Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has asked the Endowment Department of Andhra Pradesh to auction the land of Hindu religious institutions that it controls, for constructing homes for poor. The Andhra government under its flagship program had promised to build 19 lakh homes for the poor in rural as well as urban areas, but the major problem the state faces is a shortage of land for these homes. So, Naidu wants to swoop down on temple land to save face. Building homes for the poor is a noble initiative but snatching land from Hindu institutions might not be fully justified.
Hindu temples are facing an assault from “secular” state governments all across the country. These governments under various Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) Acts, control our temples. The HRCE departments are headed mostly by autonomous boards to which there often are Marxist or non-believer academic appointments. Now state governments borrow money from these religious institutions, which are rich because people donate to them handsomely. The governments not only use temples money to finance themselves, they also use land owned by them without any payment to them. Control of Hindu religious institution violates following constitutional rights of Hindus:
- Article 14 — Equality before Law. The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
- Article 15 — Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
- Article 25 — Freedom of Religion.
- (1) Subject to public order, morality, and health…, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion.
- (2)(a) Nothing in this article shall… prevent the State from making any law regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice;
- Article 26 — Freedom to Manage Religious Affairs. Subject to public order, morality and health, every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have the right
Swarajya Magazine prepared a chart on how the India government discriminates with Hindus institutions:
Since BJP came to power there has been greater emphasis on Hindu Sensibilities in politics. In the Karnataka elections, freeing of religious institutions from the government’s clutches was a major electoral issue. BJP included the point in its manifesto, promising do so if it comes to power. Siddharamaiah, who was busy celebrating various anniversaries of Tipu Sultan throughout his tenure as chief minister, is now proclaiming that he is proud Hindu. He claims to have taken back a legislation which was about government control of Lingayat mutts and Ashrams.
In the holy name of secularism, the governments took control of Hindu religious institutions. They control even the religious rituals carried out in temples, decide who will be appointed as the chief Pujari of the temple, manage their finances and even tax the income of Hindu temples. This seems similar to the Mughal period when “jizya ( a special tax paid by Non-Muslims if the ruler was Muslim) was paid by Hindus. The worst thing about government control of religious institution in India, is that only Hindus have to suffer from this because there are no legislations to control Churches, Madarsas and other Non-Hindu religious institutions. In fact, there is no government control on even the educational and medical institutions run by these religious groups. Governments in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have for long donated to these institutions for their vote bank politics.
In Andhra Pradesh, the Congress was ousted out of government because among other things, it tried to attack the religious sentiments of the Hindus. During the Congress era, a law was specially enacted to ensure that Christian religious institutions retained their land, and these institutions control a lot of land since independence anyway. If Naidu wants to build homes for poor, perhaps he should try asking the church for some land too. Let us see if he dares.