What my wife did three months ago, Trupti Desai ‘achieved’ last Thursday: Visited Haji Ali through the entrance earmarked for women; covered her head with her dupatta; skipped the inner sanctum.

The difference: She got massive media coverage apart from tight security. She prayed of course, it was a vast improvement over her attempt on April 28 when she did not enter the shrine at all.

What did she do once inside the shrine on Thursday? She prayed that ‘women must be allowed to enter inner sanctum.’

How sober! How civil!

Contrast this with her aggression on earlier occasions in Hindu temples.

First, her attempt to enter Shani Shingnapur on January 26^th. She went with busloads of supporters unlike the ‘three members’ who accompanied her to Haji Ali. They were stopped 70 kms ahead of the temple. Watch this video to for her histrionics at being stopped: Ms Desai and her team lie down on the road, shout slogans, and block traffic on the Ahmednagar- Pune highway. She had even planned to storm the temple ‘from sky route even via a helicopter’, says this Zee News report. When the temple administration struck a conciliatory note by saying that if the issue was one of gender equality, they would not allow men to enter the sanctum sanctorum as well, her tongue-in-cheek response was: Are the pujaris robots? 

Now come to her April 2^nd attempt to enter the temple. Watch this video. Even after ‘maar peet’, which ended in her team being badly hurt, she was prepared to die (marne ke liye be tayyar hi) rather than leaving the temple. She lashed out at Fadnavis and threatened to file FIR against him.

Turn now to the entry into the garbha griha of Mahalakshmi temple in Kohlapur. What was the issue here? A woman could enter the sanctum only if she wore a saree. Ms Trupti protested and won an entry while wearing a salwar kameez. The rebel in her meekly accepted the diktats of Haji Ali trustees when she covered her head with dupatta.

‘Our fight to enter inner sanctums is not targeted at any particular religion. Our fight is not against religion but wrong practices of religion,’ writes Ms Desai in her column in Indian Express provocatively titled ‘My right to enter the sanctum’. Really? Why, then, did she mellow down when it came to Haji Ali?

Reasons are not hard to get. Support for her theatrics has dwindled.

Consider this piece in Scroll, which talks about Trupti’s media consciousness, her 4,000 strong Bhumata Brigade and the 21 branches it has, and the facts that she had been a fighter since her college days and that she fought gender inequality in Hinduism despite being a believer.

Note that libe

Now flip the magazine by two months. Remember that in the intervening two months Ms Desai had attempted to enter Haji Ali. What does Scroll have to say now? ‘Has Trupti Desai undermined a bid by Muslims to secure access for women into the Haji Ali dargah?’ asks a recent column. The contents of the piece are more forthright: It is Muslims fight. Hindu women should keep off. At best, they can play a supportive role. These seculars won’t have a problem when a Wendy Doniger presents an alternative history of Hindus or when a Sheldon Pollock when he ‘dismisses or discounts the transcendental perspective’ of Hinduism. Ms Desai erred in her estimate of these seculars.

On 12^th April i.e.) before she ventured into Haji Ali, Livemint described her as a ‘fiery social activist rather believes in challenging the more substantive stereotypes that have created fault-lines in the Indian social life. The denial of access to women to the Shani temple is just one of those more substantive stereotypes that Desai has just shattered.’ Now? Silence.

Trupti’s appeals to the Khans of Bollywood to support her in her Haji Ali project did not evoke any response. Of course, two of the Khans are so bothered about the growing intolerance in this country that they have no time for such trifles.

Finally, Javed Anand (you have forgotten him, haven’t you?) has a piece of advice for Ms Desai: Resist attempts to communalise Shani Shingnapur and Haji Ali issues. According to him, it was Sangh pariwar’s trap and she walked into it. He advocated peaceful dharna to gain entry into Haji Ali. He did not have similar piece of wisdom when she forced her way into Shani Shingnapur or Mahalakshmi temple or Triambakeshwar.

Even the judiciary is taking its sweet time to decide on the Haji Ali issue. Arguments in the case are over. Yet the Bombay court would wait for Supreme Court’s verdict on Sabarimala before pronouncing its judgement as the issues are similar. How? The petition by Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan says that the ban on women’s entry in Haji Ali was imposed in June 2012. In other words, it is just a four year old—tradition is a heavy word—practice. How can this be compared to centuries old tradition of Sabarimala?

Contrast this extra cautious approach with the speed with which it delivered judgement in Shani Shingnapur. When the government advocate sought time to respond to the issues raised by the petitioners in the Shani Shingnapur case, the Bombay High Court was worried that ‘the violation would continue’ in the meanwhile. It reluctantly allowed one day.

In the final analysis, women’s entry into holy places is as much a religious issue as a gender problem. It has to be solved patiently by engaging different religions and the different sections in each religion and evolving a consensus. Applying different yardsticks to different religions will only polarize the nation. All we can hope is the Trupti Desai’s and seculars of the country understand this sooner rather than later.