It is no coincidence that in India, among all the various places of worship and religious institutions of different religious denominations, only Hindu and Jain temples are discriminated against by the State. It is no less an irony, that India is the only country where the majority religious community is denied the most fundamental religious right – the right to own its place of worship.
While the Government does not interfere with the operations or funds of Churches, Mosques, Gurudwaras and Bauddha Viharas, all temple donations and rental income from Hindu and Jain temples is controlled by their respective State Governments.
Different State Governments have assumed financial and management control of thousands of Hindu temples across India through their respective Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) Acts, under alleged accusations of mismanagement of funds. By doing so, these State Governments are mindlessly 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 institutions barring Hindu and Jain institutions (as by legal definition Jains are Hindus), be they Churches, Mosques or Gurudwaras belonging to Christian, Muslim and Sikh practitioners respectively, have been brought under acts similar to the HR&CE Acts issued by various states all over India, despite similar accusations of mismanagement of funds.
About Shri T. R. Ramesh
One of the key figures at the forefront of this movement is Shri T. R. Ramesh. He represents the “Swami Dayananda Saraswati Case” in the Supreme Court of India, which is fighting for release of temples in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Puducherry.
Shri Ramesh is a relentless campaigner against violations and irregular practices in temple administration. He has taken on the HR & CE Department in several temples and on several issues across Tamil Nadu.
Shri Ramesh was part of Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s team from 2009 to 2014 which helped free the “Chidambaram Temple” in Tamil Nadu from the clutches of the Government. He quit his highly successful career with a large multinational bank in 2011 to dedicate his time and energy towards fighting battles against the HR & CE Department of Tamil Nadu, usually fought in the Madras High Court.
In 2016, Shri Ramesh sent a note to J Sai Deepak seeking financial assistance as he had quit his job and had dedicated his life to freeing temples. Sarayu Trust came forward and agreed to cover all his running expenses since then.
Sarayu Trust is not only committed towards supporting Shri Ramesh and others in this fight for freeing Hindu temples, but also seeks support from individual donors to support Shri Ramesh for this worthy cause. All contributions to be made directly to Shri T. R. Ramesh’s charitable trust based in Chennai.
To learn more about this cause of Freeing Temples from government control, please visit: https://freehindutemples.org/
For more information on this fight for control over our temples, please watch this video: –
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S.sSuresh
Namaste,
This issue is being raised in Tamil Nadu as well. My question is, what is the situation now? Are all temples in India, state controlled? And why are BJP state governments like Uttarakhand, continuing this practise?
Rgds
One would have thought that freeing temples from government control would be an easy thing under the present central government (how could CAA happen if not for government will, for example). So why is this not happening? Moreover, the constitution should be amended to give hindu institutions same rights as this guranteed for minority run institutions. Completely confused why these things are not happening even after two successive BJP majority governments. Whom to trust?
certain sections of Art 25a, b, and and c, are misused by the government. The statute says temples can be taken over by governments. It has nnospecified conditions. And whether governments can run these institutions into perpetuity. And governments should use temple funds for the benefit of all Hindus. It doesn’t say to use it for government programmes or other religions. Since this Article to be complete to serve the meaning of Secular should cover, mosques, churches and taxation should be the burden of all religions.