RECENTLY there was much ho-hoopla about Bhagwan Padmanabhaswamy Temple’s wealth stored in the basement. Media was exhibiting it and passing loose comments like – Why not use all that wealth to clear debt on Bharat etc. A young college going person was sitting with me with his family when we all heard this comment on the TV. He said, “But today’s debt on our nation has not been created by the King of Travancore or by Bhagwan Padmanabha! Why should Padmanabha’s wealth be used to clean dirty linens of today’s corrupt politicians?!” And this was the feeling of most Hindus in Bharat about whoever cast such greedy eyes on Bhagwan Padmanabha’s wealth. Those who hate Hindu dharma for either not being Hindu or to look secular, have hatched such conspiracy against most temples, mutts and socio-religious Trusts in Bharat and abroad. These cronies have no guts to acquire land, wealth or prayer place etc of any other ‘group’ whom they salute as their vote bank. No mosque or church or their land has ever been eyed or acquired by any government and even media turns a blind eye to them!
From first known invasion on Bharat by Mohammad Bin Kasim in 710 AD up until even today when many temples in J&K and other states are still being razed, we have seen it. Christians did the same in Goa, Kerala, Odisha, Tripura and yet it continues in Tamil Nadu where at any hill they plant their cross on top and later claim the hill! Bhagwan Padmanabha temple and the wealth got miraculously saved by all these earlier invasions. From Shri T Madhavrao to many others did their best to save it. The King of Tranvancore too did not splurge Bhagwan’s and his own wealth in luxuries the way Nizam of Hyderabad did; instead, he protected Bhagwan’s wealth and donated all his wealth to the Bhagwan’s treasure. Hindus have been dedicating and donating their ornaments, money or land to various temples from ancient times. Today there is much discussion about temples like Bhagwan Shri Venkateshwara at Tirupati, Siddhi Vinayak Mumbai, Vaishno Devi, Ambaji in Gujarat, Somnath in Gujarat, Shabarimala in Kerala, Mahkaal in Ujjain and now Bhagwan Padmanabha!
From the wealth and treasures of these temples many social good deeds are being done. Schools and colleges for economically deprived children, hospitals for the needy, daily feeding fresh warm food to lakhs of the people, clean water supply to surrounding villages and so on. Temples from ancient times are socio-religious institutions in Bharat. But in Independent ‘India’, Bharat has been crushed and the overt form of this crushing is acquiring of lands, wealth and treasures of various temples. Creating or concocting the stories of frauds or misappropriation of funds related to the known temples, running these stories on the select media, thereby forcing the judiciary to take a misinformed stand and then acquiring these temples has been a criminal pattern of most governments.
It has been already exposed that the wealth donated by Hindus to Hindu temples has been used by the Government people to appease their minority vote banks! Recently there was a case about Mumbai’s Siddhi Vinayak Trust donating Rs 8 lakh to a church-run school. Tirupati Trust money was withdrawn by the state government for its own treasury! There may be umpteen numbers of such cases and Hindus either remain silent spectators or are singled out by the media.
Thiruvananthapuram is settled on the land of Bhagwan Padmanabha and the King protected it then! As per Indian Constitution, Bhagwan is an entity and He / She owns His / Her land / property / ornaments and cash in whatever form. The then kings respected Bhagwan’s wealth without any existence of such a Constitution, they did not use Bhagwan’s wealth for their personal luxuries or for diverting it to a TV channel or in the election campaigns and today’s modern day invaders sitting in the government are grabbing temples’ wealth, land and properties by throwing the Constitution in the dustbin. Appeasing minorities have never been so cruel and hurtful to Hindus before. Expert in misusing nation’s money, land and wealth in the name of development or sports projects, there is every reason to believe that these grabbers will dry up temples’ wealth for own purposes.
A Bill should be passed preventing any government to acquire any temple, mutt or socio-religious Trust like a school / hospital / Pathshalas etc. If at all there is any misappropriation of funds by any Trust or its members then there is always a Charity Commissioner or there is IPC. Discarding own Constitution and judicial processes to appease minorities by hurting Hindus, temples, Trusts etc is on its height right now. Some state governments have crossed their limits and taken the authority in their hands by passing a law which does not even give any right to appeal to the Trust! This law gives the authority to even merge any two Trusts! Meaning, if there is a wealthy temple Trust, then this government can merge that into any Trust run by anyone, fleece the temple dry and no appeal!
Only way to stop such government sponsored socio-religious terrorism is that every Hindu should determine to go to at least one temple in the vicinity daily at a particular time, participate in the aarti, contribute to the temple activities like feeding the poor or helping the ill. Not everyone should donate money, but one can surely donate 1 hour daily or 3 hours weekly to these activities by the temple! Being seen in the temple is being pained as not so up market by the media or some sections of the society these days. But wrong perceptions do not strengthen the society; they weaken the national interests. Therefore, to stop modern day invaders from looting temples, mutts and socio-religious Trusts is the joint responsibilities of the united Hindus irrespective of caste, creed or gender.
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