By Vijay Gaikwad | Senior Agricultural Journalist & Policy Analyst
Mumbai: Imagine a woman — a devout Hindu, a working mother, a taxpaying citizen — who walks to the gates of Sabarimala and is turned away not because of anything she has done, but because of the biology she was born with.
Now imagine the government of India, sworn to protect her rights, standing in the Supreme Court and arguing that no one except she herself — if she is even recognised as a devotee — has the right to challenge that exclusion.
And then imagine that the same government goes a step further and questions whether the very mechanism that allows such challenges — Public Interest Litigation — should exist at all.
This is not a hypothetical.
This is what is unfolding today before a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India.
The Sabarimala dispute has been part of India’s constitutional conversation for years. At its core lies a simple but deeply uncomfortable question — can women between the ages of 10 and 50 be denied entry into a place of worship because their biological condition is seen as incompatible with the celibacy of a deity?
In 2018, the Supreme Court answered that question. A five-judge Constitution Bench held, by a 4–1 majority, that such exclusion violates the guarantees of equality, dignity and religious freedom under Articles 14, 15, 21 and 25.
That should have settled the issue.
Instead, it has opened a far more troubling one.
When the matter returned before the nine-judge bench, the Union Government did not merely question the correctness of the earlier judgment. It went further.
It argued that Public Interest Litigation — the very tool that has allowed citizens to challenge injustice on behalf of others — should be curtailed, even abolished in matters of religion. It said that non-devotees should have no right to question religious practices. It questioned the use of “constitutional morality” as a guiding principle.
At one level, this may appear as a technical legal argument.
At another, it raises a far deeper question — who gets to speak for the Constitution, and on whose behalf?
To understand what is at stake, one must understand what Public Interest Litigation has meant in India.
It did not emerge as a procedural convenience. It was born out of necessity.
In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court recognised that large sections of Indian society — the poor, the marginalised, the illiterate — could not approach courts on their own. In cases like S.P. Gupta v. Union of India and Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India, the Court expanded the idea of who could seek justice.
A letter could become a petition. A concerned citizen could speak for those who could not.
PIL became the bridge between constitutional promise and lived reality.
To now argue that only a devotee can challenge discrimination inside a temple is to narrow that bridge to the point of collapse.
It is to say that those who are excluded must first prove their right to belong before they can question their exclusion.
It is to say that the voiceless must find their own voice before the law will hear them.
That was never the purpose of PIL.
The government’s reliance on Article 26 — the right of religious denominations to manage their own affairs — also raises important questions.
Article 26 is not absolute. It is subject to public order, morality and health. And the morality referred to here has never been understood as the morality of a particular group. It is constitutional morality — the values of equality, dignity and justice that the Constitution places above all social hierarchies.
To argue that religious practice can override these values is to create a space where fundamental rights no longer apply.
A space where discrimination can be justified simply because it is sanctified by tradition.
At stake, then, is not just the entry of women into a temple.
It is the balance between Articles 14, 15 and 21 on one side, and Article 26 on the other.
It is the role of the judiciary as the guardian of fundamental rights.
It is the question of whether the Constitution speaks for every citizen equally, or only for those who are already included within existing structures.
Much is often said about India’s model of secularism — that it is not about strict separation, but about equal respect for all religions.
That is true.
But equal respect cannot mean uncritical acceptance of every practice. It cannot mean that the state stands aside when exclusion is justified in the name of faith.
A woman denied entry into a place of worship is not experiencing religious freedom. She is experiencing the limits imposed on that freedom.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar understood this clearly. For him, constitutional morality was not an abstract idea. It was the foundation of a society that sought to move beyond inherited hierarchies.
To suggest today that constitutional morality should give way to conventional morality is to reverse that vision.
The Supreme Court, to its credit, has not treated this matter lightly.
Questions have been raised about the limits of religious autonomy. About the scope of essential religious practices. About the misuse of PIL.
These are valid concerns.
PIL has, at times, been used for publicity or political purposes. Courts are right to exercise caution.
But caution is not the same as dismantling.
There is a difference between refining an instrument and discarding it altogether.
The broader context cannot be ignored either.
Over the past decade, the relationship between the state, religion and identity has shifted. Legal arguments do not emerge in a vacuum. They reflect larger currents in society.
When the state argues for restricting PIL and defers to exclusionary practices, it sends a message — not just to the Court, but to every citizen watching.
It tells the marginalised that their access to justice may depend on their ability to speak for themselves.
It tells dissenters within communities that institutional authority will be protected before individual rights.
The Supreme Court now stands at a critical moment.
If it accepts this line of argument, even partially, it risks narrowing the space through which rights have historically been claimed and protected.
PIL is not a technical provision. It is one of the few instruments through which the most powerless have been able to reach the highest court.
To weaken it in the name of religious autonomy is to close one of the last doors available to them.
The Constitution does not recognise a category of citizens who must accept exclusion in silence.
It does not say that only those who are already inside can question the gate.
And it does not allow the state to step back when fundamental rights are at stake.
The question before the Court is not only about Sabarimala.
It is about whether the Constitution will continue to speak for those who cannot always speak for themselves.
Because justice, like faith, cannot be meaningful if its doors are not open to all.
