1/2/2010

The nation that has no consciousness of its past has no future. Equally true it is that a nation must develop its capacity not only of claiming a past but also of knowing how to use it for the furtherance of its future. The nation ought to be the master and not the slave of its own history.  Veer Savarkar

Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show. Swami Vivekananda

"Guts are a combination of confidence, courage, conviction, strength of character, stick-to-itiveness, pugnaciousness, backbone, and intestinal fortitude. They are mandatory for anyone who wants to get to and stay at the top." D.A. Benton

Global Hindu Heritage Foundation and Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti have been working toward achieving independence for all Hindu Temples from the state governments. As many of you know that all the Southern states have complete control over all the Temples making certain amount of money. For example any Temple that makes fifty thousand rupees come under government control automatically. Northern state have taken over all the richest Temples such as Siddhi Vinayaka Temple, Shiridi Sai Baba Temple, Vaishnavadevi Temple, Kasi Viswanath Temple, Puri Jagnnath Temple and others. Complete control means that the government manages the all the funds received, all the lands belonging to these Temples, lease of the Temple lands, distribution and use of funds, appointment of officers, appointment of priests and their salaries, maintenance and preservation of the Temples and supervision of the Temple jewelry. Ever since these Temples have been taken over by these states, the temple funds have been misused and abused, temple lands have been allowed to be encroached, temple lands have been sold at nominal price way below the market value, temple renovations and repairs have been totally neglected, temple funds have been distributed to the maintenance and renovation of Christian churches and Islamic mosques allowing Temple resources to their depletion, government liberally using the temple funds send Christians and Muslims to their respective holy places at the expense of Hindu resources, government openly ignoring the judgments of high courts and Supreme courts with regard to the sale of temple lands and Hajj subsidy, and others.

Sri Kamal Kumar is doing a yeoman service in championing the cause of preserving the Temples in Andhra Pradesh. As you can see that he has the guts to go around the state over the last three years to make sure that all Hindus are aware of the plight of Hindu Temples.  One has to have dedication, commitment, courage, fearlessness, passion, dedication to succeed in whatever cause he takes up. Never despair, never give up, never give in to advance the cause of freeing Hindu Temples from the tyranny of the state government that bent on usurping the freedom of all Hindus in managing their Temples and denying their rightful liberty to preserve their cultural heritage.  Sri Kamal Kumar has dedicated his life to preserve, promote, safeguard and uphold our Hindu dharma, which treats all religions equally.

After two successful Pada Yatra, last October he started the third Pada Yatra concentrating in the capital city of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. He completed one-third of the twin cities going hundreds of Temples requesting them to take full responsibility of getting involved in the Temple activities and resisting the government control of Hindu Temples.  Unfortunately, he has to discontinue because of the circumstances beyond our control.  First Floods have affected the whole state the made him to go to different villages to assess the damages to the Temples. Secondly, Hyderabad elections in the last week of November made it impossible to continue Pada Yatra as planned. Before we realized, Telangana agitation brought havoc to the state. The agitation is still continuing. The climate is not conducive to undertake the Pada Yatra.

As many of you know that we submitted a set 28 recommendations to the them Chief Minister (Sri Y S R Reddy), opposition Leader (Sri Chandra Babu Naidu) and Commissioner of Endowments (Sri Sunder Kumar) as to the steps they take to preserve the integrity of Temple maintenance.  Sri Kamal Kumar has been very active in addressing the issues of the Temple funds, preservation of Lands, accounting of jewelry, and advocating the propagation of Bhakti movement across the state. He appeared numerous times on TV and held nearly 2 press meets in various cities addressing the local as well as state level issues related to the Hindu Temples.

Recent Developments

In the last few months, state government has taken a number of positive decisions toward the maintenance of the Temples, preservation of Hindu culture, and lease of Temple lands.  Following are some of the decisions the government has taken. Global Hindu Heritage Foundation and Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti have been advocating these changes.

1)  Establishment of Protective force to safeguard the properties of the Temples.

2)  Establish an institution to evaluate the jewelry and ornaments of all the Temples across the state.

3)   Establishment of One judge Tribunal to hear the 2700 pending cases of encroachment, land leases, misuse of funds and others.

4)   Constitute Welfare Board to look at the problems related to Archaks and strengthen Vedic schools.

5)   Loka Kalyana Radhams with Utsav murthies will be organized to go to as many villages as possible all around the state.

6)   TTD, Endowments Department and Hindu Dharma Prachar Parishad would organize Bhajagovindam by which Vishnu Sahasranama Parayanam, bhajans, Annamayya sankirtans would be conducted in many Temples. This mainly to instill bhakti among Hindus and encourage them to attend Temple events.

7)   Bhajan mandals are being organized in various towns and cities. So far 13,500 Bhajan Mandals have been formed. Objective is to organize 1000 mandals for each of the 25 districts.

Activities in Nellore District

Over the last three weeks Sri Kamal Kumar was busy meeting with a numbers of villagers at their request in Nellore District to help make a case to the Endowment Department about the government’s needless sale of the Temple lands. He was able to get fair market value for Temple lands and also able to convince the Department to put the money in fixed deposit accounts. Given below are few examples:

a)    In Mambattu village (Nellore District) 80 acres of Temple land was sold to Appache Shoe Factory. The government paid 6 lakh rupees per acre for others while it paid 50,000 rupees per acre for Temple lands. Si Kamal Kumar with the help of villagers was able to get the fair market value of 6 lakh rupees.

b)   In Krishna Pattnam Village (Nellore District), 500 acres of Shivalaya was taken to give it Reliance Power Plant at a nominal price. With the help of villagers Sri Kamala Kumar was able to get4 lakh rupees for each acre.

c)    In a similar way, the government gave the market value of 7 lakhs per acre in Nelaturu village. Ten acres of Temple land was sold. Seventy percent of 70 lakhs was deposited in Fixed account.

d)   In Eepuri village, the villagers and Sri Kamal Kumar convinced the Endowment Department to purchase the number of acres of land the government was planning to take over from Virupaksha Swamy Temple and Chennakeswara Swamy Temple.

All Hindus must work together to make sure the government would not take advantage of our indifference, neglect and apathy. Hindus have to take personal responsibility in preserving and protecting Hindu heritage.  To paraphrase Veer Savarkar the Hindus must have consciousness of their past if they have to have a future for their motherland.

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