On 19 June, Nripendra Mishra dropped a bombshell. In one of several interviews aired by TV channels on the day, Mishra, a member of the board of trustees for the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, also chairman of the Temple Construction Committee and former principal secretary to prime minister Narendra Modi, referred to stolen donation money in the Ayodhya Ram temple as ‘खुला डाका’ (daylight robbery). Not surprisingly, the Sangh Parivar is squirming.

But it seems not everyone in the Parivar is equally invested in the damage-limitation exercise that has started in the wake of the discovery of embezzlement — running into several crores according to some reports — and then the Mishra interview.

While the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust was constituted by the government, following the 2019 Supreme Court judgment in the Ram Mandir case, many of its trustees are from the tentacular Sangh Parivar and swear allegiance to it.

The temple, built at an estimated cost of approximately Rs 2,000 crore, donated by devotees from home and abroad, created quite a frenzy of excitement in this ecosystem — in the BJP, the militant Vishva Hindu Parishad, which spearheaded the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, big daddy RSS, which claimed centre stage during the ‘pran pratishtha’ (consecration) ceremony (on22 January 2024) and of course very large numbers of devout Hindus. Even mainstream media was all aflutter — awash in banner headlines declaring a triumphant civilisational moment.

With all the media hype and government promotion, it is hardly surprising that the temple has received the kind of attention — and donations — it has. Which has verily tested the integrity of some of the people in charge. It would be a mistake to think it stops at the eight arrested by the Special Investigation Team.

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© National Herald