Popular yoga guru and mystic Jaggi Vasudev (known as Sadhguru) on Thursday tweeted about the contentious issue of government control of temples in Tamil Nadu.
Sadhguru's main ashram is located near Coimbatore. Sadhguru tweeted, "#Temples in Tamil Nadu are in the clutches of Government Administration. Impinging on the sanctity of these powerfully Consecrated places of worship. Time Temples are managed by #Devotees, not by bureaucratic and Political forces..."
Sadhguru tagged the official Twitter handles of the Prime Minister's Office, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's Office and, curiously, actor Rajinikanth. Rajinikanth, who had abandoned plans to launch a political party this month, had called for a "secular, spiritual" politics in Tamil Nadu to contrast with the atheistic ideologies of the Dravidian parties.
Government control of temples has been a contentious issue in Tamil Nadu, as it has been in other states of India.
State control over temples in what is now Tamil Nadu had its roots in the British East India Company's actions in the erstwhile Madras Presidency in 1817. After Independence, the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act of 1951 was passed. This law was deemed to be unconstitutional by the Madras High Court and Supreme Court.
In 1959, the existing Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act was enacted. This act, which has been strengthened by subsequent governments, provided for appointment of executive officers in temples. The appointment of executive officers has been a controversial issue. In addition to allegations of corruption, there have been incidents of theft of idols in temples in Tamil Nadu. In 2019, a Supreme Court bench, comprising current Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice S.A. Nazeer, referred to these theft cases, while hearing a plea about alleged harassment of devotees in the Jagannath temple in Puri.
