The progress of humanity through the prism of religion, with God as the torch bearer, should be one of the noblest perceptions of any government, surpassing political and religious barriers. The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board was constituted in 1927 and was subsequently renamed as the Hindu Religious &Charitable Endowments Department in 1951, with the twin objectives of maintenance of temple properties, and promotion of human/social enlightenment. The Hindu Charitable Endowments Act was framed in 1959 and came into effect from 01/01/1960.
Ever since the inception of this body, temples in Tamil Nadu enjoyed the benefits of periodical renovation and consecration. During the last four years countless temples in Tamil Nadu have been renovated and consecrated. The revolutionary ideology of the present political dispensation ruling Tamil Nadu, did not come in the way, to avert the fascinating face lift given to age old temples and the various physical facilities made available to devotees, in many of those temples.
Besides the substantial maintenance of temples, the HR&CE Department functioning under the aegis of the state government, took up the onus of starting a few educational institutions with the singular objective of making education reach the bottom most sections of people living under meagre financial resources. One of the fundamental objectives of this move, is to free education from the clutches of the caste oriented, conservative designs of education, once aggressively promoted by the higher ladder of the Indian caste system.Caste can never be the determiner of anybody's career.
In the recent days, a section of political activists, have been venting out their harboured views, supporting the exclusive maintenance of temples by individuals or agencies, focusing only on religion and religion related routines, so that the funds donated to any temple by the devotees, are not diverted to purposes and activities,other than those related to rituals, prasad and conduct of devotional musical shows and classic dance programmes. Most of these aspects mentioned here, are closer to the heart and soul of the upper caste lobby, which vows to wholly own God and religion, so as to make the temple premises as the sole property of specific groups.
If the temple maintenance is solely vested with any particular Private body, upholding religion and prioritizing only the rituals, an entire section of beneficiaries involved in the maintenance of temples, will lose their voice to be raised for the preservation of their survival rights and benefits, thrown open to them, by any government. In addition to this, delinking of temple maintenance from the hands of HR&CE, will deprive the already deprived sections, of their existing access to temples, and their right to avail themselves of the educational and social schemes, envisaged by the HR&CE.
Those who are fanatically bound to any religion will always go with their orchestrated religious agenda, and exclude the expanded modules and schemes meant for the progress of all sections of society, living in a region. Basically speaking, God belongs to all living beings and not to any specific religious groups, trying to monopolize religion for divisive tendencies and direct benefits.
Quoting Allen Bloom, "Education is the movement from darkness to light" and God is the incarnation of light and radiance. Minds require this radiance not only to visualize the ethical and spiritual boundaries of life, but also to enlarge its vision for enriching its global insight. The purpose of education is to perpetuate these bifocal dimensions of radiance. Hence, is it wrong to radiate the deserving downtrodden minds through educational programmes sponsored by temple funds? Does God want any money? When it comes to diversion of temple money for the procurement of educational honey, some people talk about the potential possibility for corruption.
Corruption permeates everywhere in every walk of life. Where is the guarantee that there will be no corruption in Private agencies, in the form of misappropriation of accounts, diversion of funds to vested interests and evasion of tax through foul means. After all, most of the funds donated by devotees are put into the offertories by cash and coins, and the absence of digital transaction will keep such fund collections in a dark net.
All said and done, constantly whipping any single political party against corruption, smacks of a concrete and valid move to arrest corruption, because all those who are talking about corruption in one political party, are only throwing stones from their glass houses. Let sanity prevail among the narrow minded political and religious voices, so as to correct their fences first, before blaming others against encroachment.
Education is the direst need of the hour and from whichever source it is made available, it should be seen as a delighting dawn. HR&CE is one such source that is opening the doors for learning and knowledge as a global tool. It is not a selective musical instrument to be tuned to please the ears of God. God's ears are meant more for hearing the cries of humanity, than for listening to repeated rhythms as prayer.
In fact,God must be wanting to see more munificence and magnanimity in humanity, instead of hearing his most familiar musical notes. Education in the lap of HR&CE is like a baby in the lap of its beloved mother and God would certainly certify that lap, as His lap too,
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