HRCE Act, often challenged by Hindu groups over the years, but the state govts have taken over thousands of temples, generally under the pretext of preventing “mismanagement”. In other words, Hindus & only Hindus, are not considered capable of managing their places of worship.

Thousands of small & medium temples, in addition to nationally & historically important temples such as Puri Jagannath, Tirupati, Kashi Vishwanath, Vaishno Devi, Shirdi, Guruvayoor, Badrinath & Kedarnath, are already under govt control, and have been so for decades in many cases.

Its astounding fact that govt take control of the income of temples & often sell the assets of temple, the govt even appoint the chairman who are non-Hindu & even anti-Hindu over Hindu temples & is directly responsible for the pathetic condition of many Hindu temples in India.

Many magnificent temples are deteriorating & even the daily ritual of cleaning & purifying the precincts is not happening. Some temples don’t even have oil to lit the lamps because the paltry rupees the govt promised when it took over the temple seldom never comes on time.

priests on miserly salaries are reduced to poverty & asking money from devotees. These are all too common sights at many Hindu temples today. While there are many causes for the problems faced by temples, one of most important among them is the misappropriation of temples’ lands.

Siddhi Vinayak Temple in Mumbai was took over by govt from its previously independent board in 1981. Various political & govt appointees have siphoned off crores out of the temple’s coffers. During 2004-05 alone, 7 cr rupees were paid out of the temple’s inflow.

In 2002 Karnataka govt took the revenue of Rs. 72 crores from Temples, returned Rs.10 crores for maintenance & granted Rs. 50 crores for madrasas & Rs. 10 crores for churches. The question to be asked is: Why is money from Hindu temples is being distributed to non-Hindu entities.

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD)
The state govt has not denied that 85% percent of revenues from the TTD, which collects over Rs. 3,100 cr every yr, r transferred to the state exchequer. The non-temple use of this colossal amount of money is not fully accounted for by the govt

TTD watchdog groups have alleged that d govt has allocated Rs. 7.6 cr of TTD money towards repairs & renovations of mosques &churches.

A Christian owned organization, was given a lucrative contract to procure materials for the prasadam that is given to temple devotees.

An attempt is made to take over 5 of the 7 hills that belong to Lord Venkateswara & hand them to Christian institutions, was thwarted only when Hindu religious leaders, under the aegis of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha united to lodge strong & unprecedented protests.

There have been allegations of TTD appointees being non-Hindus, but these are hard to verify since many Hindus who convert to other religions keep their original names for various benefits.

In AP & Telangana, out of 420,028 acres owned by temples, 60,843 acres were allowed to be occupied illegally by professional land grabbers. The state govts, the inheritor of the responsibility under the HRCE Act to prevent such actions, did nothing to prevent these incursions.

In August 2005, the AP state govt decided to sell 100,000 acres of the Sri Narasimha Swamy Temple in Simhachalam & other nearby temples

On March 14, 2006, the govt auctioned 3,000 acres of temple lands in East Godavari district. Proceeds from these sales rarely reach the temples

884 acres of endowment lands of d famous SriRam temple at Bhadrachalam has been allocated to Christian institutions by then CM Rajshekar Reddy
In Simhachalam 300 acres of temple land has been allocated for churches
There was also an attempt made to take over Chilkur Balaji temple

In Sabarimala, the famous temple of Lord Ayyappa, 2,500 acres of temple property have been sold by the Communist govt to a non-Hindu group. Even though this Board gets about Rs. 250 crores every year in income, it is almost bankrupt today, after years of govt diversion of funds.

Rs 24 crores from d Guruvayoor Devasvom have been spent on a drinking water project in nearby panchayats, which include 40 churches & mosques. Some of these non-Hindu places of worship have larger revenues than d Devasvom, but none of them have been asked to pay towards d project

While these tales of the terrible fate of Hindu temples under govt control can be multiplied a thousand fold & the collapse of the Hindu religious infrastructure as a direct result of govt control can be documented in painful detail.

The outpouring contributions to temples by Hindus is seen as a huge cash flow opportunity by politicians of all stripes all around. In Kerala, the communist govt has promulgated an ordinance on February 4, 2007 to disband the Travancore & Cochin Autonomous Devaswom Boards (TCDB).

The Hindu community, after decades of apathy, disunity, now has to secure our rights to practice our religion without govt control. The existence of the HRCE Act makes it an uphill legal battle to challenge & overturn the govt stranglehold over Hindu temples & their assets.

Online petitions & signature campaigns, often led by NRI Hindus who seem 2b more aware & concerned about the Temple issue than Hindus in India. Most of the mainstream media in India are anti-Hindu & stories of govt atrocities on Hindu temples rarely make it into the news pages.

Even as Hindu awareness grows & call for action against the atrocities on temples, the media & political parties r quick to slap on a Hindutva or fundamentalist label to discredit these grassroots efforts of Hindus to claim the same basic religious rights as Christians & Muslims.