Free Hindu Temples: Is State Control Threatening Secularism?

The Madras Hindu & Religious Endowments Act, 1926, was a response to large-scale exclusionary policies of temples.

(Image: Arnica Kala/The Quint)

A strong exchange of words between ‘Sadhguru’ Jaggi Vasudev of Isha Foundation and Tamil Nadu’s newly anointed Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan has again brought to the fore the nature of Indian Secularism. How does one reconcile the government management of Hindu Temples and the secular state that we are purported to be?

The campaign to #FreeHinduTemples from the political and bureaucratic clutches of the Department of Hindu and Religious Endowments is by no means a new one.

By becoming the latest spokesperson of a long-standing campaign by Hindu elites, ‘Sadhguru’ Jaggi Vasudev hopes to return the control of these Hindu Temples to, presumably, some of his more well-to-do patrons.

Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan dismissed the movement as “nonsense” and its primary protagonist as a ‘charlatan’. But in the smooth and freely flowing English rhetoric between godman and politician, history has not been paid its due.

History of Temple Control in British India

Indeed in 1833, the London-based directors of the East India Company were forced to issue a direction that “the interference of British Functionaries in the interior management of native temples, in the customs, habits and religious proceedings of their priests and attendants, in the arrangement of their ceremonies, rites and festivals, and generally in the conduct of their interior economy, shall cease”.

No doubt this was done with the realisation that involvement in matters of religion was adversely affecting the twin pillars of their governance in India – commerce and profits.

What Jaggi Vasudev and the other proponents of the #freehindutemples movement essentially want is a reenactment of the Religious Endowments Act,1863, which divested the Madras (and Bengal) governments of its responsibility to manage religious endowments.

The Trustees were appointed for life and properties were transferred to them. Any dispute over successorship would be decided by the civil courts of British India.

• The transfer of responsibility from government to courts gave disgruntled groups a forum to vent grievances over successorship. This ensured that immediate concerns were quelled in the law’s delays.
• It also allowed the British government to exercise indirect control and supervision while appearing to be outside the fray and having to resolve the petty squabbles of the day.

As long as the aim was to only secure profits and commerce, the strategy was perfect and ideal. However, the freedom movement was also a social reform call that wanted to rid the Indian, and particularly the Hindu, society of some of its ills and exclusionary practices.

Temple Mismanagement Brought in State Control

The present structure of governmental involvement in temples was the result of the social reform movements of the early 20th century pushed by the newly appointed Indian legislators who came to power under the Government of India Act, 1919, and not of the East India Company as argued by Jaggi Vasudev.

The Madras Hindu and Religious Endowments Act, 1926, was a response to large-scale mismanagement and exclusionary policies of the temples.

The temple-entry movements catalysed by movements, such as the Vaikom Satyagraha, were aimed at securing freedom for all sections of society to pass along the public roads leading to the Sri Mahadeva Temple and was led by prominent people from the Ezhava community.

The secularism provisions in the newly framed Constitution of India sought to specifically subordinate the freedom of religion to the other fundamental rights. Article 25 begins with the words “subject to the other provisions of this part”, and the freedom to manage religious affairs in Article 26 was subject to public order, morality and health to ensure that secular reforms are not stalled on the basis of religious beliefs.

The majority judgment in the Sabarimala case is a example of a reform that would have been stalled if the founders had adopted a separation of church and state model of secularism in India.

• However, that is not to say that the government management of temples has been exemplary. There have been thefts of idols and artefacts with the connivance of government officials.
• Many of the smaller temples in the centralised system of management are not maintained well since they generate lesser income and are lower on the priority list of government officials, whose power flows from being gatekeepers of the more important temples.

But these ills will not be addressed by returning control to the Hindu elites who will bring back a new Brahminism and, I suspect, will be drawn from the same gene pool with the addition of some economic migrants.

Can Secular Institutions Govern Temples?

It is true that in an ideal world, secularism would mean a complete separation of church and state. This would also mean that religions and religious denominations should be left to manage (or mismanage) their own affairs and leave it to the adherents to take stock of their own affairs. But constitutions never have nor will they ever deal with ideal societies.

There is also the issue of the Tamil Nadu government making budgetary allocations to the department in recent years, which could make out a case that the state support of the majority religion, instead of only using the funds of the temple, realised from donations and management of the substantial properties under their control.

These budgetary allocations have circumvented the prohibition in Article 27 because they are not taxes or compulsory exactions “which are specifically appropriated in payment of expenses for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religious denomination”.

The dividing line is a thin one and it would be preferable that the State should tread on the cautionary side.

Another reform that can be explored is the Turkish solution of Kemal Ataturk temples and mosques managed by the State into secular institutions with an entry for all. Some of the temples that are managed by the Archaeological Survey of India are already run on this model and are well maintained.

Religion, said Marx, is the opiate of the masses – the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.

No doubt this is true, but as history shows us it is sometimes the opiate of godmen and governments also. But in this particular clash of civilisations, politics must prevail over the forces of religion.

(Suchindran BN is a Constitutional lawyer practicing at the Madras High Court. He has previously worked in the chambers of Senior Advocates KK Venugopal and Arvind P. Datar at Delhi and Chennai respectively. He tweets at @suchindranbn. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for them. )