Time for Parliament to Enact a Liberation Bill

As if looting citizens isn’t enough, the corrupt and unscrupulous in the bureaucracy are now after the wealth of the gods.

- Anand Neelakantan

The recent news of significant gold disappearing from Sabarimala, a cornerstone of faith and immense wealth, is not just a police case; it is the latest, damning evidence of a systemic moral collapse. A substantial quantity of gold, tied to the 2019 restoration work of the temple’s dwarapalaka idols, has vanished, with fingers pointing at officials and questionable ‘sponsors.’ When the Travancore Devaswom Board, the government's administrative arm, assures us the ‘guilty will be punished,’ the informed citizen can only feel a weary sense of déja vu.

The paradox is glaring: in our supposedly secular republic, the temples of the majority community are treated as a state-run cash cow, while institutions of virtually every other faith manage their own spiritual and financial destiny with minimal state intrusion. This unequal application of the law, where the government assumes the role of an often-incompetent and cynical trustee for Hindu wealth, fundamentally violates the spirit of the Constitution. The state’s continued control over vast temple treasuries—which are the donations and offerings of the faithful—allows for their diversion into ‘secular’ activities, often unrelated to Hindu communal welfare, turning devotion into mere government revenue. The controversies of the last decade, from encroachments on temple lands in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu to allegations of financial irregularities in other major shrines, all trace back to this single, fatal flaw: the absence of accountability to the devotee, and the presence of political self-interest in the administrative chamber.