [25] [26] Afterwards,Prabhir Vishnu Poruthiyil described Ammini as the "Rosa Parks of our time",and wrote,"She has shown us the tenacity of patriarchy and has exposed the casteism lurking behind the facade of tradition." [24]
The National Commission for Women asked the Kerala director general of police to send an action report regarding the incident. [27] In December 2019,the Supreme Court declined to grant protection orders for the Sabarimala visit. [28] On 24 February 2021,the Kerala High Court granted pre-arrest bail to two people alleged to be connected with the group that sprayed Ammini when she went to the Ernakulam City Commissioner's office in 2019. [23]
When she was 18,Ammini met her husband,K.V. Hariharan,while active in student politics and they settled in Poyilkavu after their marriage. [2] [3] She has a daughter,Olga,named after Olga Benário Prestes who was killed in the Holocaust. [3] [4]
Sree Padmanabhadasa Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, popularly known as Sree Chithira Thirunal, was the last ruling Maharaja of the Indian princely state of Travancore, in southern India until 1949 and later the Titular Maharajah of Travancore until 1991. His reign is known for several notable reforms that have indelible impact on the society and culture of Kerala.
Indian Union Muslim League is an Islamist political party primarily based in Kerala. It is recognised as a State Party in Kerala by the Election Commission of India.
The Sabarimala Sree Dharma Sastha Temple is a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Ayyappan, who is also known as Dharma Shasta and is the son of the deities Shiva and Mohini.
The status of women in India has been subject to many changes over the time of recorded India's history. Their position in society deteriorated early in India's ancient period, especially in the Indo-Aryan speaking regions, and their subordination continued to be reified well into India's early modern period.
Suhasini Raj is a journalist based in India. At Cobrapost she conducted Operation Duryodhana, aired on Aaj Tak news channel in India on 12 December 2005, wherein she bribed eleven members of the Indian Parliament to ask questions in Parliament that were ostensibly meant to be lobbying for small scale industries. Currently she works with the south Asia bureau of The New York Times in Delhi.
Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is an Indian jurist, who is the 50th and current chief justice of India serving since November 2022. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of India in May 2016. He has also previously served as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court from 2013 to 2016 and as a judge of the Bombay High Court from 2000 to 2013. He is ex-officio Patron-in-Chief of the National Legal Services Authority and the de facto Chancellor of the National Law School of India University aka NLU BANGALORE & many other National Law University like NLU MUMBAI etc. He is also the Designated Visitor of National University of Study and Research in Law aka NLU RANCHI.
Rahul Easwar is an Indian public policy commentator, philosophy author, advocate and activist from Kerala.
Trupti Desai is an Indian social activist and the founder of the Bhumata Brigade & Bhumata Foundation, a Pune-based organization. Desai has campaigned for allowing women to religious places like the Shani Shingnapur Temple, the Haji Ali Dargah, the Mahalakshmi Temple, and the Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple, all in Maharashtra, and most recently the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. In 2012, she was an Indian National Congress candidate for the Pune Municipal Corporation elections. In 2021, she participated in Bigg Boss Marathi 3 as a contestant and evicted on Day 49.
The Ready To Wait campaign is a social movement initiated in September 2016 by a group of female devotees of Hindu deity Ayyappan, as a response to a petition filed in the Supreme Court by women's groups to demand the right to enter the Sabarimala temple, located in the southern Indian state of Kerala, which traditionally restricts entry of women of reproductive age. The campaigners of "Ready To Wait" asserted their willingness to respect the traditions regarding entry to the Sabarimala temple. It started as a social media campaign with the hashtag #ReadyToWait and soon gained momentum as Hindu women from all over the country took to social media to show their support.
Grace Banu is an Indian software engineer who is a Dalit and transgender activist. She was the first transgender person to be admitted to an engineering college in the state of Tamil Nadu. She lives in the Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu.
Sabarimala is a temple dedicated to Shasta, in Pathanamthitta District, Kerala, India. Women and girls of reproductive age have traditionally not been permitted to worship there, as Shasta is a celibate deity. The Kerala high court provided a legal justification for this tradition, and since 1991 onwards, women and girls were legally forbidden to enter the temple.
Vanitha Mathil was a human chain formed on 1 January 2019 across the Indian state of Kerala to uphold gender equality and protest against gender discrimination. The wall was formed solely by women and extended for a distance of around 620 kilometres from Kasargod to Thiruvananthapuram. Around three to five million women participated in the event.
Happy To Bleed is a social movement to counter menstrual taboos and stigma in India. It was initiated by Nikita Azad, a women's rights activist and an undergraduate student of English honors at Government College Girls, Punjabi University, Patiala,. Azad's real name is Nikita Arora, who is a Rhodes Scholar for 2018-2020 at the University of Oxford, UK where she will read for the MSt in Women's Studies (2019) and the MSc in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology (2020).
Sunny Kapicadu is a Dalit writer-activist from Kottayam, Kerala, India. He has been vocal about the marginalization of the downtrodden. He has taken active part in numerous protests related to issues faced by Dalit communities. Several of his speeches are archived on social media portals like YouTube.
M. Geethanandan is an Indian social activist working on political and economic issues faced by tribals and dalits in the state of Kerala, India. He co-founded the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha along with C.K. Janu and others. He has been involved in organising several protests and struggles of Adivasis (tribes) and Dalits, notably the Muthanga agitation, an incident of police firing on the Adivasis in the Muthanga village of Wayanad district, Kerala.
Rehana Fathima, also known as Suryagayathri, is an Indian women’s rights activist from Kerala.
The Great Indian Kitchen is a 2021 Indian Malayalam-language drama film written and directed by Jeo Baby. The film tells the story of a newly-wed woman who struggles to be the submissive wife that her husband and his family expect her to be. The music was composed by Sooraj S. Kurup and Mathews Pulickan.
Events in the year 2019 in Kerala.
Events in the year 2018 in Kerala.
J. Sai Deepak is an Indian Hindutva activist, lawyer, and writer. As a counsel, he practices before the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Delhi.