[Reader-list] Another Shrine, Another Time

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All,

Since we have all been discussing mountain shrines, injured Hindu  
honour, temple boards and shady deals. I thought that a little  
clipping filed away in my archives may be both entertaining and  
instructive.
I had mentioned the affairs of the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala  
earlier. Here is a news item that appeared in the Hindustan Times in  
January 1999, about another mountain shrine. This time, its Badrinath.

No wonder Hindutva is such a good business proposition.

No further comments. Enjoy

Shuddha

_______________________________
Badrinath shrine cases get political
http://uttarakhand.prayaga.org/news-1999-1.html#0ae


Joshimath, January 10 (HT Correspondent)

THE AFFAIRS of the 10,300 ft-high Badrinath shrine, the highest for  
religious merit, have become bogged down in court cases, as a result  
of BJP attempts to use its rich revenue of crores of rupees in  
pilgrim offerings for the benefit of its organisations and also that  
of the RSS.

The Allahabad High Court last month dismissed the new Badrinath- 
Kedarnath Temple Committee, nominated by the BJP-led Government of UP  
by its notification of September 2, 1998, on a writ petition filed by  
members of the previous committee, whose term was to run until August  
26, 1999. The High Court in its order of December 1, said the  
previous committee was given "no opportunity of hearing" before its  
term was cut short.

The new committee, set up by the BJP-led state Government, went to  
the Supreme Court, against the Allahabad High Court ruling but the  
highest Court on December 18, rejected its petition, according to Mr  
Kushla Nand Sati, a member of the previous committee and a petitioner  
in the High Court, who is a resident of Joshimath. The new committee,  
loaded with low-level RSS and BJP workers, in a month of its  
appointment, began doling out funds from the pilgrim-offerings to  
deities of Badrinath-Kedarnath temples, to functions and institutions  
of their own organisations, according to Mr Sati. The new committee  
allotted Rs 21,000 from these temple-offerings to a RSS workers' camp  
in Meerut in October and Rs 5,000 to each Saraswati Shishu Mandir  
(children school in the region, manned mainly by the RSS cadre), Mr  
Sati said in a statement issued here.

The new committee promoted a number of its employees including one to  
the post of its Chief Executive, in violation of rules of their  
appointment. They bought a new car for Rs 5 lakhs which Mr Sati said,  
"Was placed at the disposal of the wife of the Chairman of the new  
committee, Mr Vinod Nautiyal of Pauri, to take her to Dehradun for  
the delivery of their child and remain there for her use." Mr  
Nautiyal is a Pauri RSS worker.

The old committee, the term of which was abruptly cut short last year  
was headed by Mr Romesh Bhandari, the former UP Governor. Mr Sati,  
who was in that committee which is supposed to take charge again,  
unless the UP Government issues a fresh order after giving a hearing  
to its members on why their three-year term needed to be cut short,  
said here today that the committee office located in Joshimath had  
become a den of corruption, with some of its employees including the  
Superintendent, remaining drunk all the time.

The irreplaceable and invaluable Kedarnath temple pinnacle, of gold  
and reported to be 5,000 years old, was stolen in 1996. Till then, no  
serious efforts have been made by the committee to recover it or  
trace the culprits. The rumour in this area is that the theft was  
committed with the knowledge of some committee employees.

In 1994, the committee bought five buses for Rs 36 lakhs and in three  
years lost Rs 11 lakhs on running them. The committee officials'  
telephone and travelling bills run into thousands of rupees and are  
allowed without serious scrutiny, ignoring the fact that the money  
comes out of the offerings of poor pilgrims, according to Mr Sati. He  
called for the appointment of a High Court judge to inquire into the  
mismanagement of the Badrinath Temple Committee funds and said that  
the management of these highest temples in the north should be  
patterned of that of other rich shrines of India.

These were contributing to the education and welfare of not only the  
people living around them but also of others all over the country.

"Badrinath shrine and the town that has grown around it, must be the  
most mismanaged one in the country," Mr Sati said.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net