The calls to end the involvement of the government in the administration and control of Hindu temples in India have gained momentum in the past few weeks. The controversy over Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s allegation that the prasad served to devotees at the Tirupati temple contained animal fat has led to questions being raised against the temple management as well as the erstwhile YSRCP government under CM Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Right-wing groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have launched a nationwide campaign to end government control over temples while pointing to similar controversies at other Hindu places of worship located in states that exercise control over the temple’s functioning, income and expenditure.
Who runs Hindu temples in India?
Unlike Muslims and Christians who manage their own places of worship through community-run boards and trusts, places of worship belonging to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists see significant involvement of the government in their management. Through boards and trusts comprising government officials as representatives in several states, the government ensures considerable say in the affairs of temples.
Multiple Indian states also have laws that gives them ample say in the management of temples, its expenses as well as its income.
Even in the case of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams that manages the Tirupati temple falls under the control of the Andhra Pradesh government which also appoints its head. Tamil Nadu, another state with the maximum temples under government control, has a The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department (HR&CE) to manage these temples.
States like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan have laws in place governing the management of temples.
Others also have laws to govern specific Hindu places of worship, such as the Vaishno Devi Mata Shrine in Katra, Jammu, which is governed by the provisions of The Jammu and Kashmir Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Act of 1988.
Was it always the case?
A majority of the 30 lakh-odd places of worship in India are Hindu temples which received significant donations in the form of land as well as wealth to these temples and were seen as centres of culture and economic development.
When the British arrived in India, they saw this potential for massive wealth and a ground for government oversight. From 1810 to 1817, they enacted a series of laws in the presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay that gave them the right to interfere in temple administration.
However, opposition from within the British establishment as a Christian government was seen to be running Hindu temples, led to the enactment of the Religious Endowments Act of 1863 to hand over control of temples to committees appointed under the Act.
Yet, judicial jurisdiction over temple administration — the extension of the Civil Procedure Code and the Official Trustees Act to temples and the Charitable and Religious Trusts Act of 1920 — helped the government retain considerable influence.
According to a paper by Prof G Ramesh of the Centre of Public Policy at IIM Bangalore, the first specific law on Hindu temples came in 1925 through the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act. “This legislation (the 1925 law) and its many subsequent amendments provided for oversight of the management of temples through a board of commissioners with enormous powers, and in some cases the board could altogether take over the management of a temple,” said the IIM paper.
What changed after Independence?
After India attained independence, it retained much of the legislative control that the British exercised over temples, with the 1925 law acting as a blueprint for various states.
The first such act passed was the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act of 1951. A similar law was passed in Bihar around that time. The Madras law was challenged in the courts that struck it down and finally came a new Act in 1959 with a few modifications.
The opposition to government interference into the management of Hindu temples also dates back several decades. It was in 1959 that the RSS passed the first resolution demanding that temple control be handed back to the community.
In a resolution on the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS), the top decision-making meeting of the RSS, said, “The Sabha urges the government of Uttar Pradesh to take steps to return this temple to the Hindus … The tendency of the government to establish its control and monopoly, directly or indirectly, over the various spheres of life is becoming more and more pronounced over the last few years.”
In 1988, the Sangh’s Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal again brought it up. These resolutions had preceded protests by religious leaders in south India for control over temples.
The VHP has been raising the issue since the early 1970s. In 2021, it passed a resolution demanding a central law to free temples from government control. The BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi have advocated the idea time and again.
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