P. Raman 
Before the foreigners arrived, so goes the saffron narrative, India had millions of temples managed by the priests and devout Hindus. They were centres of art, education, dance and cultural activities of the community.
Every temple had charitable endowments, including property given to them, which were used for running public utilities, pathshalas (schools), gaushalas (cow shelters), dharamshalas (rest houses) and feeding the poor. Now under the ‘state control’, temples are disappearing every year.
“If we continue like this, in another 100 years all of them, except a few major ones, will be extinct. How did we end up here?” asks Jaggi Vasudev Sadhguru of Isha Foundation, in an article published in Firstpost.
As per the saffron narrative, in Tamil Nadu, the East India Company took over temples in 1817 and ‘robbed’ the owners of land, gold and diamonds. Then, they returned the temples to their rightful owners because the missionaries insisted that Christians should not run ‘pagan’ temples.
Why are Hindus not allowed to manage their own temples, they frequently ask.
In a similar tone, Sadhguru said that the Hindu community “should stand up and say to political parties, ‘If you do not hand over the temples back to the community, we will not vote for you.’… Before the 75th Independence Day, we must free the temples.”
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat too wanted the state governments to return all property belonging to the ‘Hindu society’ to their rightful owners. He found fault in temples being run by governments and trusts.
In Andhra Pradesh, the RSS gave a call to the saffron followers to launch a nationwide struggle to liberate Hindu temples from the clutches of state governments. ‘Haindava Shankharavam’, organised by the RSS state unit, was aimed at seeking transfer of temple management from the government to a Hindu dharmic body.
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Way back in 1959, the RSS had passed a similar resolution demanding that the Kashi Vishwanath temple be returned to Hindus. Its 1988 resolution, again, asked the state governments to hand over control of the temples to what it called the devotees.
In 2021, under the Modi rule, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at a Faridabad session called for a central law overriding state laws to free temples from the opposition state governments. Simultaneously, the Supreme Court refused to entertain a similar demand by right-wing litigant Ashwini Upadhyay.
As part of the orchestrated plan, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state governments like Madhya Pradesh initiated moves to hand over temples under them to ‘devotees.’ In Karnataka, BJP chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had in January 2022 assured to bring forth a new bill to free temples and other Hindu religious institutions from government control. Of the 180,000 temples in the state, 35,500 are under government.
However, shortly after, the BJP lost the Assembly polls and the Congress rejected the saffron party’s decision to ‘free’ temples. Instead, the new government came up with amendments to make the temple management act more exhaustive. Under the new law, certain percentage collections will be reserved for the weaker temples under the government.
This evoked cyclical comments from the BJP which described it as ‘Jizya’ taxes – a tax historically imposed on non-Muslims in an Islamic state.
Why RSS wants to ‘free’ temples
Hindu shrines and temples have traditionally been used by the RSS and its allied outfits as nerve centres of their activities. Go to any temple or shrine and you can trace the RSS presence there in different forms. Most often, the shakhas (schools) are also held on temple premises, unless on its own premises.
This writer has often seen saffron publications, symbols and pictures for sale along with religious books and puja items at stores around the temples. Devotees visiting the temples are soft targets for the Hindutva workers to rope in. All devotees, however, are not saffron.
Surprisingly, a big section of them have the sense to distinguish between the hate-filled Hindutva and a devout Hindu.
In many temples, saffron groups have been conscientiously keeping the local temple management committees away. Occasional rebuffs apart, saffron outfits have always considered temples the source of cadre recruitment.
Therefore, southern states, especially Tamil Nadu and Kerala, have been disallowing RSS shakhas on the temple premises.
How temples in the south are rejecting RSS
The Akhil Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas (priests) Association has opposed the BJP’s move to privatise the Muzrai temples in the state. It appealed to the saffron party not to use the temples to gain votes in elections.
In Kerala, all three temple boards have recently banned holding of RSS shakhas or any such activities in temple premises. The Kerala high court took lead in banning RSS weapon training on the premises of Sarkara Devi temple. Disposing of a petition, it asked the police to stop such ‘illegal and unauthorized occupancy’.
In Tamil Nadu, too, the counter movement against the right-wing’s demand for privatisation of temples has been gathering momentum. In Kanyakumari, where there is considerable saffron presence, 800 had joined the RSS-led Hindu temple confederation. But since 2018, the idea has stagnated.
Of about 2,200 RSS shakhas in Tamil Nadu, 600 are operating in Kanyakumari. Its main expansion strategy is to infiltrate temple committees and dominate them and give scholarships to students to catch them young.
As for the government-controlled temples, right-wing groups often intrude them in the guise of devotee organisations. Such outfits function outside the routine administrative function of the department but in coordination with it. They organise special functions like temple festivals. In Coimbatore, such outside organisations have also informally utilised temple spaces to conduct free tuitions.
Who will run the temples?
The RSS outfits find themselves divided on how the ‘liberated’ temples should be run. Mohan Bhagwat in his Vijayadashmi addresses did not specify how the ‘devotees’ would manage temples once they are ‘freed’. Meanwhile, the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the biggest umbrella organisation of sadhus (Hindu seers), wanted a Sanatan Board to take over.
However, such an integrated approach does not suit the wider design of the RSS-VHP, which is aimed at converting temples into nerve centres of Hindutva activities. Therefore, VHP has rejected this idea and wants local committees of ‘devotees’ to run temples.
Similarly, the RSS parivar also finds itself divided on the question of appointing non-Brahmins as pujaris. Although officially it was seen endorsing the move, large sections within the parivar is against it. Even the BJP government in Karnataka in 2021 had rejected suggestions to appoint non-Brahmin pujaris.
Meanwhile, the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan had decided to recruit women and Dalits as pujaris. The Brahmin lobby, the likes of Pujari Parishad and Vipra Foundation took objection to this. This has left the current BJP government in Rajasthan in two minds over the old proposal.
In 2023, a Brahmin Mahakumbh at Haridwar had, in a resolution, appealed to the government to bar non-Brahmin pujaris from temples.
Also read: The RSS’s Struggle for Legitimacy: Rewriting India’s Freedom Narrative
Non-Brahmin pujaris often face harassment and boycotts in temples. Sidelining of the non-Brahmin priests is widespread in Tamil Nadu. There is an organised murmur campaign against them in Kerala as well.
The Supreme Court, in the meantime, has repeatedly dismissed petitions challenging the ‘control’ of Hindu temples. In September 2022, it asked the petitioner to prove their allegations of mismanagement of temples under government in Tamil Nadu. Not satisfied with the petitioner’s explanations, in October 2023, the court refused to entertain such petitions.
Again, in July 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the management of temples by government bodies. The apex court told the right-wing PIL warrior Ashwini Kumar Upadhayay: “You are a Supreme Court lawyer. Do not pursue a cause just for publicity in the media.”
The private management is also not as picture perfect as the RSS adherents want people to believe. Most local temple committees are riven by groupism, some based on castes and some personal loyalty.
In Tamil Nadu, the Madras high court made caustic comments about the management of temples by Podhu Dikshitars. “They think they are above Gods,” the court said. Two months later, the court said evidence showed the Dikshitars had sold 18 acres of temple land. There were also allegations of mismanagement of temple funds.
Even in the north, most popular pilgrimage centres are run by boards or trusts. Kashi Vishwanath temple is managed by a government trust. Both major Hindu shrines in Jammu & Kashmir – Vaishno Devi temple and Amarnath temple – are functioning under boards constituted by an act of legislature. They were taken over from the private players for ‘better management and governance’. Amarnath was put under a government-appointed board by BJP-appointed Governor Jagmohan. Initially, the original owners had protested but they eventually relented.
Kerala, where the RSS campaign for ‘liberating’ the temples from ‘state control’ has failed to get much traction, has had a long tradition of management by local kings. Malabar ruler Zamorin had 64 temples under him, including the famous Guruvayur temple. He continues to run a few of them.
All local rajas, even big ones like in Cochin and Travancore, had their set of temples to oversee.
Shrines under the three government temple boards in the state — Malabar, Cochin and Travancore — have a three-layer management system. While general administration, assets, accounts and financial management are under the board appointed officer, temple rituals and related issues are fixed and reviewed by the traditional tantri (Vedic head) families. Their word on ritual matters are final. Temple pujaris under the board have to follow rites decided by the tantri. A tantri family may have dozens of temples under it.
Annual festivals of the board-run temples are normally organised by the local committees who raise public funds for the purpose. The boards officially sanction a fixed amount to finance the festivals. This arrangement has been working well.
P. Raman is a veteran journalist.