Religious Endowments

BY P. KAMESWARA RAO, M.L.

(Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments Board, Madras)

Salem has a significance in the history of Hindu religious institutions in the Madras Presidency. At any rate it has an illustrative value. Watered by the sacred Cauvery, one of the great and holy streams of India, hallowed by the memories of the sages and saints who worshipped on its banks, Salem has a high place in our religious life. Pandya influence is seen in such places as still retain the name of Pandamangalam. During the great days of the Vijianagar Empire, and later, it was jointly administered with the adjoining State of Mysore. When Salem was ceded to the East India Company as a result of the last Mysore War, it was fortunate that the then Governor-General, the Marquess of Wellesley, made the experiment of entrusting its administration to two military officers, Colonel Reade and Colonel Munro, who later became Sir Thomas Munro, the Governor of Madras, whose name is still cherished with love in the Central Districts as one of the greatest benefactors of the ryot by his introduction of the ryotwari system by which the State deals directly with the actual cultivator of the soil without the mediation of a big landholder. Being a military officer, Sir Thomas Munro settled the question of the administration of the properties of the temples here in a simple common-sense way. In quite a number of cases he ‘resumed’ the lands of the temples, granted them to actual cultivators and gave a direct grant from the State coffers of the corresponding amount to the temples. This renders the problem of management of the temples in Salem District much easier than in other districts, as the main source of the income of the temple is easily controlled by the Board of Religious Endowments.

During the subsequent period of the East India Company, the Government controlled all religious institutions directly through the Board of Revenue, but after the transfer of the territories in India to the Crown, Temple Committees were constituted everywhere in this Presidency and the administration of temples passed into their hands. In some cases they functioned well, but in most cases they unfortunately tended to degenerate. Very rich endowments were wasted for the private purposes of trustees. The public conscience was sorely tried when the donations of pious god-fearing folk, who hoped to serve God by endowing his abodes with properties, were spent frequently on prostitutes and litigation. The only remedy provided by Statute was the law courts, and these were frequently resorted to. In this connection, we must all remember with gratitude the great name of the late Sir S. Subrahmania Ayyar who started the ‘Dharma Rakshana Sabha,’ an association to take active steps for proper administration of Hindu religious endowments and for bringing defaulters to book. Schemes of administration were got framed for many of our big temples and a lot of good was done by the activities of this Association. Owing to its remoteness, the district of Salem did not benefit much from the activities of the ‘Sabha’ but a great many temples, particularly in Chingleput, and what may be called the Cathedral temples in Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tinnevelly were purified to a considerable extent. Where a ‘matadhipathi’ or a religious head was the hereditary trustee of the temple, the ‘Dharma Rakshana Sabha’s’ schemes associated a secular trustee with him to look after the properties, while the ritual and ‘pooja’ inside was looked after by the religious ‘dharmakartha.’ Where the hereditary trustee was not such, the schemes provided for additional trustees to assist and control the existing trustees. But the defect of this remedy was that it had to be applied afresh for each case and a cumbersome process had to be passed through for each temple separately. The trustees adopted dilatory tactics. Years were spent in litigation. The trustees were quite generous to their lawyers and others at the expense of the temple, and in many cases the remedy came into operation only after the temple properties were exhausted.

The Rajah of Panagal, in his far-sighted wisdom, thought that, with the transference of responsibility of certain departments including Religious Endowments to popular Ministers answerable to elected legislators, the State should assume a more direct control over religious endowments. The Act of 1925 did not come a day too soon. It is unnecessary for me to dilate upon the reasons which led to further amendment. The machinery set up by the Act may be briefly summarised. A Board of Commissioners for Hindu Religious Endowments was constituted specifically for supervising the administration of temples and ‘maths.’ Commissioners are full-time salaried officers. They should be Hindus, and they have been almost invariably lawyers of a certain standing at the Bar. The Commissioners could pass orders reviewing the decisions of the Temple Committees where these Committees existed, and in other cases they could issue directions to the trustees. Where trustees mismanaged, the Board could appoint additional trustees and, where funds permitted, a salaried manager who would look after the day-to-day administration. In order to satisfy public feeling, sometimes engineered and always fostered by trustees whose hands were not quite clean, an application to the District Court was provided for in the Act against important decisions of the Board, and a further recourse to the High Court was allowed. In order that the Board may function as an independent body, it was specifically stated by a Section of the Act that the Government shall not exercise any powers of revision or appeal against the orders of the Commissioners. The Board was fortunate in having as its first President Sir T. Sadasiva Ayyar, who served his country as a distinguished Judge of the Madras High Court and, at the request of the Rajah of Panagal, took upon himself the arduous duties of his office out of his zeal for the purification of our religious institutions. By 1935 it was found that a major amendment of the Act was necessary. The Board framed schemes fairly quickly but when matters were taken to the Courts, the delay necessitated by other more important and urgent work before the Courts, destroyed the beneficent effects of our schemes, although ultimately most of the schemes were upheld by the Courts. Again, when once resort was had to Law Courts, at whatever remote point of time after a scheme of administration was ordered by the Board, and the Court framed its own scheme for the administration of the institution, the Board was powerless. In order to remedy the defects, the amending Act of 1935 provided a new and effective remedy. After holding an enquiry, the Board could recommend a temple to be notified by the Government, and on such notification all existing schemes for the governance of the temple by the Courts or by the Board were brought to an end. The temple would therefore be, so to speak, directly administered by the Board through a salaried executive officer. This applied only to temples but not to ‘maths.’

It must be admitted by all impartial critics that, in spite of the fundamental obstacle, which is the want of a suitable coercive machinery, the Board of Religious Endowments has done a lot of good to the administration of those endowments. If one calls up in memory the years 1926 and 1927, one recalls the echoes of "Religion in danger," "Sacrilege," "Robbery of temples." "Desecration of temples," etc., uttered in connection with the passing of the Act. Suit after suit was filed by rich ‘matadhipathis,’ who are supposed to lead a celibate life in the contemplation of God, contesting the very validity of the Act. The Proclamation of Queen Victoria of 1858 was quite frequently referred to. These were set at rest by the Validating Act of 1927. Then again, there was the difficulty of finance. Nobody likes to be taxed, and temple authorities conceived the demands of the Board as ‘iniquitous imposts.’ There was no machinery for the collection of the dues to the Board. Government made their position very clear from the beginning that the Board must be self-supporting, and whatever amount is given from the public funds must be repaid at the earliest opportunity. Thousands of petitions were filed in District Courts and ordered in due course, but collections still fell far short of expenditure. Arrears accumulated beyond any possibility of collection. The stability of the Board became assured only after the Amending Act of 1930 which authorised the Collector to collect the demands of the Board as arrears of land revenue. Dishonest trustees allowed arrears of contribution to accumulate and when temple lands were sold for satisfaction thereof, conducted a campaign against the Board as destroyers of temples. Without funds the Board cannot function, and if temple lands are attached and sold for arrears of contributions, temple doors had to be closed for want of ‘paditharam’ and ‘archaka’s’ salaries. To remedy this state of affairs, the Board suggested to the District Collectors that they should instruct their subordinates to attach standing crops as far as possible but not the land itself.

Again, nothing was certain about the personnel of the Board. The Act, while it stated that the Commissioners shall hold office for five years, specifically provided that they are eligible for reappointment, but the Government of the day never reappointed the Commissioners, except in one case. The experience of each set of Commissioners has therefore been thrown away and each successor had to learn everything afresh.

Anyone who sees, with impartial eyes, one of the big notified temples, and how worshippers suffered before the Board took hold of the administration and what facilities are now provided for the poorest of worshippers cannot but confess that the Board has been a potent factor for good in the administration of the religious institutions of our Province.

But, by experience are found certain difficulties in remedying defects in temple administration in all cases, even with the aid of the powers of notification. For one thing, the temple must be possessed of sufficient and definite funds to pay a salaried officer to be recommended in notification. The provisions with regard to publication and appeal in the notification proceedings give scope to dilatory tactics by the trustees.

There can be no doubt that the time has become ripe for even a more direct administration of temples by the Government. All the affairs of the Province are now administered by Ministers responsible to an elected Legislature. The suspicion, existing at the time of the passing of the first Act, that the Government is likely to interfere for indirect purposes with the work of the Board, has been proved to be baseless. The social and economic tendencies of the present day, equally with the political factors in the land, warrant a radical alteration in our method of administration of temples. The idea underlying most of the earlier Court schemes and even the original Act of 1925 was that an unpaid non-official agency could be found to administer the temples properly when its affairs were mismanaged by the existing authorities. If there was any basis for this assumption in earlier days, and there might have been some basis for it at that time, there is absolutely none now. Take an ordinary well-to-do man in a village. If there were good rains and his lands yielded well, the only way he could show his gratitude to God in those good old days was to renovate the village temple or build a temple himself. To speak even from the grosser plane, the one way in which he could shine before his fellow villagers was to perform a grand ‘utsavam’ and be known to everybody as a great devotee of God. Owing to the then standards of life and the difficulty of communications, there were not many directions in which a rich man could spend his wealth. Nor could much of the wealth be converted into money and hoarded for future use. He spent part of it, therefore, naturally on his temple. And similarly there was not much pressure upon his time. If his tenants cultivated his lands and gave him the produce, he had time hanging heavy on him for at least half the year. He could think of methods of improving the ‘vahanams’ and developing the ‘utsavams’ of his temple, so that his God might be known far and wide.

Now conditions have absolutely changed. The education of children may cost anything, nowadays. Many a rich man has pauperised himself with the marriage of two or three daughters. The fever of elections has reduced to beggary many a well-to-do family in our villages. Again, the tenancy problem has made the collection of the income of the temple a very difficult task. Most of the income of our temples comes from land. ‘Archakas’ have become sophisticated; and. while claiming to be sole intermediaries between the deity in the temple and the worshippers, are more devoted to their emoluments than to their duties. All these factors put together involve a sacrifice of time and energy on the part of those responsible for administration, which it would be futile to expect in the ordinary unpaid trustee having regard to the economic conditions of the present day. I may illustrate my point of view from another branch of life. Take our Municipalities and District Boards. It was once considered sufficient to have a popularly elected Council or Board and a President elected by that body to ensure proper local administration. Now, most of our Municipalities have got a Commissioner, and an officer corresponding thereto has been recommended for the District Boards and even Panchayat Boards. The Councilors themselves are beginning to recognise the beneficent effects of a system by which they are relieved of the routine duties of administration. Similarly, when once the system of salaried executive officers to administer the ordinary affairs of temples is firmly established, trustees will see its advantages. This cannot mean that, in future, the unofficial public have no functions to perform. Being relieved of routine and mechanical work, they can best serve their deity and fellow citizens by creating an atmosphere of spirituality in our temples, which one feels is sadly lacking. It is the worshippers that make the temple what it is. And what is required is the inspiring of enthusiasm in the general public to go to these places for calm contemplation.