FAQ : Everything you wanted to know about the ‘Freeing Hindu Temples From Govt Control’ campaign

This is an FAQ on all questions that come to ones mind around Freeing Hindu Temples from Govt Control. I’ve collected information from various sources to bring this to you. As a non-legal person myself i have tried to keep this in layman language for larger understanding. I was initiated into this cause in 2016 via social media, leading to J Sai Deepak’s talk which i organised and eventually to this fund-raising activity for the same cause. If you have a question or contributions that is not covered here, please leave us a comment

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Freeing Hindu Temples from Govt Control

10 min readJan 7, 2017

There’s no better way to learn about this obnoxious exclusively anti-hindu act than by watching this video by J Sai Deepak:

All religious institutions in India (being a secular country) are permitted to conduct themselves the way they want! Aren’t they?

Ironically, India is the only country where the majority religious community is being discriminated against.

Religious and cultural freedoms for all religions are recognized in Articles 25–30 in Part III of the Constitution which deals with “Fundamental Rights”. The right is, however, subject to regulatory power of the state under clause (2) (b) of Art. 25. This mean secular activities connected with religious institutions can be regulated by state under law.

Various state governments through their respective Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) Acts have assumed financial and management control of thousands of Hindu temples across India. They did this under alleged accusations of mismanagement of funds, other than carrying forward the legacy of the British Raj when such acts to control funds of Hindu institutions were enacted.

It is worthy of noting here that no other religious institution (barring Jain institution, as by legal definition Jains are Hindus) — Churches, Mosques, Gurudwaras belonging to Christian, Muslim and Sikh practitioners respectively, despite their scale or similar accusations of mismanagement of funds, have been brought under acts similar to the HR&CE Acts issued by various states all over India.

Here is a graphic chart produced by Swarajya Magazine comparing the legal rights of Hindus in managing their temples with the legal rights of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs:

Source: http://swarajyamag.com/culture/why-we-need-to-free-hindu-temples-from-government-control

How did this all start?

Tamil Nadu

While there is a British Raj legacy to management and interference in Hindu temples, it was the Tamil Nadu government in 1951 took over control of temples and their funds in Tamil Nadu via an Act.

This Act was originally brought about by atheists in 1925 and was called the Madras Religious & Charitable Endowments Act 1925. Muslims and Christians raised a lot of noise and they were then left out of it, and the act was renamed Madras Hindu Religious & Endowments Act, 1925 (I am sure that Hindus must have made noise as well, but pagan religions as opposed to Abrahamics, despite having extremely regressive ideas about God, seem to have special animosity with (reformist) atheists from within the Hindu fold).

The 1951 Act was challenged in the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court, and was struck down by the courts. With some changes, in 1954 and 1956, the government enacted The Tamilnadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959 (Tamil Nadu Act 22 of 1959) to tighten its grip on Hindu religious institutions.

To understand this better, read this India Facts article — http://indiafacts.org/temples-and-the-state-in-the-indian-tradition-part-8/ — which explains the gory details of the colonial and post-independence history of subversion of Hindu temples.

The Tamil Nadu HR&CE Act was challenged in the Madras High Court in 1954. Journalist B.R. Haran in his article “HR & CE — A fraud on the constitution” writes: “Between 1950 and 1959 the Madras High Court and Supreme Court heard different cases concerning Chidambaram Temple, Mulkipetta Venkataramana Temple and Shirur Mutt and ruled in all the cases categorically that the HR and CE Act 1951 was ultra vires of the Constitution and struck down the sections of the Act, which sought to appoint executive officers to religious institutions, as arbitrary and unconstitutional”

However, the Tamil Nadu state, via a legislation brought back the HR&CE Act in 1959. Sh. TR Ramesh (who i will introduce later in this FAQ) writes:

“The Government of Madras introduced a new section [section 45] in the 1959 Act which was even more arbitrary and draconian than Sec. 56 of the 1951 Act. It also retained the Sections 63–68 in the new Act which now carried the numbers 71–76. The only section relating to appointment of Executive Officer that was upheld by the Hon’ble Supreme Court was not carried in the new Act. But this would not seem strange if we understand that the intention of the Government and the Department was that no appeal safeguards should be provided to the Trustees of Hindu Institutions against the Department’s illegal and arbitrary orders. Sec. 58(3)(b) of the 1951 Act had earlier afforded such safeguards — it was therefore removed by the Government.”
“More intriguing is the fact that this rogue department continue to appoint executive officers under Sec. 64 of the 1959 Act (the equivalent of Sec. 58 in the 1951 Act) without any power to do so. For example, the deputy commissioner in 1963 modified the scheme for Shri Kamakshi Amman Temple of Kanchipuram, which is under the ownership of the Kanchi Mutt. While proceeding to modify the scheme under Sec. 64 of the Act, the deputy commissioner appointed an executive officer and this is an illegal act.”

A precedent was set for other states to follow

Slowly, other states followed. I quote from an article in The Hindu:

IN STATES all across India, Governments are using one pretext or the other to take over the running of Hindu temples. The Haryana Government recently enacted legislation to take over dozens of temples in the State, following closely on the heels of the “Kurukshetra Shrine Bill” that allowed the State to take over the functioning of 75 temples in the Kurukshetra area. The Archaeological Survey of India recently acquired jurisdiction over the famous temple in Pushkar, Rajasthan. This takeover of temples by Governments follows the precedent set by numerous southern Governments that have over the years acquired a substantial stake in tens of thousands of temples.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/08/23/stories/2003082301731000.htm

The problem is acute in 7 states namely, Tamil Nadu (worst hit), Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha and Maharashtra, but as you can see every state government has blood on its hands including BJP led governments — even as recent as the Rajasthan government challenging a Supreme Court judgement in Rajasthan High Court. See below:

For ages, Hindu temple land vests in its principal deity which has been recognized as a legal entity by the courts.
But the Rajasthan high court has upturned the norms governing upkeep and administration of temples by ruling that deities being minors could not cultivate land and hence temple land should vest in the state government. The HC order has mainly hit the pujaris hard as they have been for generations maintaining the temples and their families through income from cultivation of temple land.

The consequence of the HC decision is that all lands of deities would now vest with the Rajasthan government, which has even issued advertisement for auction of Deity lands. The petitioner said this ruling affected lakhs of small temples/deities, primarily in the rural areas and small villages.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Temple-deities-are-minors-can-they-own-land-SC-to-decide/articleshow/49876924.cms

What is the motivation of the state governments to do so?

Purportedly it is better administration. But prima facie it is to fill state coffers with ‘easy’ temple ‘money’.

How much money are we talking about here?

But is it not a good idea for government to control temple funds? After all there is so much money laundering and fraud in religious institutions!

First, fraud in a few temples does not make a case for take over all temples across the country by the government.

Second, and most importantly, no other religious community in India (barring the Jains who are by legal definition Hindu, and suffer the same with Jain temples) have to bear the brunt of such Acts to control their religious institutions.

Shall we assume that the state governments in India believe Hindus have poorer & lower standards of ethics and values than Indians of other religious denominations? Or is it that in a ‘secular’ India religious minorities are untouchable while Hindu institutions (and the donation money they attract) are considered easier to be meddled with?

Temples at the center of Hindu life

Sanjeev Sanyal in this talk speaks about how temples were at the center of the massive decentralized trade network which made (and kept) India an economic superpower controlling about 33% of the world’s GDP until about 1100AD. He explains that traders in this time were working as merchant guilds, and that much of the financing of the risky voyages they took in the Indian Ocean rim were actually funded by the decentralized temples. It was the temples which acted as banks.

Sanjeev goes on to share that when the Turkic invasions happened the entire trade network suddenly collapsed because the Islamic invaders not only targeted the temples for their money, but to possibly also subvert the tremendous economic trade power they exerted. He has explained that it was the same idea of subverting India’s proud scientific, literary, martial and philosophical history that the Nalanda University was burnt for 6 months and monks culled (Ref: http://www.pragyata.com/mag/distortion-of-indian-history-281 ; 25 mins).

(Hopefully your tempers are rising! Calm down! Ask on, read on!)

Here is an excellent presentation published by IndiaFacts which talks about the same idea of temples being at the center Hindu society .

Source: http://indiafacts.org/government-control-hindu-temples-presentation/

You should also listen to J Sai Deepak’s talk — he also spends time discussing the various dance and art forms, and entire communities which had their names associated with the services they offered to temples.

Are all temples in all states taken over? What about my local temple near my home?

Is the HR&CE Act being legally challenged in courts around the country?

Chidambaram Temple was freed from Tamila Nadu government’s control in 2014. In 2009 a single-bench judge of the Madras High Court passed orders upholding the appointment of executive officer by the Tamil Nadu government, and that the State can intervene and regulate administration.

This is when a big battle started. The Dikshitars were joined by three more people including Subramanian Swamy who impleaded themselves in the case, and after losing in the High Court, appealed in the Supreme Court.

Swamy argued that “Section 107 specifically bars the application of the Act to institutions coming under the purview of or enjoying the protection of Article 26 of the Constitution.” . He contended that if there were allegations of misappropriation of temple’s property then it should be dealt with under the provisions of Indian Penal Code and not by taking over the temple administration. (Ref)

A bench of two justices of the apex court set aside the order of the Madras High Court reversing the order of the Madras High Court which in 2009 transferred the administration of the 1000-year-old Lord Shiva temple to the Tamil Nadu government. This was in 2014.

This has set the precedent for such individual temple battles to be fought.

As recent as Dec 2016 hearing a PIL filed by a devotee, the Madras High Court has threatened to abolish the HR&CE Department of the Tamil Nadu Government.

The Madras high court on Wednesday threatened to ‘abolish’ the Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR&CE) department of the Tamil Nadu government and even ‘abrogate’ the HR&CE Act. (Source)

Reference reading:

— — — —— — — MY NOTINGS FOR COMPLETING THIS FAQ — — — — — -

How many temples in which all states are under govt control?

I quote from http://frfnet.org/SaveHinduTemples.pdf:

Thousands of small and medium temples, in addition to nationally and historically important temples such as Jagannath in Puri, Tirupati, Kashi Vishwanath, Vaishno Devi, Shirdi, Guruvayoor, Chamundi Devi, Dattapeeth, Kali Mandir of Patiala, Amarnath, Badrinath, and Kedarnath, are already under government control, and have been so for decades in many cases.

In Tamil Nadu…

Who are the prominent people fighting individual cases in various courts across India?

J Sai Deepak

About Sh. TR Ramesh

Shri Ramesh had a typical career till 2009, when he offered his services -albeit as a lay devotee- to the administrators of the ancient Chidambaram Temple — when their temple was unjustly taken over by the State Government. Since then he has made considerable research in law relating to Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments. From the year 2011 he has been fully engaged in retrieving our temples from Government control. He has contributed a few articles on Religious Endowments Law, and also, authored a book in Tamil on the Hindu Religious Endowments Department.

In 2011, he and a group of people from Chennai started a Registered Society — Temple Worshippers Society. (Website) and FB: https://www.facebook.com/Temple-Worshippers-Society-478026595552813/?fref=nf

But it is not entirely true that government controls only Hindu institutions. For instance the Minority Affairs minister Najma Heptullah sits on the Waqf Board which controls all Waqf Boards in India.

What all is happening around the country to battle this? Who all is fighting cases? What has been the outcomes?

There are many initiatives around the country to free Hindu temples. However, most of these have been at the individual temple level.

PIL in the Supreme Court

Chilkur Balaji Temple Protection Movement

Source: http://www.dharmasamsthapana.org/chilkurtemple-protection.html

The organisation is largely is fighting

Do remember this is a battle that MUST BE WON. In one shot you can:
— stop religious conversions in India
— defeat the nasty Missionary-money and Gulf-money led religious conversion programs which subvert the national integrity of our nation
— stop temple thefts
— revive dying arts and dance forms including temple architecture
— revive vedic pathshalas and learning
— integrate various castes and jatis into the temple community
— bring millions of people back into the Hindu fold
— start a large scale movement of modern schools run by these temples benefitting hundreds of thousands of children in India
— ensure better distribution of wealth among economically weaker communities
— re-establish dharmic values and narratives in this country
— all this leading to a political and social integration of the nation