On 19 October, 2018, Dr Subramanian Swamy, a Rajya Sabha MP nominated by BJP, sent out a series of tweets justifying the demand that women should not be allowed to enter Sabarimala. The arguments to support this ban have emerged from the ancient notion that menstrual blood is impure. Dr Swamy’s contention was that the women should not be allowed inside the temple due to health reasons. He claimed that “admission of women in menstruation period in Sabarimalai was to protect the women from mutation from gravitational matrix“. He further claimed the during the menstruation period, “the gravitational matrix in the said temple can affect pregnancy“. The denial of admission of women in menstruation period in Sabarimalai was not twisted to their being “unclean” and that instead it was to protect the women from mutation from gravitational matrix of the Temple location then such women would have voluntarily abstained from coming — Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) October 19, 2018 A compromise in Sabarimalai Temple issue proposed: 1) Menstruating women are not in the eyes of the divinity impure 2) However during that period the gravitational matrix in the said temple can affect pregnancy 3) Hence such women as a custom voluntarily don’t enter the temple — Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) October 18, 2018 Dr Swamy’s tweets were seen as a reversal of his position from what he had expressed right after the Supreme Court verdict where he suggested that he had always been advocating gender equality in worship on the Sabarimala issue. He had even suggested that the Supreme Court order should be enforced with the assistance of military. I am happy that SC has decided that gender equality in worship is to be followed in Sabarimalai. This what I had been advocating — Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 28, 2018 Thereafter, Dr Swamy changed his position on the Sabarimala issue and suggested that the supreme court should reconsider its verdict. In the course of this article, we will examine Dr Swamy’s scientific claim that a unique ‘gravitational matrix’ within the Sabarimala temple may be a cause of genetic mutations in women thereby impacting their health. Dr Swamy claims that there is something called as ‘gravitational matrix’ which is a distinct form of gravitational force only present in the Sabarimala Temple. Many theories including that of Newton and Einstein have tried to explain gravitation – the phenomenon that attracts everything with mass and energy to one another. Matrix theory of gravitation is one such proposed theory which is identical to what Einstein estimated. Gravity is the force of attraction that pins us to Earth and prevents us from floating off our roughly spherical planet. This force of gravity throughout the land’s surface on Earth is largely the same, at least perceptually. Due to changes in ground altitude from the sea level across the Earth’s land surfaces, there may be a small variation in the gravitational forces. This is because gravity changes as we go further away or higher in altitude from the sea level on Earth. NASA and the European space agency map have extremely sensitive accelerometers that have mapped out the gravitational field of Earth with over 3 billion points. With this form of high resolution, there were differences of gravitation measured by the gravitational acceleration (standard g= 9.80665 m/s), i.e. the speed gained by an object in a free fall due to gravity. For example, Mount Nevado Huascarán in Peru has the lowest gravitational acceleration, at 9.7639 m/s, while the highest is at the surface of the Arctic Ocean, at 9.8337 m/s. As opposed to the minimal or lack of gravity in space, this difference due to uneven landmasses on Earth is just 0.7% and has no impact on any complex living organism such as humans. Our body’s entire set of genetic material is called our genome- which is packed in smaller bundles called chromosomes. Our chromosomes reside in the nucleus of our cells that carry the genetic information (or genes) for growth, development and other bodily functions. This genetic material (genotype) is largely inherited and determines physical attributes (phenotype) such as height, skin colour or eye colour of a newborn. These genes are made of several molecules of DNA which can be broken or changed due to a mutation. However, there are other ways to change this genetic material. While mutations are permanent changes to genetic material that can occur at random, either during replication of genes, which is an ongoing process of new cell formation and growth, external influences can such as prolonged exposure to chemicals or UV light can also cause mutations.