Temple trusts/ boards
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Temple trusts/ boards
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Gender and temples
The Times of India, Jan 31 2016
DEVDUTT PATTANAIK
Gender bias in temples as old as the walls around them Why were temples built in India? They did not always exist. Before temples, people worshipped rocks and rivers and stars: Kumbh Mela is a classic example of Hindu ritual that does not involve any artificial structure. If one goes to the temples of Kamakhya in Assam or Vaishnodevi in Jammu, we realize that what is assumed to be a `temple' is essentially a structure built around very simple natural rock formations. The structure then is the boundary that defines and delimits the sacred space around something very organic and natural. This creation of boundaries is the essence of patriarchy , for with boundaries come divisions and hierarchies, that prop up the privileged. The physical boundaries express psychological boundaries that emerged long ago, before the structures, before gods and goddesses, in the earliest phases of civilization, when humanity emerged out of the animal kingdom and sought meaning. Every village of India is associated with grama-devis and grama-devas, often classified as fertility goddesses and guardian gods. The female divine provides, and the male divine protects. For the female divine, the male minion is just a seed provider. Nothing more. The male divine protects the female divine. Sometimes he is also the seed provider.At other times, he is celibate like Hanuman, Bhairo baba and Aiyanar. Through celibacy these guardian gods express their re spect for the Goddess, their mother. Celibacy , hence semen retention, also makes them powerful.
This notion of celibacy giving supernatural power gave rise to monastic orders. Monks sought to control the natural forces: the ability to walk on water or fly through air, the ability to change shape, be immortal. They also sought control over the mind: freedom from suffering, from fear.These accomplished ascetics (siddhas) shunned all things sensual like the female temptresses (yoginis) who wandered in groups as matrikas and mahavidyas.
Buddha created the earliest organized, institutionalized, monastic order in India. In his monasteries (viharas) women were not permitted. When they were, finally, they were forced to follow more rules than men, as they had not only to control their own desires, they also had to ensure they did not `tempt' men. These viharas were built around chaityas which housed the stupa that contained a relic of the Buddha. These were the first grand structures of India, carved into rocks. Before that shrines (devalaya) of fertility goddesses and guardian gods existed only under trees, beside rivers and inside caves, unrestrained by artificial walls and roofs.
Temples of stone were built to counter Buddhist thought by highlighting the joys of household life.Temple walls and temple customs expressed song and dance and food and pleasure. The enshrined deities got married in grand ceremonies (as in Brahmotsavam in Tirupati). They were taken care of by priests and temple dancers. These complexes were a far cry from the serenity and silence of the vihara.They celebrated power and pleasure and beauty on a grand scale. But like Buddhist monasteries, these temples were controlled by men, the Brahmins.When the devadasis became too powerful, they were kicked out by being declared `prostitutes', with a being declared `prostitutes', with a little help from the British.
Ironically today , temples -that embodiment of household life are controlled by Hindu monks (mahants). Celibacy is seen as the hallmark of religiosity and purity , and embodied as celibate, women shunning deities such as Shani and Ayyappa. In ashrams of mod ern-day gurus, male sanyasis are called `swami' or master, while female sanyasis are called `maa' or mother, thus endorsing traditional roles of man as protector and pro prietor and woman as procreator and provider.
Is celibacy a sign of respect for women, or just a clever form of misogyny? Why do the guardian gods, gurus, monks and male devotees shun the feminine? Is it to retain their semen, hence gain supernatural powers, a common belief in tantrik texts? Or is it because they want to purify themselves, and so stay away from pollut ants, such as menstruating women? These are popular ideas (traditional beliefs? superstitions?) that most activists do not want to engage with, for it will open a huge can of worms.
We prefer the sterility of neo-Vedanta popular ized by male-dominated monastic Hindu `mis sions' in the early 20th century, where God has no gender, or sexuality, hence looks upon men and women equally . Women breaking into men only temples may be dramatic, like storming of the Bastille, but it does not challenge the patriar chal psychology that makes `celibacy' purifying, and `sexuality' polluting.
Maharashtra
The Times of India, Jan 31 2016
RadheshyamJadhav
Progressive Maharashtra is dotted with temples and dargahs that keep women out
Knocking at Shani's door? There are many more temples that are shut
There is a long history to the agitation led by Trupti Desai who heads the BhumataRanragini Brigade (BRB) that is demanding an end to the ban on entry of female devotees into Shani Shin gnapur temple in Maharashtra. The first major movement goes back to the 1930s when Dr BabasahebAmbedkar launched a movement seeking temple entry for dalit men and women to the Kalaram temple in Nashik. But even now women don't have unfettered entry to Nashik's Trimbakeshwar temple. “Lots of social reform movements have taken root in Maharashtra since the 1930s and dalits are now allowed to enter any temple. But this is not the case with women,“ says advocate Varsha Deshpande of Dalit MahilaVikas Man dal. In December last year, Deshpande led a group of women to the Shanaish war temple at Solashi in Koregaon ta luka of Satara district. The Shanaish war Devasthan Trust priests immediately “purified“ the temple using `go mutra' (cow urine), which angered women activists. They have filed a complaint against the trust for violating the constitutional rights of citizens. Desphande and other women are , agitating to gain entry into other temples including Ghatai Devi and Sola Shivling in Satara. “These temple trusts have been registered under Trust Act or Society Act which operate as per the Constitution. Religious traditions and fanaticism cannot supersede the Con stitution,“ she says. On the outskirts of Satara is the Abapuri temple of Kartikeya where women are not allowed within a kilometre of the shrine. “There are hundreds of temples, especially those dedicated to Hanuman and Kartikeya, where women are banned. The Maharashtra AndhashraddhaNirmoolanSamiti (MANS) led by Dr Narendra Dabholkar had filed a PIL in 2000 in Bombay High Court seeking permission for women to enter temples where they were forbidden. The Court, despite a prolonged hearing, has not delivered a judgement,“ says MANS head AvinashPatil.Dabholkar championed the cause along with another rationalist, Govind Pansare -both were killed within two years of each other. Says Pansare's daughter-in-law Megha: “We have fought long against the trust of the Ma halaxmi temple in Kolhapur where women were not allowed into the sanctum sanctorum. Finally in 2011, the trust relented. Once women started entering the sanctum, no one objected,“ she says, adding that politicians should support these agitations. But Pansare may be asking for too much. This is state rural development minister PankajaMunde's recent comment on the issue: “These are traditions and cannot be considered insulting to women. The outrage over the woman entering the Shani temple is a non-issue.“ Interestingly, Pankaja herself had broken a taboo by performing the last rites of her father and BJP stalwart GopinathMunde. But then the WaibatwadiMaruti temple establishment in her hometown of Beed is determined not to allow women. Even in an otherwise liberal city like Pune, women are not allowed into the Kartikeya temple on Parvati hill. Just 52 km from Pune, the Mhaskoba temple in Veer village (Purandar) allows women to enter temple premises only during the nine days of Navaratri and another 10 days during the annual yatra. The Muslim community too is debating a similar issue. The Bharatiya Mus limMahilaAndolan (BMMA) has launched an agitation in Mumbai seeking entry into the Haji Ali dargah for women. The gender ban was imposed by the dargah trustees in 2011. “There are many more dargahs -like the one in Shivapur (Pune) --where women are not allowed. We feel that (religious) rights -to perform namaz in a mosque and enter a kabristan -should be given to women,“ says ShamsuddinTamboli, head of the Muslim Satyashodhak Mandal founded by the late reformer Hamid Dalwai.
Moulana Anwar Sohail, attached to a leading Pune mosque, maintains that Islam frowns on strangers of both sexes meeting in crowded places. “They maystart talking and men may look at the women with bad intentions, a sin in Islam. Islam has restricted women from visiting dargahs and kabristans to deter men from committing a sin. They can offer prayers outside the dargah, but not at the mazar (the tomb),“ he says. Hindu traditionalists too rationalize the curbs on women. Says Anita Shete, who was recently elected the first woman on the Shani Shingnapur temple trust: “I believe in tradition and will ensure that it remains intact“. Ask her to explain the “tradition“ she is defending and she wordlessly looks at the male trustees around her.
Shirdi gives away more than Siddhivinayak
Nitin Yeshwantrao timesofindia 2013/05/13
The more generously devotees give, the more they receive too, it seems. The Shirdi Saibaba temple grossed Rs 1,009 crore in cash collections from grateful devotees in the past four years while the Siddhivinayak temple earned Rs 206 crore. The two religious trusts — the richest in Maharashtra — spent 50% and 13% of their earnings, respectively, on charity in the same period, shows a document tabled in the state assembly by the state law and judiciary department.
For perspective, in 2011 alone, the Tirupati Devasthanam in Andhra Pradesh earned Rs 1,100 crore in donations from devotees, in addition to interest earned from fixed deposits in banks. The Vaishnodevi shrine reported an annual income of nearly Rs 500 crore in the same period.
The Shirdi shrine, administered by the Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Trust, spent Rs 540.49 crore of its cash collection on charity while the Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai spent Rs 27.02 crore.
At the Shirdi temple, cash received from devotees rose from Rs 196.7 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 298.4 crore in the eight month period from April to November 2012, a 51% increase. The average annual income of the Shirdi trust for the period worked out to Rs 252-plus crore while the average financial assistance provided by it was Rs 135 crore, a politician familiar with the trust said.
The audit statements of the Sansthan at the end of 2012 showed that close to Rs 150 crore of its money was deposited in nationalized banks, in addition to Rs 50 crore worth of jewellery received from devotees, he said.
Officials said the Siddhivinayak shrine’s average annual cash collection was around Rs 51.5 crore while it spent an average of Rs 6.8 crore every year from 2009 to 2012 on charity. The bulk of its funds are in bank deposits.
The temple trusts say they would spend more on charity but for the many restrictions on imposed on charity spending by the Maharashtra government.
Temple trusts also seat of politics
As much as temple trusts have to do with religious activities and charity, politicians have long jostled for their control, given the generous funds they have and their clout and goodwill. The trustees, who are political appointees, have an important say in how the funds are spent. For instance, the Congres and the NCP have been vying for control of the Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Trust which runs the Shirdi Saibaba temple.
NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad says the Shirdi shrine’s funds should be used for the welfare of the devotees. “Ideally, the Sansthan should give 85% of its collection to the chief minister’s relief fund. The remaining 15% of the funds should be retained with the trust for dayto-day upkeep and administrative work. A small portion from this amount should be used to build shelters for devotees who trek hundreds of miles to reach Shirdi.’’
He added the Sansthan should spend more upgrading the road leading to Shirdi, rather than on fancy projects like building airports.
Trimbakeshwar
The Times of India, April 3, 2016
The Trimbakeshwar Temple authorities imposed a restriction on men's entry too into the sanctum sanctorum of the Lord Shiva shrine with an aim to provide "equal treatment" to both the genders, a trustee said.
The decision, which takes effect from tomorrow, comes in the wake of the Bombay High Court verdict giving women equal right to men with regard to entry into temples.
It was decided this morning after a board meeting of the Trimbakeshwar Devasthan Trust under Chairperson and District Judge Urmila Phalke Joshi, Lalita Shinde, one of the trustees told .
The meeting was attended by Secretary N M Nagare as well as Trust members Kailas Ghule, Yadavrao Tungar, Shrikant Gaidhani, and Sachindra Pachorkar.
"The decision was taken to ensure equal treatment to both men and women," Shinde said.
The development comes a day after Bhumata Ranragini Brigade Trupti Desai and 25 other women activists were taken into preventive custody to stop them from entering into the inner sanctum of the famous Shani temple in Ahmednagar's Shignapur village. They were later released.
The ancient temple, located 30 kms from Nashik, is a major Lord Shiva shrine of the country, which has one of the 12 'jyotirlingas', drawing devotees from far and wide.
According to Ghule, a member of the Trimbakeshwar Temple Trust, the ban on entry of women into the 'garbhagriha' is an age-old tradition and not something enforced in recent times. The ban goes back to the Peshwa period.
As per tradition, only men were allowed entry daily between 6-7 AM into the area where the main 'linga' is placed, that too by putting on a specific gear called the sovala (silk clothing).
Women, can, however have 'darshan' from outside the core area.
Some priests in the temple town said most of the women devotees might not want to defy the tradition.
Kerala, Padmanabhaswami temple
The Hindu, December 8, 2016
Dress code is back in Kerala’s Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple;;;
K.C.Gopakumar
Only sari and dhoti-clad women are allowed inside the ancient temple.
Kerala High Court has stayed an order that allowed Chudidhar-clad women to enter the temple
A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has put on hold the order of the Executive Officer of the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple in Thiruvananthapuram allowing chudidhar-clad women devotees into the temple.
The Bench, while considering a writ petition filed by four devotees challenging the Executive Officer's order, ordered that the status quo available prior to the EO’s order be continued for the time being.
The court also pointed out that that M.P. Parameswaran Namboodiri, Thantri of the temple was also of the opinion that the situations prior to the EO’s order should be continued.
The temple’s dress code for women allowed them to be clad in saris, dhoties or skirts, according to their age. Young girls below the age of 12 are allowed to wear frocks. Men are allowed to wear only dhotis with or without angavastra. But women devotees wearing pants and chudidhar were allowed inside the temple if they cover it with a dhoti.
With the Executive Officer’s order triggering a controversy, the administrative committee had frozen the executive officer’s order. The petitioners alleged in their petition that despite the administrative committee’s decision, the women wearing chudidhars were allowed into the temple premises.
Administrative issues
Atheists can't use temple property in Tamil Nadu
B Sivakumar, TNN | Sep 12, 2013
A circular was sent to all temple executives advising them not to rent out properties to non-believers. The circular also banned renting out of temple property to functions in which liquor and non-vegetarian food are served.
CHENNAI: A move by the state Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department to ban 'non-believers' from using temple properties have atheists and rationalists up in arms. The circular issued by temple custodians prohibits 'non-believers' from hiring marriage halls or leasing out shops on premises owned by temples.
The provocation for the circular appears to be a farmers' wing meeting held at a marriage hall in a village in Tiruvarur district in July 2013.
The meeting, which apparently raised pro-rationalist slogans, caused a furore in the district and representations were given to the chief minister's cell and the HR&CE department against leasing or renting out temple property to atheists.
Following this, a circular was sent to all temple executives advising them not to rent out properties to non-believers. The circular also banned renting out of temple property to functions in which liquor and non-vegetarian food are served.
Justifying the circular, a senior official said, "As the property is in the name of a temple or its presiding deity, we cannot allow meetings or gatherings that criticise religion or speak against the belief in God. Such meetings can be held in any other government or private property but not on a temple property. This goes against religious ethos."
The circular specifies that the property either on the temple premises or outside it should be rented out only for religious discourses or for any other spiritual purposed only.
Should a secular government run temples?
Fence That Eats The Crop
R Jagannathan
Aug 29 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Government running Hindu temples is another anomaly India's selective secularism fosters
One of the first statements you come across on the website of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department's website is this one: “The management and control of the temples and the administration of their endowments is one of the primary responsibilities of the state“.
The irony of the government of a “secular“ state running religious institutions is obviously lost on HR&CE.More so when we note that the state has been intermittently ruled by parties like DMK whose leadership has, in the past, formally professed rationalist and atheist beliefs.
But we shall let that pass and presume that, despite top-level political antipathy to Hindu religion, HR&CE is willing to hold its nose and do everything it can to run the 38,481 temples and endowments under its control fairly and efficiently.
Unfortunately , that has not been the case. When you put the fox in charge of the hen-house, you don't get better protection of your millennia-old spiritual and historical heritage, but wayward behaviour by officialdom. Beneath the surface, corruption festers, and priceless idols and valuables are bartered away for filthy lucre.
This is apparent from a recent Madras high court judgment in two cases (Crl OP Nos 8690 and 12060 of 2017), where the petitioners had complained about officials being careless in protecting idols worth crores of rupees, and possibly acting in cahoots with idol smugglers.
In the first case, petitioner R Venkataraman alleged that ancient idols from Chola-era temples in Thanjavur district were moved and “stocked unofficially , against the HR&CE norms, and the trustees, along with the Executive Officers of the HR&CE department, created records as if the idols are intact, when factually six idols, of which five belonging to Sri Viswanathasamy Temple at Keelmanakudi, and one Vinayagar idol belonging to the Arulmigu Sri Idumbeswarar Temple, were missing.“ The petition alleged that instead of keeping the idols at the Icon Centre, they were kept in an “unauthorised tunnel and also in a scrap room belonging to the Public Works Department.“
In the other case, filed by public in terest litigant Elephant G Rajendran, it was alleged that a senior police officer, I Khader Basha, now DSP, and two other police personnel, who were earlier part of the Idol Wing, came into possession of six idols while investigating a case involving one Arokiaraj. Two of these were allegedly sold to a noted smuggler in Chennai for Rs 15 lakh, who then resold them for an alleged sum of Rs 6 crore. But despite an FIR being filed against the police officials concerned, they were promoted, and “no further action, either by way of arrest or by departmental proceedings, was initiated.“
The high court, in an order dated July 21, 2017, by Justice R Mahadevan, had no hesitation is saying that the state was wayward in its defence of priceless heritage assets and roasted HR&CE for its failures. After noting that Indian temples had been ravaged by invaders for centuries, he added: “For the past several years, a new form of attack is carried out by smuggling the ancient idols. Foreigners and disbelievers see the idols as antiques worth only ... in terms of money , but the people of this country see them in the semblance of god, culture and identity .“
The court castigated the department in no uncertain terms, pointing out that HR&CE is the custodian of most of the state's temples and their properties, but has clearly failed to do so despite controlling large revenues. “It is startling to find that the HR&CE department, with all its income from major temples, has not been able to maintain historical temples and safeguard the idols ... many temples constructed at least 1,500 years ago or much before ... are in ruins. Even the daily rituals are not performed. Some temples remain closed throughout the day with no one to even lighten (sic) the lamps ... this has also come to the advantage of the miscreants, who have laid their hands on the idols.“
Having come to this conclusion, the court ordered the obvious remedies: departmental action and FIRs against the alleged culprits, moving all idols to strong-rooms or Icon Centres, creation of a list of all temples managed by the state and number of priests they employ , computerisation of records and 24x7 video and electronic surveillance of these idols and other valuables.
But the scale of loot and irresponsibility goes beyond mere smuggling and illicit sale of idols. Some time ago Subramanian Swamy , BJP's Rajya Sabha MP , alleged in a newspaper article that the Tamil Nadu HR&CE controlled “more than 4.7 lakh acres of agricultural land, 2.6 crore square feet of buildings and 29 crore square feet of urban sites of temples.“ These temple-owned properties should have been earning revenues in thousands of crores, but the government collected barely Rs 36 crore.
It is difficult to authenticate these figures from three years ago. But if they are anywhere near correct we have the makings of a gigantic scandal, at the expense of Hindu devotees who contributed to this wealth. But it's not about Tamil Nadu alone. In the five major southern states over 1,00,000 temples are being run directly or indirectly by governments, making a mockery of the idea of the secular state where separation of religious from temporal activity ought to have been a central principle of governance.
This separation is all the more important when you have cases of gross negligence, where the guardians of temples are also its predators. The fence is eating the crop.
The writer is Editorial Director of Swarajya
Personnel issues
Retired temple staff entitled to gratuity: HC
In case of disputes, they can approach the controlling authority
The Madras High Court has said that retired employees of religious institutions where 10 or more persons are employed at any time, after the commencement of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, are entitled to apply for gratuity and these institutions would have to make the payment within 30 days.
A division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and P. D. Audikesavalu, which reserved its order in the appeal of the State against a single judge order in the principal seat in Chennai and delivered it in the Madurai Bench, observed that gratuity should be paid from the date it falls due, failing which interest would have to be paid under Section 7(3A) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, in addition to penal action under Section 9 of the Act.
The State government had filed an appeal against the order of a single judge.
The Tamil Nadu Temples’ Retired Employees’ Welfare Association had earlier filed a petition seeking payment of gratuity to temple employees before a single judge.
Court fiat
The division bench also directed the Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, to identify and publish annually, starting from January 2018, the list of institutions with 10 or more employees. The retired employees could claim gratuity from their respective religious institutions. In the event of refusal to do so or if any dispute arises regarding the quantum of gratuity, the retired employees could seek redress from the institutions by making claims before the controlling authority.
