| by Romesh Jayaratnam
( October 13, 2012, Kandy, Sri Lanka Guardian) Buddhist
petitioners have successfully filed a case at the Indian Supreme Court seeking
to overturn the Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949. That legislation had enabled a
shared Hindu and Buddhist management of Bodh Gaya. Nehru sponsored this
consensus arrangement in order to roll back the Saivite Mahant's, until then,
exclusive control over temple administration. The Buddhists are now keen to
secure monopoly control over what they consider to be their sacred space. It is
likely that the panel of two Supreme Court judges looking into the case will
rule in their favor, unless checked.
Any change in the shared administrative arrangements
of Bodh Gaya should be linked to a resolution of the long-standing dispute over
who controls the entirety of the sacred space in Varanasi (Benares) and
Mathura, not to mention how Hindu temples are administered in Tamil Nadu and
Kerala.
Hindu activists should make the case for there to be a
uniform policy framework that governs all religious institutions in India, be
they Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist or Hindu. One can not have separate
principles, differentiated by religion, to govern the administration of places
of worship where Hindus alone lack say in the running of their own sacred
sites.
A Supreme Court ruling that removes a centuries-old
Hindu presence in the management of Bodh Gaya will reinvigorate neo-Buddhist
radicalism in India. The Ambedkarites will proceed to launch similar litigation
to retrieve other alleged Buddhist sites. The long-term goal is to secure
international status for Bodh Gaya akin to what the Vatican enjoys and what is
claimed for Jerusalem by the Roman Catholic church. The objective is to ensure
that the Bodh Gaya enclave is an international entity insulated from Indian
law.
The Buddhist petitioners at the Supreme Court include
the Japanese-born Bhante Arya Nagarjun Shurai Sasai and ethnic Tibetan Wangdi
Tshering of Darjeeling. Bhante Arya Nagarjun is linked to President Mahinda
Rajapakse of Sri Lanka. He is a Buddhist radical who routinely attacks
Hinduism. He should be extradited to his native Japan where he can preach to
his own people whose adherance to Buddhism has been in terminal decline.
The Mauryas and the Guptas helped build and refurbish
the temple at Bodh Gaya. The Guptas, while sponsors of the Hindu high
tradition, protected Buddhism in the spirit of Hindu tolerance. The Delhi
Sultanate sacked Bodh Gaya in the 13th century which was then abandoned and
neglected for three hundred years until Ghamandi Giri, a Saivite Hindu Mahant
moved into the premises in 1590 thereby preserving the structure. Had he not
moved in, the temple would have collapsed due to neglect. The Hindu Mahants had
maintained the temple for 300 years. Hinduism, after all, embraces all humanity
and promotes religious pluralism.
Varanasi and Mathura
This brings us to the subject of Hindu control of
their sacred space in Varanasi and Mathura. The Gyanvapi or Alamgiri Mosque
dominates the Varanasi skyline and overshadows the Kashi Vishwanath Temple,
Hinduism's most sacred place on earth. Hindus consider Varanasi to be the
holiest city in the world. The 17th century mosque is situated on the original
site of the Kashi Vishwanath temple that was demolished by Aurangzeb. The 71
meter high Islamic minarets are the most conspicuous feature in this epicenter
of Hinduism. The mosque was recently expanded and towers above the Hindu
sanctum sanctorum.
The Krishna janma bhoomi in Mathura is likewise a very
sacred Hindu site. The Shah-i-Idgah mosque stands on the original site of the
Krishna Temple demolished by Aurangzeb. The modern Kesava Deo Temple was only
rebuilt in 1965 adjacent to the original site.
If the Supreme Court were to rule that Bodh Gaya be
under the exclusive management of Buddhists, then the same should apply to the
control of Hindu sacred space in Varanasi and Mathura. The immediate linking of
the two separate issues will immediately give reason to the Supreme Court and
to India's Attorney General to pause before making any hasty judgement on the
Bodh Gaya issue.
Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments
The Buddhist petitioners demand exclusive Buddhist
control over the management of Bodh Gaya. Yet the administration of
centuries-old Hindu temples under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments
Act of Tamil Nadu and the Hindu Religious Institutions Act of Kerala is often
subject to ideological and political interference by ruling state governments
where atheists with an ideological animus against Hinduism are placed in charge
of Temple Management Boards or Devaswoms when ever the DMK and the CPI (M) are
in power. Such individuals divert Hindu resources for non-Hindu activity.
Hindus need to regain control over the administration and finances of their own
temples in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Should the Supreme Court over rule the Bodh Gaya
Temple Act, it should in similar fashion over turn the Hindu Religious and
Charitable Endowments Act and the Hindu Religious Institutions Act.
Buddhist Belligerence
Many a Hindu activist would claim that Hinduism and
Buddhism are one and the same. Buddhists do not make that claim or emphasize
that affinity. They view themselves as a separate and distinct dispensation.
Buddhist exclusivism has impacted adversely on Hindu
interests in Myanmar where one million Tamil, Bengali and Marwari Indians, many
of whom were Hindu, were expelled in 1962. It impacted on Bhutan which evicted
107,000 Hindus of Nepalese antecedents between 1985 and 1991. These people had
lived in Bhutan since the 1890s.
A Buddhist-sponsored intolerance impacted on Sri
Lanka. Sri Lanka disenfranchised one million Tamil Hindu plantation workers of
Indian antecedents in 1948 and proceeded to repatriate many of them to India in
the 1960s and 1970s. I will omit reference to the subsequent civil war in Sri
Lanka that pitted the Sinhalese and indigenous Tamils, 85% of whom are Hindu,
with several tens of thousands killed in a 25 year period.
Buddhists have been intruding into Hindu space in Sri
Lanka with Buddhist images placed this year within the precincts of the ancient
Saivite Hindu temples of Tirukoneswaram (Trincomalee) and Tirukethiswaram
(Mannar). Literary evidence indicates that Tirukoneswaram existed as a Hindu
place of worship in the 4th century while Tirukethiswaram was already an
established and revered Hindu temple in the 7th century.
Kathirkaamam, an old Hindu place of worship dedicated
to Skanda or Kartikeya, that may likewise date back 700 years or more, is now
exclusively managed by Buddhists. The medieval-era Vishnu Temple at Dondra has
a similar Buddhist management. The objective is to erase the distinct Hindu
character of these places and to Buddhicize them with a view to deny the Hindu
presence in Sri Lankan history.
Nepalese Buddhists led the movement to dis-establish
Hinduism as the official religion of Nepal in 2008. They successfully demanded
that the 10 day national holiday of Dussehra or Dasain be pruned down to
accommodate Buddhist holidays. In all four cases i.e. Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal
and Sri Lanka, Hindu interests were impacted.
Buddhist monks have likewise intruded into the sacred
space of the largest Hindu temple in the world - Angkor Wat dedicated to Vishnu
in Cambodia.
The Ambedkarite Neo-Buddhist movement in India,
inspired by rabid Sinhalese monks such as Saddhatissa Thera, is viciously
anti-Hindu. Its denunciations of the Hindu religion are severe, harsh and
continuous. They erroneously claim that India's scheduled castes were
originally Buddhists and that the Devadasis were descendents of Buddhist nuns!
The Ambedkarite neo-Buddhists reject the cardinal Hindu-Buddhist doctrine of
rebirth and Samsara. They reject the veneration of the Hindu Gods, revered in
traditional Theravada Buddhist societies. The latest litigation at Bodh Gaya is
once again an example of the politics of hate. The neo-Buddhist edifice in India
is a house of false cards and twisted logic.
Conclusion
It is important therefore to prevent any immediate
change in the Bodh Gaya arrangement unless it is linked to a quid pro quo i.e.
change in the current arrangements in Varanasi and Mathura, and a revamp in the
administration of Hindu religious endowments and Devaswoms.
Further, a change in Bodh Gaya would mean that the
Congress party-introduced Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991
that froze the religious affiliation of all places of worship as at 1947 would
stand annulled. This would allow Hindu activists to reopen the issue of
Varanasi and Mathura, not to mention ensure the institutional autonomy of the
cash-rich Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The BJP, in particular, has an obligation to keep a
close watch on developments in Bodh Gaya as it impacts on its core constituency
in what is a caste-fractured swing state with disproportionate impact on a
closely fought national election in the next year.
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