Pilgrims thronging the hill shrine of Sabarimala are facing a harrowing and torrid time. It is not due to inefficiency or incompetence, but it is a well-organised chaos by Marxist party functionaries at all levels, who are having a tight stranglehold on the Devaswom Board, that administers everything connected with the Sabarimala temple, as also innumerable temples across the State of Kerala.

It needs to be understood that it is a charade to say that there is government control of temples. Whether in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or anywhere else in India, the political party in power is the real controller of temples, but they cleverly use the fiction of government control to hoodwink the general public. For this purpose, there are institutions set up, called in different States as Devaswom Board/Devasthanams/HR&CE/ and Muzrai.

“Muzrai" refers to a government department in charge of public temples and endowments, in Karnataka, a system of allocating funds and resources for religious or charitable purposes. It is derived from the Persian word “mujra", meaning deduction or allowance. It is despicable that Karnataka is still using a Persian word to denote control over temples. Why are the Hindus of Karnataka not agitating to get this department renamed? Every other day there is some agitation or government diktats warning to use Kannada language only on signboards and in private companies, yet no steps taken to rename the Muzrai department.

Be that as it may, all governments, whichever be the State, and whatever be their political ideology, have an exclusive department dedicated to handling temple affairs, which is headed by a senior IAS officer, of the rank of Principal Secretary, and also a Minister, but the rank and file controlling temples in the field are all committed political party cadres.

This is the bane of all temples including the famed Sabarimala. It is these employees who are involved in temple thefts (as now unravelled in Sabarimala), procuring sub-standard edible products for use in temples, pilfering Hundi money and actively abetting violation of temple traditions. In Sabarimala, in violation of temple tradition, young girls were clandestinely brought inside the temple, including fanatic ladies of other faiths.

The ongoing investigations at Sabarimala of the gold robbery is a typical example involving Devaswom Board officials. Apart from an IAS poster boy as President, to hoodwink devotees, the rest are all literally atheist dacoits, engaged in devious means to extort and squeeze maximum money from pilgrims. Examine the following techniques that are being routinely employed:

Massive blockades of queue for ‘Darshan’ is created by simply holding up the free flow of pilgrims, with the avowed objective of forcing them to seek ‘paid darshan’ or ‘quick darshan’ tickets. Though ‘paid Darshan’ system is not in vogue presently in Sabarimala, but in temples like Guruvayoor, this system has started, and the rates are exorbitant. Most of the temples in Tamil Nadu and other states, which are controlled by party cadres, have this system and also the scourge of fake tickets being sold by employees! This is to enrich themselves and local political goons. It is a big organised racket, going on undisturbed and free from any Vigilance monitoring.

Kerala temples which follow the Tantric system, close the........

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