Coimbatore: It was a packed hall with devotees lining up to hear from their guru, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, head of the Isha Foundation, on a pleasant Friday evening.
Sadhguru fielded several questions during a question-answer session at the ashram when one of the attendees asked — “what do you expect from the next government following the upcoming elections?”
The 66-year-old responded by saying that he wants the next government to give back the temples.
“We call ourselves a secular country, which we are not because most of the Hindu temples are in the hands of the government, run by government clerks and are systematically being ruined. There is no such thing as a temple without devotees. Only in the hands of a devotee, something becomes sacred,” said Sadhguru, amid a roaring round of applause by hundreds of attendees who had descended to his ashram in Coimbatore.
His comments come at a time when in neighbouring Karnataka, a bill which sought to enable the collection of 10 percent of the revenue of state-run temples earning more than Rs 1 crore, and 5 percent from temples with revenues between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore, was defeated in the legislative council after being passed in the Vidhana Soudha.
“Can an employee who is looking for his next increment handle (a temple)? And the temple was a fulcrum of art, music, culture, everything. All that is completely being decimated. Thousand years ago, these ancient temples were made by human hands when there were no machines,” said Sadhguru.
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Who should run temples?
Sadhguru’s response is also part of a larger ongoing debate in Tamil Nadu about whether the state should have any say in the running of temples.
Some visitors at the Isha Foundation even felt that his response was an articulation of the ongoing rift between the state government and a section of Hindus.
However, the fight to free temples from the government’s clutches is an old one — led by a section of the Hindu community. Since 1950, when the temples were put under regulations under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Act (HR&CE), there has been resentment against it.
The state is home to over 46,000 temples, including some of the oldest and most sacred temples in the country, that are managed by the Tamil Nadu government under the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act (HR&CE),1959.
The temple management issue is not only limited to communities and gurus but has also found its way into political speeches. In 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi commented on the issue during a rally in Telangana.
“In the south, especially in Tamil Nadu, the state government has control of temples. The state government has captured temples. The temples are being looted through a conspiracy involving governments. They will not touch the worship places of minorities. They don’t bring them under the government’s control,” Modi said.
As for Sadhguru, this is not the first time he has raised this issue. In 2021, he launched a Twitter (now ‘X’) campaign called ‘Free Tamil Nadu Temples’, with 100 posts on X (then Twitter) using the hashtag #FreeTNtemples.
#FreeTNTemples– a Movement born of deep Anguish. That the Community has to ask for what is a right guaranteed by law means that we hold neither the Constitution nor this Civilization, sacred. Time to change this. –Sg @CMOTamilNadu @mkstalin @SriSamavedam @ShankaraPeetha
— Sadhguru (@SadhguruJV) April 3, 2021
Speaking at the ashram Friday, Sadhguru remarked: “Why are the temples being run by governments? Simply because there is money, because there is wealth.”
“Anyway, all the jewelry, gold, diamonds, everything, that the English took, whatever they could take, shiploads. In many ways, a large portion of World War II was funded by gold from Indian temples to a significant point. But after that, in Independent India, the politicians have stolen everything.”
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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