Re: hindu temples

["Rayalaseema Informatics Centre" <ric@nettlinx.com>]

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Prakash wrote on October 25, 2000.
>
> Shouldn't all hindu temples be strictly under the control of the
> temple authorities and be declared so ? For, if they were controlled
> by the government, then we cannot have discrimination in them - can
> we ? How can a secular government handle temples ?
>
> The government does not interrupt the functioning of muslim or
> christian shrines, why only hindu shrines ? Why should the Andhra
> Governnment control the tirupati devasthanam ?

Although it is desirable for the Government of Andhra Pradesh not to
interfere with the running of the temples, the government employees this
cannot be implemented in practice. The Government has already a full-fledged
Department of Religious Endowments headed by a Cabinet Minister to manage
not only the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) but also most other
temples having significant income. A very large number of government
employees headed by a good number of senior IAS officers work in the
Department. One work they do is to provide financial assistance to smaller
temples. The Department gets good revenue and wields enormous influence.
When the Government finds it extremely difficult to get rid of sick public
sector undertakings, how can it part with a lucrative Department?

Soon after becoming the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1983, N.T. Rama
Rao, the founder of the Telugu Desam Party and father-in-law of N.
Chandrababu Naidu, announced that he would introduce a Vatican city-type of
administration in the Tirupati-Tirumala area. He soon abandoned the idea
when he came to know that such a move deprives the government control over
the huge temple finances.

Tirupati accounts for more than 12 percent of domestic tourism in the entire
country and more than one half of the domestic tourism within Andhra
Pradesh. It could not however attract non-Hindu devotees from other
countries. On the other hand, Puttaparthi in Anantapur District is next to
Hyderabad in attracting foreign tourists. All this is almost entirely due to
Satya Sai Baba, a god man. His income particularly from the foreign devotees
is so high that Puttaparthi could have an airport, a university, a high-tech
hospital and other amenities. He was also able to spend hundreds of crores
of rupees towards supply of potable drinking water in the drought-prone
Anantapur and other districts in Rayalaseema.

Like Puttaparthi, Tirupati also would have attracted a large number of
non-Hindu devotees from all over the world. The main bottleneck is a
Government Order insisting non-Hindus to sign in a register for gaining
entry into the temple. There is need to scrap this outdated rule in the
larger interest of attracting international tourists in a big way.

R. Jagadiswara Rao


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