New Delhi: Amid a lingering din of communal fear-mongering and provocative speeches targeted at Muslims, a “Sanatan Dharma Sansad” of Hindu religious leaders at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj on January 27 gave its nod to a draft of a Waqf board-like “Sanatan Board” for the management, maintenance and control of properties of various Hindu temples and mutts in the country.

Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Hema Malini, the saffron party’s controversial MLA from Telangana T. Raja Singh, Hindutva leader ‘Sadhvi’ Prachi, known for her anti-Muslim slurs and priest of the Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya, Mahant Raju Das, who is facing legal action for asking visitors to the Maha Kumbh Mela to urinate on a statue of Samajwadi Party’s founder the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, were among those on stage when the resolution was passed.

The Sanatan Dharma Sansad, convened by Mathura-based katha vachak or story-teller Devkinandan Thakur, proposed the formation of a “Sanatan Board” that would have the power to declare any property as temple property if there existed “sufficient evidence” or “historical basis” for it. The proposed Sanatan Hindu Board Act, 2025 would also have the power to constitute a tribunal to settle legal disputes on funds and temple property by their own ‘judges’ through the “Sanatani tradition.”

“We will not go to other courts. We will have our own courts,” said Balyogi Arun Puri, a self-claimed seer from Kanpur, who had in 2017 claimed to have raised a people’s army to fight ‘stone-pelters’ in Jammu and Kashmir, reading out the draft of the proposal.

The Sanatan Board Tribunal would also have the mandate to free the land “forcibly occupied” by the Waqf boards in the country and arrange for punitive measures against movies, statements and comedy that is anti-Sanatan by enacting a law against blasphemy.

Sanatan Dharm Sansad. Photo: Facebook/Devkinandan Thakur

Not all are takers

The Sanatan Dharma Sansad was convened after the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the apex umbrella body of the 13 Hindu sects in India, last week gave its nod to the idea of a centralised “Sanatan Board.” However, the heads of most of these akharas were not present at the Dharma Sansad, for reasons unexplained, raising questions about the acceptability of a “Sanatan Board” among the larger Hindu seer community.  The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath, have already expressed their disapproval of the idea of a centralised board to manage Hindu temples and mutts.

Many of the senior Hindu religious leaders were busy hosting Union minister Amit Shah who........

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