Tuesday, January 25 2005 14:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

It is amazing that a country supposedly founded on "socialist secular" basis, is so keen on running religious institutions it can lay its hands on.

In a true "secular" state, all religions would be treated with equal deference or indifference. Not in India! Here, the religion of the majority is treated with callous indifference and the religion of the minorities with greatest deference. I will not bore anyone with the stats, and give just one major example of this.

In India, the secular Governments of the different States run hundreds of thousands of temples across the length and breadth of the country. In Andhra Pradesh alone, they run approx 33,000 temples! Yet, these same Governments are scared to touch any mosque or churches.

It seems the Governments find it easy to take over Hindu temples, disburse its properties and wealth to non-Hindus and still call themselves secular, BUT, if anyone touches a single minority institution, that would make the entire edifice of secular notions come tumbling down on their heads!

It is an incomprehensible situation. Even after "independence", for decades, Hindus have had been indignant as more and more temples are taken over. Just like the British and the Moghuls before them, flimsiest excuses are used take over take over a lucrative temple, as it is a proverbial "cash cow" for these greedy politicians.

Its about time we Hindus united and put a stop to this!

There are two ways to do this:

1) Use your VOTE! That is the only language politicians in a democracy know. The reason vote-bank politics works against us Hindus is, because the others usually vote in a cohesive manner. This allows a political party to know which group will support it and why. They than gear their manifesto accordingly. We Hindus vote with our so-called "conscious" and hence dissipate our vote. As a result, we Hindus are not an attractive community for politicians, who are only concerned with vote banks and who can deliver them the coveted parliamentary seats.

We have to make sure our vote counts and those who get out vote are actually campaigning for us and our issues. In a democracy, unless you make your vote count, you have no right to complain about the way the State treats you.

2) Hit them where is really hurts - in their pockets!! The only real reason for taking over the temples is MONEY! If we deny them this vital source of cash - often diverted to promote non-Hindu or worse, anti-Hindu activities, the Governments will have to reconsider their policies of taking over our temples.

This does not mean we become mean and do not perform charity, we just have to do it intelligently!

Instead of giving the money to the temple, we give money to a poor student - son of our own house servant may be? We can do so much to make sure the other Hindus in our vicinity are better cared for during times of distress or illness.

We can pool together and build hospitals or schools that benefit our community. If Catholics can have their schools and Muslims can have madrassas, why not a Hindu pathashala that teaches all the modern subjects and teaches our culture too!

Why not? If others can do it, why can't we? We should give to institutions that are supporting our views, and are not run by the corrupt Government stooges.

Once they have no regular income from these temples, we will see how ardent their fervour is in keeping them in the Government hands!