For crores of Hindus, Ayodhya is not just a temple town. It is the culmination of a civilisational struggle spanning centuries. The Ram Mandir was built owing to the sacrifices, devotion, donations and prayers of countless Hindus across India and the world.
That is precisely why the ongoing controversy surrounding the theft and misappropriation of donations at the Ram Temple is so disturbing and embarrassing.
If the findings emerging from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) are accurate, what has been uncovered is not a sophisticated financial conspiracy. It is something far worse: a shocking collapse of ethics, basic governance, accountability, institutional discipline and dharma itself in one of Hinduism’s most important temples.
And yet, contrary to what some may argue, the Ayodhya controversy is not proof that governments should permanently control Hindu temples. It is proof that the State’s role should be to investigate wrongdoing and punish those responsible – not to become the perpetual manager of religious institutions.
The Findings Are Embarrassing
The SIT reportedly found serious procedural lapses in multiple areas, including cash handling, employee verification, CCTV monitoring, recruitment practices and the management of donations.
According to reports, cash-counting operations were outsourced through multiple layers, workers were allegedly appointed through recommendations linked to temple functionaries, security checks were inadequate, prescribed protocols were ignored and CCTV surveillance suffered from blind spots.
Investigators have also reportedly examined discrepancies in the documentation and accounting of gold, silver, precious stones and other valuables donated by devotees.
This is not just about missing cash or missing jewellery. It is about a breakdown of systems that should never have been allowed to fail in the first place.
When devotees offer money, ornaments and valuables before Lord Ram, they do so with complete faith. They do not expect that faith to be compromised by administrative negligence, lax controls or questionable oversight.
Tamil Nadu Proves That Unaccountable Govt Control Can Also Fail Spectacularly
There is an equal and opposite delusion in Tamil Nadu: that once the government takes control of temples, accountability automatically follows. The record says otherwise. The Tamil Nadu HR&CE Department’s own website says it administers 46,334 institutions and records 4,78,283.59 acres of temple and mutt land. That is a huge civilisational estate in the custody of the state.
Yet in 2021, the Madras High Court pointed to the official statistics and noted that temple lands had fallen from 5.25 lakh acres to 4.78 lakh acres, observing that the balance had ended up in the hands of encroachers. The court said the HR&CE Department, being custodian and administrator of temple properties, was answerable, and that officials could be held culpable for breach of responsibility. That is the court, not activists, saying the state failed in its basic duty.
The state later tried to answer this crisis with digitisation and recovery drives. In June 2021, the HR&CE Department uploaded ownership documents relating to 3,43,647 acres out of around 4.78 lakh acres identified for temples, projecting it as a transparency measure. That was welcome, but it also exposed how late and incomplete the documentation exercise had been for assets supposedly under government supervision all along.
So let us be honest: private management without audit can become a cesspool, and government control without accountability can become a graveyard. Ayodhya is not an argument for letting every trust run wild. Tamil Nadu is not an argument for letting every department sit forever on Hindu institutions. The lesson from both is the same: there must be rule-bound, transparent, reviewable oversight over secular administration.
The Constitution Already Draws The Correct Hindu Line
Indian constitutional law is far clearer than our political slogans. In Shirur Mutt case, the Supreme Court held that the administration of property belonging to a religious denomination is on a different footing from the right to manage religious affairs. Rituals, essential practices, and doctrinal matters are protected. But questions relating to property, finances, and administration can be regulated by law. The Court also said a law cannot simply strip a denomination altogether of the right to administer its property and hand it permanently to someone else.
The Supreme Court sharpened that principle in the Chidambaram Nataraja Temple case. It held that even if temple management is taken over to remedy an evil, the takeover must be for a limited period, co-terminus with removing the mismanagement. It cannot become a permanent usurpation.
“Power to regulate” does not mean power to supersede administration indefinitely. That principle is crucial. A Hindu institution should not become the permanent estate of the bureaucracy. But neither should financial and property administration be immune from law.
The Madras High Court has restated the same line more recently: once a temple receives public contributions, the state may intervene in cases of maladministration or misappropriation, but it cannot interfere with poojas and religious practices, which must follow established custom. This is exactly the distinction Hindus should insist on – strict public regulation of money, land, contracts, security, and crowd systems; zero casual interference in agama, ritual, archana, or sampradaya.
This is also deeply consistent with Hindu legal thought. Indian case law recognizes the idol or deity as a juristic person in whom endowed property vests. The shebait or human manager represents the deity in worldly matters.
In the Bishwanath case, the Supreme Court held that when a shebait acts adversely or fails to protect the idol’s interests, a worshipper may act to protect the deity, which the Court described as being in the position of a minor. In other words, Hindu law itself does not treat management as an untouchable personal privilege. It treats it as a fiduciary obligation owed to the deity.
Regulate Mosques & Churches Too, Why Single Out Temples?
This is where the hypocrisy of Indian secularism becomes impossible to ignore. If the state says public religious endowments need transparency, audits, land registries, and criminal scrutiny, then that standard must apply across faiths. The state cannot keep a permanent department for Hindu temples, while preaching “autonomy” only when the discussion turns to others. Equal citizenship demands equal regulatory principle.
In fact, the state already accepts the logic of oversight in other contexts. Government data released through PIB stated that, as of 14 March 2025, WAMSI records showed 8.72 lakh waqf properties spanning more than 38 lakh acres, under reporting by 32 boards across 30 States/UTs. That is statutory property governance, digitisation, and state-recognised oversight in the Muslim endowment sphere. So, the idea that religious endowments are somehow beyond secular regulatory architecture is plainly false.
Church bodies too are not beyond secular law. In the litigation involving the Church of South India Trust Association, the Madras High Court noted that CSITA is a company under the Companies Act holding church properties, and that allegations of mismanagement and misappropriation led to investigation processes involving the Registrar of Companies and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office. In other words, when church property raises fraud concerns, the state already knows how to step in through company law and financial investigation.
So, the Hindu case today should be blunt: either regulate all public religious endowments on the same secular principles or stop pretending that Hindu institutions alone deserve bureaucratic guardianship. What cannot continue is the present duplicity – endless day-to-day departments over temples, and a more fragmented, indirect, or selective oversight model elsewhere. Equal law or admit the discrimination.
What Hindus Should Demand After Ayodhya
A Hindu response worthy of Ayodhya should reject two dishonest options at once: blind defence of corrupt handlers, and selective state capture of only Hindu temples. The correct position is stronger than both. It should demand a uniform public religious endowments law for the secular administration of all major publicly funded religious institutions, with denominational freedom fully protected in worship and doctrine. That demand already fits constitutional doctrine and the lessons of both Ayodhya and Tamil Nadu.
Such a model should include mandatory third-party financial audits; public online land and title registries; CCTV-linked chain-of-custody rules for cash and valuables; published daily or periodic deposit statements above a threshold; full-time professional CEOs for large shrines; compulsory disclosure of contracts and procurement; automatic FIR-trigger protocols for mismatches in inventory or banking; and judicially reviewable, time-bound supersession only where proven maladministration exists. Ayodhya’s own crisis has already pushed discussion in that direction, with calls for a CEO, daily counting, and a more formalised administrative structure.
Finally, Hindus must stop confusing sacredness with immunity from audit. A temple is sacred. A trust is not. A deity is beyond corruption. A management body is not. Ayodhya’s pain lies precisely in that distinction. Lord Ram has lost nothing. The disgrace belongs entirely to those who may have treated devotees’ offerings as an opportunity rather than a sacred obligation. If India learns the right lesson from this, Ayodhya may still become the turning point that forces one honest principle upon the Republic: no theft in God’s name, and no selective secularism in God’s institutions.
Hydra is a political writer with a keen interest in India’s civilisational renaissance, constitutional governance, and public policy.
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