Sabarimala, Guruvayur, and Padmanabha Swamy targeted by state control
The stage is set for transforming Sabarimala into the Las Vegas of India. The US city is known all over the world for its scintillating nightlife, casinos, gambling centers, restaurants, and, of course, high-rise residential apartments, palaces, and bungalows. The CPI(M)-led Kerala government hopes to convert the holy shrine of Sabarimala, where the presiding deity is Lord Ayyappa, into an integrated center of pilgrimage and tourism. The Global Ayyappa Samgamam (GAS) held on 20th September was a prelude to the move “Operation Sabari”.
Though Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had claimed in the run-up to the Samgamam that delegates from all over the world would make it to the picturesque banks of the Pampa River, hardly 500 people from Kerala attended the event. More than half of the delegates were staff drawn from various government offices in the southern districts of Kerala. The only non-Keralite delegates were P K Sekhar Babu, Tamil Nadu’s DMK minister for the Hindu Charitable and Endowment Department, a sworn atheist, and Palanivel Thiagarajan, TN minister for IT.
Vijayan, who read out from a prepared text, found it difficult to recite the slokas from the Bhagavad Gita, which was proof of his hatred for Sanatana Dharma. He even claimed that the hymn “Harivarasanam” sung every night after the puja was composed by Devarajan, an atheist, and rendered by Yesudas, a Christian. But he did not disclose how Harivarasanam was sung before the advent of Devarajan and Yesudas. In a startling disclosure, he said the deity Saint Sebastian Church at Arthunkal was a close friend of Ayyappa, and all devotees from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh offer prayers at St Sebastian International Pilgrim Center at Arthunkal.
Yet another blunder committed by the chief minister was about Vavar Swamy, whom he described as a Muslim friend of Lord Ayyappa in his effort to portray the shrine as a center of communal harmony. Vijayan followed up these claims with his mission to lay a railway line between Angamaly and Erumeli, to be known as Sabari Rail. Environmental experts and ecologists have warned against the move to lay this railway line because of the resultant ecological disaster and environmental degradation[1]. B V Kumar, former chief of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, who was known as the super sleuth of the country, had told this writer that the Angamali-Erumeli Sabari Rail would transport high-quality cannabis grown in the dense forests of the Western Ghats to Kochi.[2]
Kumar, during his historical tenure, had undertaken a trek through the reserve forests and found to his terror that cannabis was being cultivated in the reserve forests surrounding Sabarimala. The safest route to transport the cannabis from the high ranges to Kochi is by train, as transporting it by road is likely to be seized by the authorities.
The holy shrine would also be blessed with an international airport, the works of which would begin soon, said Vijayan. The land acquisition process is in full swing, and he hopes the Union government will give approval for the State’s request. He reiterated that the Sabarimala Master Plan is conceived to make it a hub of tourism and pilgrimage. There are moves by the Marxist government to keep the Sabarimala Temple open for 365 days. “Sabarimala is a treasure house and we can mint money if the doors of the temple are kept open round-the-year,” Vijayan reportedly said during a cabinet meeting in 2017. Janmabhumi, a Malayalam daily, had carried the report as its lead story the day after the cabinet meeting. Neither Vijayan nor his colleagues in the cabinet have reacted to this news even after eight years.
Swamy Bhargavaram, a sanyasi belonging to the Sree Ramadasa Mission Ashram at Thiruvananthapuram, reacted strongly to the Kerala government’s move to make Sabarimala a center for pilgrimage and tourism. “Pilgrims undertake the trip to Sabarimala after observing a strenuous regimen for 41 days. There are no such rules for tourism. One need not take a bath or abstain from liquor and non-vegetarian food. Tourism will spoil the sanctity of the temple, and the government’s move is with an ulterior motive,” Swamy Bhargavaram told PGurus.
The year 2018 saw devotees agitating against women of menstruating age from entering the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala Temple. Criminal cases were held against thousands of devotees who staged demonstrations across the State against allowing menstruating women inside the temple. But the Pinarayi Vijayan government helped women activists (all of them Maoists and urban Naxalites) to enter the temple premises with the support of armed cops. The CPI(M) played a major role in destroying the centuries-old customs and traditions of the holy shrine. For decades, Sabarimala Temple has been exploited as a milch cow by politicians. The CPI(M) and the Congress have been exploiting the shrine by swindling the entire offerings received by the temple from the millions of devotees who worship at the temple every year.
Narayana Varma, head of Pandalam Palace, the traditional custodian of the holy shrine, was helpless in furnishing details of how the income generated by the temple is being spent. “The Travancore Devaswom Board takes away the entire offerings and collections received at the hundi. The TDB does not disclose details of the amount they collect from devotees, and no balance sheet or financial statements are maintained,” said Varma.
Sabarimala Temple was set ablaze, and the idol of Lord Ayyappa was vandalized by unknown persons in May 1950. The news reached the nearest police station on 20th June 1950, more than a month after the inferno. A special investigation team led by K Kesava Menon, the then DIG of Police, proved through scientific investigation that it was the outcome of a well-planned conspiracy and even pointed out the persons behind the act. The Communist Party of India government that came to power in 1957 had assured the Hindus in the State that the report submitted by Menon would be released once it came to power. But after the elections, which saw the CPI-led government assuming power, they developed cold feet and maintained silence over the issue.
The devotees of Lord Ayyappa are demanding the liberation of the temple from the shackles of government control. “The government does not interfere in the affairs of churches or mosques. But why are they controlling the temples?” Asked Valsan Thillankeri, working president, Hindu Aikya Vedi.
Though the Kerala government wanted to seize control of the Padmanabha Swami Temple at Thiruvananthapuram so that the politicians could lay their hands on the more than Rs.5 lakh crore worth of gold, precious stones, and other properties, the mission came a cropper. The Royal Family of Travancore, which built the temple, controls the affairs of this institution with an iron fist, and that is the only reason why the Padmanabhaswamy Temple survived the test of time. Most people are unaware of the fact that the head of the Royal Family has to offer daily puja in the temple, and any failure in worshipping the family deity means he has to pay a fine to the temple.
Lord Krishna Temple at Guruvayur is next in the line of targets to be usurped completely by the politicians. The temple is managed by the Guruvayur Devaswom Board, which is under the control of the CPI(M)-led government. The media had widely reported an incident that took place during the visit to the temple by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, whose hatred for Hindus is well known. He noticed a small lamp in a corner of the temple and asked the Devaswom officials: “Is this the place where Mr. Krishnan sits?”. This is not a joke but a fact.
Vijaya told the delegates attending the GAS that his government plans to spend Rs.1000 crore over the next 50 years to implement the Sabarimala Master Plan. But K Annamalai, former chief of Tamil Nadu BJP, who is a diehard devotee of Lord Ayyappa, has this to tell about Vijayan’s Master Plan: “The last three years saw Sabarimala getting Rs.1300 crore as offerings from devotees. This means every year the temple gets more than Rs.400 crore. Vijayan is trying to hoodwink the devotees and the Hindus of the state.”
Despite getting hundreds of crores every year as offerings and donations from devotees, the TDB or the Government of Kerala has failed miserably in providing even basic amenities like public toilets, sanitation, and at least reasonably fair food to the pilgrims. Corruption and scams have become the order of the day in the shrine. “There is no transparency in the selection of the chief priest (Melshanthi) and his deputy for each season. The grapevine is that millions of rupees change hands in these appointments. The drawing of lots is just to deceive the general public,” said P N S Namboothiri, a Vedic scholar well versed in the tradition of puja and homams.
Sabarimala Shrine is a warning signal to the Sanatana Dharma. While the Islamic and Christian extremists tried to destroy the temple by physical means, the modern-day politicians are out to drain the soul of the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala, Guruvayur, and Padmanabha Swami Temple.
R Sreelekha, former director general of police (intelligence), Kerala’s first lady IPS officer, says she is perplexed by the goings on in Sabarimala. A political outfit that is totally against religion and Gods is staging Global Ayyappa Samgamam, which is a strange paradox. I could not understand the logic behind this project. But there is something which does not meet the ordinary eyes,” said Sreelekha.
Sabarimala, Guruvayur, Padmanabha Swamy Temple.. the list goes on.. This is not confined to Kerala. Situations are no different in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. When the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department became the supreme authority of Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu, there were 46,000 temples in the State, and they owned 5,25,000 acres of prime land. But as of today, that prime property has come down to 4,00,00 acres. The HRCE Department and the Dravidian government, led by M K Stalin, do not reply when asked about the missing 1,25,000 acres of land, according to K Annamalai, former Tamil Nadu BJP chief.
The Dharmasthala Temple is the new target of Islamic and Christian zealots and is supported by the Congress-CPI(M) axis in Karnataka. It all started with a former employee of Dharmasthala Temple alleging that hundreds of dead bodies of young women had been buried in the temple premises. Though a massive search was carried out by the Karnataka Police, they could not retrieve anything connected with the dead bodies. Many theories are being heard about the project to tarnish the image of Dharmasthala. Veerendra Heggade, the traditional custodian of the temple, is the target of the Abrahamic religionists. Heggade revolutionized the rural areas surrounding the temple by offering financial assistance to Hindus who belonged to the economically backward section, and this annoyed the private money lenders in the region who were fleecing interest from the borrowers.
Onam, the major festival of Hindus in Kerala, has been degenerated into the State’s biggest shopping festival. There is a pattern behind the attack on temples and festivals. Self-styled activists masquerading as environmentalists, ecologists, and animal lovers are firing nonstop at temples and related festivals. Their demands include declaring the practice of elephants being paraded in temple processions and a total ban on the bursting of crackers during Diwali. They are also against playing loud music in temples during Hindu festivals. This is nothing other than slowly “poisoning” Hindu festivals to death.
Is there a way out? To save Sanatana Dharma and safeguard Hindu institutions from becoming extinct, there is only one solution. Declare India as a Hindu Republic and junk he term secularism from the Constitution. The Hindus should be given the right given to minorities under Article 30 of the Constitution[3]. This Article confers the right to the minority communities to establish and administer educational institutions. Article 16 of our Constitution states that no citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence, or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against in respect of, any employment or office under the state. But what is happening to the Hindus? Ishwar Saran, the Canada-born Protestant Christian who converted to Hinduism after decades of study about Sanatana Dharma, says Hindus today have become second-class citizens in their own Motherland. (The Myth of Saint Thomas & The Mylapore Shiva Temple published by Voice of India).
It was God’s grace that the Congress-led UPA government was trounced in the 2014 general election. Had the UPA won the polls in 2014, Hindus would have ended up as fourth-grade citizens in Bharat. The Signora and her Lusiana Mafia have an inherent hatred for Hindus.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
Reference:
[1] Experts question need for Sabarimala railway line – Apr 21, 2023, The Pioneer
[2] Kerala govt’s U-turn – Jan 26, 2023, The Pioneer
[3] Kerala govt releases order mandating CM, Ministers to be addressed as ‘honourable’ in reply to complaints – Sep 10, 2025, Nagaland Tribune
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