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    SACRED MISSION

    Entry to a shrine in South India has sparked a national battle over women’s rights
    by Rohini Mohan/Kerala Jan 21, 2019 7 minutes
    Bindu, left, and Kanakadurga were the first women to officially enter the shrine

    SLUMPED LOW IN THE BACK SEAT OF AN SUV, the two women switch on their cell phones. They had turned them off to avoid tracking, but the friend taking them to their third safe house in three days says it’s safe to use them en route. It is the first time the women have been able to call home in more than a week—a week in which they have found themselves on the front line of a gender-equality battle raging in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

    At about 3 a.m. on Jan. 2, 40-year-old law professor Bindu Ammini and 39-year-old government supplies officer Kanakadurga Koylandi (both go by their first name) entered the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, Kerala. They became the first women to officially do so since the Supreme Court overturned a long-standing ban in September that prevented women of “menstruating age,” defined as ages 10 to 50, from entering the temple.

    Thought to date back to before the 12th century, the Hindu temple receives more than 5 million visitors a year, making it the site of one of the largest annual pilgrimages in the world. Before they make the steep barefoot trek to

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