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State and Religion
I have always believed that State has no role to play in matters concerning faith of people. It was in olden days that Kings and Emperors were promoting religion and theologist states were in existense. Even now Islamic countries place religion above civilian rights. That is not the topic now. In India, States have always sought to curb religious freedom of the majority community except in cases of larger temples like Tirumala Tirupati Devastanam which runs The holy Tripathi shrine. In Kerala, Devaswom Board of Travancore and Cochi administer several temples such as Sabarimala, Guruvayur and Devaswom Board consists of eminent people who have religious faith. The Government has a Minister to oversee the administration. In Tamil Nadu, all temples which have a Hundial( a box to accept offerings of devotees) are taken over by Hindu religious and Charitable Endowments. HR & CE is run by a Minister and the temple administration is run by mostly the Executive Officers who are mostly atheists. They draw fat salaries of Class I & II officers of the Government while the poor archakas are given miniscule salary and thrive on the offerings by Devotees. Most of the lands owned by temples are leased out and the tenants taking advantage of the favorable tenancy laws do not pay rentals to temples. Even then devotees offerings bring in a booty and this has made temples be run for following rituals. Smaller temples are left to mercy of local population because there is no enough fund for daily rituals like offering to God( Naivedhyam) In this context, one big temple in Tamil Nadu was run by a hereditary team of Brahmin priests called Podhu Deekshitars . They were running the administration of Chidambaram Nataraja temple based upon a stay obtained from courts . Ultimately the High court upheld the takeover of administration by the State Government. The Deekshithars have now sought to file an appeal which are well within their rights. but they have also clamoured for political intervention when they met ex CM Jayalalitha. Subramanian Swamy has sought to get himself impleaded in the case.
I still believe that the state has to keep its hand off religion. But still I object to claim of hereditary rights to administer a temple which thrives on public support because we are a state which legislated to do away with privy purses. If Kings and emperors could be deprived of hereditary rights, in a democracy the claims by Deekshitars need to be rubbished.
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