Even as two under-50 women became the first to enter the Sabarimala temple, following which temple priests shutting down the for "purification" briefly, and BJP-led Hindu organisations calling for a dawn-to-dusk strike, biologists from across India have issued a statement saying that the prejudice against menstruation has nothing to do with science.
In a clear support to the Supreme Court verdict ending the decades-old ban on women of menstrual age entering the shrine, the biologists said that that discrimination against women on account of menstruation in any form and any place is a glaring breach of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the core principles of the Indian Constitution.
“The notion of menstruation as pollution causes perpetual stress in women, and as they are now exposed to science and progressive values, this can cause retrogressive evolutionary change in the human females’ reproductive physiology to the detriment of the entire species,” they said in a statement.
The statement said, “The prejudice and the discrimination of women during the period of menstruation represent a gross denial of science. Menstrual blood is one of the several excretions from the human body that is central to the perpetuation of the human species.”
It added, “The notion of menstruation as pollution causes perpetual stress in women, and as they are now exposed to science and progressive values, this can cause retrogressive evolutionary change in the human females’ reproductive physiology to the detriment of the entire species.”
The statement has been signed by Dr Manjari Jain, assistant professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, Punjab; Dr PA Azeez, Former Director, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON); Prof Shakuntala Sreedhara, Member of the Board of Management, University of Agricultural Science, Bangalore; Prof Neelkamal Rastogi, Dept of Zoology, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi; Dr S Faizi, President, Ethological Society of India, Trivandrum; Dr K Sreedevi, Senior Scientist, ICAR-NBAIR, Bangalore; Dr VV Binoy, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore; and Dr Renu Kohli, Associate Professor of Zoology, Pali Govt College, University of Jodhpur.
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