Hindu temple

"Hindu temples are systematically understaffed and underpaid. Bad blood is created between staff and clientele by forcing the priests to get the money elsewhere, viz from the devotees, in undignified ways. .. the Government controls the Hindu temples but not the mosques, churches and gurudwaras. This law allows Sate Governments and politicians to take over thousands of Hindu Temples, maintain control over them and their properties, and sell off their endowment land. They can sell the temple assets and use the money in any way they see fit... It is alleged, for instance, that ... about 43,000 temples in Andhra Pradesh have come under government control and only 18 per cent of the revenue of these temples has been returned for temple purposes...."

"Although King Aurangzeb destroyed numerous temples, there does not thereby fail to be many left at different places... All of them (temples at Hardwar and Ayodhya) are thronged with worshippers, even those that are destroyed are still venerated by the Hindus and visited by the offering of alms."

"Instead, the BJP ought first of all to take up an issue which really matters for Hindu communal life abolishing the legal and constitutional discriminations against the Hindu majority, most urgently those in education and temple management. The constitutional bedrock of these discriminations is Article 30, which accords to the minorities the right to set up and administer their own schools and colleges, preserving their communal identity (through the course contents and by selectively recruiting teachers and students), all while receiving state subsidies. That right is not guaranteed to the majority, but should be.... An analogous problem exists for the Hindu temples. Mosques and churches are exclusively managed by the respective communities, but Hindu temples are routinely taken over by the secular authorities. This results in misappropriation of the temples income and its redirection to non‑Hindu purposes. It is also a major factor in the grinding poverty afflicting most Hindu temple priests and their families... Recently, the authorities moved court (unsuccessfully) to get the Shirdi Sai Baba temple in Hyderabad registered as a Hindu temple, all for wresting control of the institution and its funds. The BJP does not deserve to get a single Hindu vote if it doesnt address to this injustice."