Wikipedia Draft:Free Temples From Government Control

Heritage buildings basically represent the past history and culture of a nation. They constitute together the architectural heritage of an area as they possess historical values resulting from their beautiful architecture and their correlation with important events that occurred in the heritage area such as religious, social and political events..

Like other religious places of worship which are managed by the respective religious trusts/boards the temples in the country should be allowed to manage by the religious trusts. The imperial/british law prevented only Hindus from managing their own places of worship whereas other religions were allowed to manage their own places of worship. It would be illogical for a government that needs to be secular as per Indian constitution and dravidian philosophy i.e. atheism do not qualify a government that is in power to manage places of worship.

After various changes the HR CE (Hindu Religious Charitable Endowments) went through since pre independence times(1858) until post independence, dravidian governments were able to transfer funds under Section 36 of HR CE Act. HR CE is supposed to only administer temples but there have been reports that revenue from temples have been used by passing GO (Government Orders in 2020) asking temples to donate money for other purposes. Also there are allegations of temple land being sold by issuing 'pattas' (title deed to a property) and temples assets being sold under the name of maintenance, kumbabhishekam. There are also allegations that temple properties are sold without following clauses 78,79 of HR CE Act 1959.

Each temple will have 5 trustees and there are guidelines that specify 1 of them should be from a Scheduled Caste community, 1 has to be a woman, 3 of them should be from local community. But in reality party members of ruling parties who were appointed as trustees misused the assets of the temples (47,000 acres of land missing to be clarified by the government as per recent High Court Order). The recent controversy over management of temples between Jaggi Vasudev (Isha Foundation) and PTR Thiagarajan is based on mismanagement of temple properties by state governments

Below is a summary of assets owned by temples in Tamilnadu

🛕 40,000+ temples (including Jain temples)

⛳️ 4,78,000 acres of land as per 20190-20 checks (In 1984-85 the count was 525,000 acres, 47,000 acres missing, State government has been ordered by High Court recently to submit counter affidavit stating the reasons )

🏢  22,600 Buildings

🚧  33,665 vacant sites

👤 70% of priests don’t even get paid in village temples

📶 Annual Revenue(approx.) - upto Rs.3,000 crores (various estimates)

📣Expected revenue from temple properties - various estimates suggest up to Rs.50,000 crore per annum but the estimated current income is a fraction of that due to temple assets being misused, mis managed and funds are diverted by the government by passing GO's(Government Orders) asking the temple trusts to donate funds to various purposes, schemes of the government.

The recent judgement in Suo Motu W.P.No.574 of 2015 (June 2021,224 page document) from Madras High Court (Justice R. Mahadevan, Justice P.D.Audikesavalu) recommends the state government to preserve marvels, mural paintings, stone & wall inscriptions, wooden carving, copper plates, old antique utensils of the temples which are our cultural heritage proves that temples have not been maintained properly. The judgement consists of 75 directions to state government and recommends that 100 years old temples, structures should be declared as national monuments by the Central government. The court has made it clear that state government should not use the temple revenue for any 'public purpose' irrespective of the benefits it can deliver to people.

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), a division of Ministry of Culture has over 10 sub circles in Tamilnadu. The budget for ASI was cut to Rs.1042 crore from Rs.1247 crore in 2021. The number of heritage buildings, structures to be preserved will increase by many folds so more resources need to be allocated to Chennai and its sub circles.

Privatisation with the help of temple trust and HR CE has worked  - TVS group have managed to maintain 100 +temples in South India. But there were allegations of theft of temple assets such as idols, doors, valuable items in some private companies managed temples which need necessary amendments in laws to punish such offenders.

New temples/place of worship shouldn’t be built as there are already so many around the state. I’m someone who supports removing temples/places of worship causing hindrance to movement of vehicles on roads, encroaching  and causing obstruction. Irrespective of religion any historical structure (subject to age) should be classified as a monument without any kind of bias.

As per Indian Constitution a secular state is an idea pertaining to secularity, i.e. government should be neutral in all religious matters. Based on this definition, all places of worship should be totally free from government intervention and revenue misuse. All political parties should refrain from interfering in religious matters and  should leave the management of temples to respective trusts who can decide how they want to manage the temple affairs. The reasons that state governments have failed in many attempts to manage temples in an efficient manner and 47,000 acres of land have gone missing is a call to review how efficiently temples and its assets can be managed.

Lets us consider temples as symbols of heritage, culture, works of architecture than a religious symbol. Some temples are considered to be thousands of years old and UNESCO recognises them as heritage sites.It is time to amend the laws related to management of temples, heritage buildings, structures in the country and the state government should follow the 75 directions issued by the recent High Court and take steps to not breach the HR CE Act, 1959 by using funds for other purposes other than maintaining temples and should take steps to hand over management of temples to respective trusts like other religious trusts which have the freedom to manage their places of worship.

Hope the Tamilnadu government files a counter affidavit by July 5th, 2021 explaining which temple lands (47,000 acres) have been excluded from government's control.


 * 1) FreeTemplesFromGovernmentControl


 * 1) FreeTNTemples