Haji Ali dargah opens for women after 5-year battle

The entry by members of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) into the mausoleum came more than a month after the Haji Ali Dargah Trust told the Supreme Court it will allow women inside the inner sanctum of the shrine. Women devotees’ entry into it was banned in 2011. “Around 400 women from BMMA today went to the dargah. We also offered a ‘chaadar’ (shawl) there and paid our respects to the saint,” Zakia Soman, co-founder of BMMA said. She said the trustees were very courteous and did not resist their entry into the sanctum sanctorum of the dargah, one of the famous landmarks of Mumbai. “On the contrary, they offered us tea and spoke to us for some time. Their welcoming stand towards women is a great moral victory for us,” she said.  

The centuries-old Padmanabha Swamy temple decided to relax its dress code for women, permitting devotees to wear the traditional Indian salwar kameez and churidar while worshipping at the shrine but the temple’s senior Tantri (priest) has voiced opposition to the decision.  Earlier, women devotees had to wear a mundu over their waist before entering the shrine.