Source:Guruprasad's Portal
Suma
is a 75 year old woman residing in a village at the outskirts of Mysore
in the state of Karnataka. With a religious bent of mind, she wakes up
early in the morning and after her bath, draws Rangoli in front of house
and spends 15 mins in the puja room, reciting prayers, reading Shlokas
and finally a mangalarathi in which she offers Rs 5 as token offering
(from her savings) and places this into a jar in the corner of her puja
room. She does this religiously 365 days an year and by the end of the
year, she has 5*365 = 1825 rupees in the jar which is basically her own
savings. At the beginning of the next year, she donates this entire Rs
1825 into a temple hundi in her village, assuming that it would help in
sustaining the temple and hence her faith.
I am sure most of us are able to co-relate Suma to devotees among our friends and families as well. There are millions of such Sumas all over India who painstakingly save money and contribute a part of it to temples as part of their belief and as charity. Although such Sumas know that the donation does not actually go to the heaven, they have enough common sense to know that it might atleast help in maintaining the temple and other charitable activities undertaken by the temples along with providing a means of livelihood to the temple priests.
However, what she is not aware of is the
demon called “secularism” which has torn the system into tatters,
defying all logic, and turning the future of these temples bleak.
Without her knowledge, she is indirectly funding madrassas &
christian missionaries!! This might sound like an absurd statement but
it is indeed true.
Before going into the details, let us
first look at what our Constitution says. The makers of our Constitution
were visionaries who strove hard for equality and religious freedom and
the same is reflected in Article 26 of Constitution of India, which
promises freedom to establish religious & charitable institutions
and manage their own affairs in matters of religion (which implies no
interference from Govt).
Page 13 of the Constitution of India in PDF format here:
http://india.gov.in/sites/upload_files/npi/files/coi_part_full.pdf
Despite such assurance/guarantee from
the Constitution, it is surprising to find that the Govt has managed to
intervene in matters of religious institutions (temples) in the pretext
of “streamlining activities”. And what makes it more illogical is the
discrimination, because the Govt has intervened only for Hindu religion
and not for any other religion. This actually started with the
implementation of an act called “Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act”
in 1923 (During British Rule), which became “Hindu Religious and
Charitable Endowments Act XXII” in 1959 and has been implemented in
several states in India in different forms, and despite several
variations, the core idea is Govt control and fact remains that Govt
seeks control of all the Hindu temples (i.e Some term it as
“Nationalization of Temples”).
As per this law, the Govt has every
right to acquire Hindu temples and it already has control of more than
250,000 temples in Karnataka, more than 400,000 temples in Andhra and
similarly lakhs of temples in other states. As per this law, all the
revenues generated by the temple (including Hundi funds) will go to the
Govt (not the temple priests/heads) and it is the prerogative of the
Govt to decide how much of this revenue will be returned to the temples
for their maintenance.
Here is one such act implemented in Karnataka in 1997 superseding all the previous acts.
Official link to the softcopy of the Act:
http://dpal.kar.nic.in/pdf_files/33%20of%202001%20(E).pdf
As you can notice, the appointment of
officers, archakas & even appointment of temple servants, is in the
control of the govt. It even goes to the extent of controlling the
salaries of all of them.
Although one might argue that having it under Govt control might streamline the process, the flaw in such argument is that not only is it against the Constitution (which speaks against state intervention in religious matters), but it is discriminatory as well because the same does not apply to other religions like Islam or Christianity. i.e There is no such Govt interference in Mosques or Churches.
Now comes the most unfortunate part.
Over the last few decades, secularism has gradually turned into
pseudo-secularism which is basically appeasement politics. There have
been instances where a state govt had collected all the revenues from
temples, but returned only a part of it to them for their maintenance
& salaries, and diverted rest of the revenues (from Hindu temples)
towards subsidizing Haj, funding Madrassas & Missionaries!!
Even Tirupati temple funds were not spared and were being diverted towards other activities.
Glaring inconsistencies were observed
especially during the tenure of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister
Y.S.Rajashekar Reddy who was notorious for christian evangelism activities.
Consider the year 2002. Karnataka State
Govt received around Rs 72 crore from 251,000 temples. But only Rs 10
crore was returned to the temples while rest of the funds were used for
other purposes including funding of Rs 50 crore for madrassas & Haj
subsidy and Rs 10 crore for Churches.
Also, notice that the number of temples
have reduced because thousands of temples had to be shut down due to
“lack of funds”!! It makes no sense because there was sufficient revenue
(Rs 72 crore) generated from temples but they were not used towards
temples and were instead used on activities of other religions, thereby
allowing the temples to deteriorate and shut them down citing lack of
funds.
Coming back to the original topic of
Suma, the innocent rural old woman. There are millions of such Sumas who
are painstakingly saving money and donating a part of it for religious
and charitable institutions/temples which in turn are being used to fund
madrassas & churches without her knowledge.
So, is it all over for Hindu temples?
Are Govts going to divert funds like this in the name of secularism and
close down Hindu temples? Is there nothing anybody can do?
Of course, it is possible to set things
right. The founding fathers of the Republic of India had laid a very
strong foundation where each citizen’s voice can be heard. But the
problem is that when millions of citizens like Suma do not even know the
issue, how is it possible for them to speak out against it? So, the
first thing that must be done is awareness. Next is to use the relevant
platforms to raise the voice.
We have a democratic system and a strong
judiciary which is independent of the executive. i.e No Govt can
influence any decisions in Judiciary. In the last few years, this matter
has been witnessing pretty good momentum and there have been intense
debates over this and in some cases, the matter has reached all the way
to the Supreme Court.
When the State Govt of Tamil Nadu
acquired the famous Nataraja temple, a case was filed against it in
Supreme Court and the Honorable Judge upheld the Constitution and
slammed the State Govt, thereby reverting the decision and ordering the
Govt not to interfere in the temple management.
Following is the excerpt from Supreme
Court judgement which slams the State Govt for violating “Fundamental
rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India”
Official link to the softcopy of Supreme Court Judgement:
http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=41133
Official link to the softcopy of Supreme Court Judgement:
http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=41133
If the above link does not open, you can check/download it from the archives here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140309201103/http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=41133
https://web.archive.org/web/20140309201103/http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=41133
However, the above judgement of Supreme
Court applies only to the case for which it was filed i.e Nataraja
Temple in Tamil Nadu, and rest of the lakhs of temples will still
continue to be under Govt control, but this small victory gives a ray of
hope to those who want to set things right. Instead of waiting for more
activists to file lakhs of such cases, the best option would be to vote
for those entities (during assembly elections) who can uphold the
ideologies of true secularism (not pseudo-secularism) so that they can
use that landmark judgement by Supreme Court to debate on the floor
(Assembly) and pass necessary amendment or maybe even get rid of the
whole act itself so that there is no interference by the Govt, avoid
such diversion of funds towards other activities and use them for
intended purposes, so that millions of Sumas across India would not feel
cheated when they donate their hard earned savings to temples.
