The Great Tamil Tragedy: A Legacy Of Land, Wealth, And Cultural Ruin In Tamil Nadu’s Temples

"Real estate is king" — this has never been more true. There were times in the past when lands were not as valuable as they are now, and agricultural income therefrom, and more importantly, lease amounts of such agricultural lands, were quite meagre. Even then, endowment of lands was crucial for temples and the sustainment of temple dharma. 

Over centuries, we see that land endowments have played a pivotal role in sustaining Hindu temples, cultural activities, educational initiatives, and welfare schemes.

In the past millennia and more, devotees who were kings, chieftains, aristocrats, rich men and women have donated vast tracts of land to Hindu temples and charitable organisations, establishing a steady income source to support these institutions. In their informed wisdom, land was the preferred means of endowment.

Historical Background of Temple Land Endowments

In ancient India, Hindu temples were more than just places of worship; they served as cultural hubs, educational centres, healthcare providers, centres for arts and music, and places of social cohesion. Temples played a critical role in upholding Hindu Dharma, instilling spiritual values, and providing for community welfare.

Recognising this, rulers and wealthy devotees donated lands to temples, creating a sustainable source of income to support priests, and various temple sevaks, maintain temple infrastructure, conduct daily rituals, and organise community festivals. And more importantly, these land donations had special purposes:

• Lands adjacent to the temples created an eco-system around the temples. The eco-system primarily belonged to or was loyal to the sampradaya to which the temple belonged. The lands around temples were always ‘Hindu lands.’ 

• Lands donated to temples had to be tilled. This was done by Hindu farmers to whom the lands were let out, creating a bond—not like that of a tiller and landlord, but more akin to a devotee-servant and his Bhagwan.

• The lands were also used to establish various dharmic institutions under the temple, such as gaushalas, Veda pathashalas, and Vaidyashalas, which provided employment opportunities in the village. Temples owning lands sustained a retinue of sevaks, including musicians, dancers, craftsmen, and pundits, supported by the income from these lands.

The Importance of Temple Lands for Hindu Society

The lands endowed to Hindu temples and charities are not just physical assets; they represent the collective heritage and wealth of Hindu society. Properly managed temple lands contribute to the following:

Sustaining Hindu Dharma: Daily rituals, festivals, and spiritual gatherings can be organised with the help of the income generated from temple lands. This continuity is vital for the survival and promotion of Hindu traditions and values.

Community Welfare: Temple lands provide resources to fund various social services such as educational institutions, healthcare centres, and shelters for the poor. Historically, temples have operated free kitchens, offering food and sustenance to those in need.

Cultural Preservation: Hindu temples are epicentres of art, music, dance, and architecture. The revenue from temple lands funds cultural festivals, enabling the younger generation to connect with their roots.

Education and Skill Development: Some temples use endowment income to run schools, libraries, and vocational centres, promoting education and skills within the community, fostering growth, and reducing poverty.

Tamil Nadu Hindu Temples and Endowments – Land Holdings

The 1986 Police Note from the Tamil Nadu (TN) Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department states that temples, mutts, and endowments in Tamil Nadu had 5.25 lakh acres of endowed land. This was apart from the hundreds of thousands of acres of Inam lands forcibly taken away after 1947.

In 1996, the TN Government stated the land holdings to be 4,91,417.34 acres. Between 1986 and 1996 33,582.66 acres of temple lands mysteriously disappeared.

In 1998, the land holdings remained unchanged. By 2000, they measured 4,90,383.12 acres. In 2002, this shrank by over 10,000 acres to 4,79,021 acres, and by 2008, further reduced to 4,78,755.35 acres.

Since then, the HR&CE Department has claimed that Hindu institutions in Tamil Nadu own 4.78 lakh acres. However, this figure comes with a caveat: the department states that only 3.43 lakh acres have proper records matching government records. Yet, the department never discloses how much of the total land is under encroachment or hostile occupation. 

Issues Facing Tamil Nadu Temple Lands Today

Encroachments: It is roughly estimated that at least 1,50,000 acres of temple, mutt and endowment lands are under encroachments. If you consider the extent of lands without proper lease agreements, the encroachments would be around 2,50,000 acres. 

The HR&CE Department claims to have recovered 7,000 acres of encroached land in three years. However, it remains silent on the thousands of crores owed from encroached temple lands, estimated conservatively at Rs 20,000 crores.

Underpriced Rents: In numerous cases, tenants occupying temple lands pay rents drastically below market rates. This deliberate underpricing is often due to outdated lease agreements, officials’ indifference and more importantly rampant corruption in fixing rentals by the HR&CE officials. There is a total lack of transparency in the administration of temple lands, leading to significant revenue loss.

The following examples will prove this point:

• Sri Kapaliswarar Temple, with 842 grounds of land in Chennai's prime Mylapore area, should generate at least Rs 150 crores annually as fair rent. Instead, the illegally functioning Executive Officer collects only Rs 1.5 crores per year, which is just 1 per cent of the expected amount.

• The prime property of 10 grounds situated in Greenways Road and belonging to Sri Kapaliswarar Temple, Chennai was illegally leased to a dubious organisation for a mere Rs 3,000 per month from the year 2010. From 1984 the organisation has not paid fair rent to the temple causing a loss of Rs 15 crores.

• Sri Thayumanaswamy Temple in Tiruchirappalli faces massive revenue loss due to abysmally low rents on its lands, with annual rates as low as Rs 0.94 to Rs 23.98 per acre across 429 acres in several villages. Shockingly, these rents have remained uncollected for over 30 years, underscoring systemic issues.

Colossal Loss

Approximately Rs 500 crores should be collected as minimum rent from 4,00,000 acres of agricultural land, while Rs 4,000 crores should be generated from 78,000 acres of land that have become urban or semi-urban.

Additionally, the 29 crore square feet of sites belonging to temples, mutts, and endowments should yield about Rs 1,750 crores per annum. Besides this, there are also 22,600 buildings owned by Hindu temples.

In total, no less than Rs 6,250 crores should be collected from these properties every year. However, the Tamil Nadu HR&CE Department collects less than Rs 250 crores from the immovable properties of Hindu religious institutions under its control. Over the last decade, Hindu temples have lost approximately Rs 60,000 crores in fair rent income from lands.

The fair rent of Rs 6,250 crores per annum, if collected every year can result in the following benefits to Hindu Communities: 

• Rs 250 crores for ensuring poojas across 30,000 poor village temples

• Rs 1000 crores to ensure free quality education with Sanatan values for 400,000 Hindu school students at Rs 25,000 per student per annum

• Rs 1000 crores to ensure free quality education with Sanatan training for 100,000 Hindu College students at Rs 100,000 per student per annum

• Rs 2000 crores for the healthcare of 2 million Hindu families covered under Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY)

• Rs 250 crores for publication of Hindu religious texts for children and adults at subsidised rates

• Rs 250 crores for Veda Pathsalas and Agama Pathsalas where Vedas and Agamas would be taught in the traditional Gurukul method by Pandits

• Rs 250 crores for propagation of Sanatan Dharma and prevention of conversion.

Hindu Temples would still have Rs 1250 crores to invest each year and build a corpus of Rs 12500 crores in ten years.

This would rejuvenate Hinduism like never before in Tamil Nadu—a state where missionary-guided anti-Sanatan Dharma agenda is being pursued and the temple funds accumulated painstakingly over 20 years fast depleted by the corrupt HR&CE Department by issuing civil works to the tune of Rs 2,000 crores.

Lands Ensure Temples' Self-Sustenance

Lands were endowed to temples and Hindu charities to make them self-sustaining and to support associated dharmic activities.

The HR&CE Department is controlling Hindu Temples and Endowments in Tamil Nadu in violation of the Indian Constitution—in defiance of the orders of the Madras High Court and Supreme Court of India and by fraudulently placing its servants as the Executive Officers in Hindu Temples without any legally valid orders.

Thanks to this department, many Hindu temples though endowed with large tracts of valuable lands, were led to ruin, dilapidation and closure. In some cases, they were effaced from the face of the earth.

The 1500-year-old Tiruchottruthurai Siva Temple near Thanjavur, which has more than 300 acres endowed to it, is in very poor condition and does not even have a single agama pooja day.

The Baburayanpettai Sri Varadaraja Perumal Temple near Chingleput, which holds more than 400 acres, was once a grand temple but is now in ruins. It is even rumoured that a leading education group illegally took 35 acres of this temple land and constructed a college there.

Sri Vedaranyeswarar Temple in Vedaranyam, which was administered by Sri Lankan Tamils from Jaffna until 60 years ago, once accumulated 27,000 acres of land for the temple, most of which are salt pans that are highly remunerative. However, the temple receives hardly 2 per cent of the fair rent due. The central government's Salt Corporation holds 2,400 acres of the temple’s land on permanent lease, paying just Rs 2 per acre per annum, while the Salt Corporation profits in crores from these lands. This represents a severe injustice.

Sri Varagunapandeeswarar Temple, Radhapuram, Tirunelveli District has, as per records, 4500 acres of dry lands and 150 acres of wetlands. In the 1950s, this flourishing temple had 51 employees. Now the temple is in shambles and functioning with only one archaka. When a PIL was filed to recover all the encroached lands, the HR&CE made a somersault and told the court that the temple had only 1200 acres.

Sri Gneelivaneswarar Temple, Tirupaigneeli near Tiruchirapalli had 15.04 acres of wetlands, 4515.98 acres of dry lands and 220.18 acres of rainfed lands.  Today the HR&CE Department says the temple has only 400 acres of land.  It’s anybody’s guess as to how the other 4300 acres disappeared.

Sri Nellaiappar Temple Tirunelveli has more than 3,000 acres. The bulk of the lands have been arbitrarily and unfairly leased to Tamil Nadu Newspaper Print Limited. The temple is expected to get no revenue from this.

In addition to the poor management of valuable lands, the HR&CE Department readily hands over temple lands to the Tamil Nadu Government whenever there is a need for substantial land for government purposes. These arbitrary actions strip temples of lands they have held for centuries, altering the demography in and around these temples.

In 2019, the Tamil Nadu Government issued an order allowing the patta of temple lands to be changed to the names of the encroachers themselves. This was vote-bank politics at its worst. I filed W.P. 32387 of 2019 before an Hon’ble Division Bench of the Madras High Court. The offensive portion of G.O. No. 318 of the Tamil Nadu Government was stayed by the Division Bench, which also directed the government to conduct biometric identification of the encroachers. To date, the court's direction has not been obeyed.

Deliberate Poor Implementation of Fair Rent Laws

The TN HR&CE Act, 1959 has sufficient provisions to protect the immovable properties of temples, mutts, and endowments. However, these are rarely implemented due to corruption and vote-bank politics. Section 79-B of the 1959 Act provides for the arrest and criminal prosecution of encroachers, but this provision has never been utilised.

On the other hand, encroachers are allowed to illegally negotiate with the government for the 'regularisation of rent,' a process not recognised by the HR&CE Act.         

The Madras High Court in 2018 and again in 2021 gave clear guidelines and unambiguous directions to clear encroachers and ensure temple lands fetch proper rent at prevailing market rates. These court orders are not followed by the department officials, who show only contempt for them.

Estate Office

The HR&CE Department has failed miserably in both protecting temple lands and collecting fair rent from them. An Estate Office should be established through a legal amendment, granting it sufficient authority. All temple land issues should be managed by an Estate Officer in each district.

The Estate Officer should hold the rank of a District Judge or Sub-Judge. No eviction of a defaulter or encroacher should be stayed unless the defaulter pays at least 75 per cent of the outstanding rent as arrears.

Section 79-B of the TN HR&CE Act, 1959 should be enforced whenever hostile occupants of temple lands cause trouble and refuse to pay the due rent, meaning criminal proceedings should be initiated against encroachers. A fee of 3 per cent should be paid to the Estate Office from the rent collected from temple lands.

It is fair and just that, for all the mismanagement and chronic criminal dereliction of duties caused by the HR&CE Department officials in the last 50 years, the Tamil Nadu Government should upfront pay the fair rent due for temple, mutt, and endowment properties for the last 10 years to begin with. The government can later collect this from the occupants of such lands, without prejudice to the temples' right to evict such chronic defaulters.