Temple land recovery: TN makes inroads despite documentation challenges, tenant resistance

The MK Stalin-led DMK government has recovered nearly 4,500 acres of illegally encroached temple land over the past year in Tamil Nadu, and restored them to the respective temples. This action was among its key poll promises ahead of the 2021 Assembly election.

This information was shared in the  Assembly by the state’s Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan during his budget speech. Officials claimed that the lands recovered were worth more than ₹4,000 crore.

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However, the administration still has a long way to go before it achieves its target of recovering 3 lakh acres of encroached land. The clearing of encroachments on temple land and restoring them to the religious institutions is but a part of a larger plan — that of instilling transparency in the functioning of temples.

Not an easy task

The recovery is a daunting and uphill task, acknowledged DMK leaders and government officials. There are numerous obstacles, not the least being the legal tangles around each inch of temple land. The other key issue is the resistance, be it of the encroachers or the tenants of the land. That the DMK has a history of atheism is not helping. 

However, the party has been quick to clarify that it is all for temples being run properly. DMK spokesperson Salem Dharaneetharan told The Federal: “We have recovered lands in a single year (to an extent) that hasn’t been done these past 10 years. The DMK party always stood by the temples, especially for the proper utilisation of their funds, and this is being reflected in the large recovery of temple land.”

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The government employed 150 licensed surveyors divided into 56 groups to achieve its goal. “The surveyors were provided with equipment to help them survey the temple lands accurately,” said an official of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department who did not wish to be named. GPS navigation equipment is also used to measure the land besides setting markings on the recovered land.

Land value

The recovery assumes significance considering the sheer commercial value of these temple  land parcels that have been illegally occupied. The HR&CE department has a total of 4.78 lakh acres of temple land, out of which 1.83 lakh acres are fertile lands. Also, some land parcels are located  in what are prime locations today. These are multi-crore properties.

Religious institutions in the state own 22,599 buildings and 33,627 sites. But, the HR&CE department is caught up in 33,347 cases involving rent arrears to the tune of ₹33.31 crore, of which it has managed to recover ₹14.86 crore over the past year.

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The HR&CE department, which has more than 46,000 temples under its control, has conducted two land surveys to identify missing temple land parcels. And, according to the survey,  out of the 4.78 lakh acres of temple land, more than 1 lakh acres are now under the government.

Among the ambitious steps taken by the state is digitisation of all temple land records. In 2021, a Government Order banned the sale of any temple land. The Madras High Court also banned the registration of temple land without clearance from the HR&CE department.

Multiple challenges

The issue of clearing temple land of encroachers, however, involves multiple challenges, making quick progress difficult. The level of difficulty depends on what exactly needs to be accomplished. The land to be retrieved falls into three categories: encroached land, land held by illegal occupants (extending lease duration), and land rented out for a pittance to tenants who often hold poor documentation records.

“We are pushing the officials to survey at least 500 acres of encroached land per day,” an HR&CE official who did not want to be named told The Federal. “We are also approaching courts to vacate illegal occupants. But hiking the rent of the tenants legally using temple lands/buildings is the most challenging and has become a sore point.”

Tenants who have set up commercial establishments, or are living on temple land, are reportedly ‘bargaining’ with the government, with what government sources say is the active support of the BJP. Officials say these tenants pay a pittance as rent. 

The rent was last revised in 2007. An advisory committee was formed to revise the rent every three years. But the tenants have been challenging the decision and refusing to cough up the rent arrears. They owe HR&CE ₹2,000 crore as rent dues as of 2022, and strongly oppose eviction. 

BJP vs DMK

The BJP is sitting pretty on the fence. While advocating the recovery of temple lands, the party is opposed to forcible eviction of tenants, BJP’s Tamil Nadu state vice president Narayanan Thirupathy told The Federal. 

“They (DMK) cannot claim it (recovery of 4,500 acres of temple land) as their achievement,” said Thirupathy. “They are merely executing a Madras High Court order,” he said citing the April 2022 directions issued by Justices R Mahadevan and PD Audikesavalu to recover “every inch of” encroached temple land.

The BJP is ‘pseudo religious’, shot back DMK’s Dharaneetharan, adding that his party cares better about temples. He pointed out that Tamil Nadu has India’s highest ratio of temples: 100 temples for every 1 lakh population. “These temples are better maintained than in any other state. It was Kalaignar (M Karunanidhi) who brought in a pension scheme for temple priests in 1996,” he added.

Behind the temple land

How the temples came to own so much land is interesting. Apart from religion, temples in South India played a significant role in society, so huge swathes of land were endowed in the name of deities in the past. 

“The South Indian state of the mediaeval period gave support to temples and hence to the regional developmental activities,” pointed out American historian Burton Stein in his research work, The Economic Function of a Medieval South Indian Temple.

The land tracts, however, fell into the hands of individuals during the British era, when royal patronage and control vanished. This has led to the present crisis wherein the government is trying to recover land by tracing documents that are hundreds of years old.

Religious heads back move

Meanwhile, religious heads seem to be backing the government’s drive to recover temple land. “If not for the government intervention, the state would have lost most temples and their assets,” said Sirvai Mohana Sundaram Adigal, head of the Srivilliputhur Saiva Mutt. “The functioning of temples had deteriorated in the past because of the whims and fancies of individuals when the power of kings faded.”

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The attempts of spiritual figures like Jaggi Vasudev, who state that “Hindu temples have to be freed from government control” are malicious, said the mutt chief. “If thousands of acres of lands are recovered and handed over to some random individuals, it will become messy like it was in the past,” he added.

Those opposing the government’s move claim it is trying to monetise temple assets to divert the funds for non-religious purposes. The BJP has joined other right wing forces to insist that all temple revenues must be owned by the presiding deity and cannot be used for other purposes. Sundaram Adigal is of the opinion that this amounts to interfering in the HR&CE department’s functioning to destabilise it. Many temples owned by Saiva and Vaishnava mutts also come under the HR&CE.

Fund diversion

It’s customary to use the surplus funds of the temples for the welfare of the public, he told The Federal. “We have to monetise it (revenue of temples) first for the temple expenditure and then to build schools, medical colleges and hospitals,” he said, adding that Tamil Saiva and Vaishnava traditions stress how serving the people is akin to serving God.

The Federal approached HR&CE Minister PK Sekar Babu for a comment on this issue. However, Babu said “it is not appropriate to talk to the media on this issue when the Assembly is in session.”