The Bodh Gaya Temple under the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 | A K Biswas

Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya symbolizes ‘Outstanding Universal Value’ to the adherents and followers of Buddhism globally. Under the Bodhi tree at Gaya, Lord Buddha attained his enlightenment. This place has been declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 26th June, 2002.

The Mahabodhi Temple (literally: "Great Awakening Temple") or the Mahabodhi Mahavihara, is an ancient, but restored Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, marking the location where the Buddha had attained enlightenment. The Mahabodhi Temple is one of the oldest brick temples in India. The original structure, later replaced, was built by the great Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (died c. 238 BCE), one of Buddhism’s most important proselytes, to commemorate the Buddha’s Enlightenment. The holiest shrine is held in highest esteem by the Buddhists across the world. Hundreds of thousands of followers and adherents of Buddha, driven by intense yearning, flock every year to the temple to pay homage and seek spiritual solace and inspiration there. The Mahabodhi Temple Complex is one of the four holy sites related to the life of the Lord Buddha, and particularly to the attainment of Enlightenment. The first temple was built by Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century B.C. and the present temple dates from the 5th or 6th centuries. It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples built entirely in brick, still standing in India, from the late Gupta period.

The shrine is, however, enmeshed in an unfortunate controversy with a Hindu of shaivite monk, who worship Shiva as their primary deity and believe him to be the supreme being. A part of its property there has been encroached.

On June 5, 2005, P. M. Nair, secretary to the President of India addressed a letter to the Home Secretary, Government of Bihar. At that point of time in June 2005, I was the Home Secretary to the Government of Bihar, then under the President’s Rule. His letter in short highlighted the following issues which form the core of grievances against which the Buddhists have been agitating for decades as their religious sentiments as also rights are being trampled by unfeeling non-Buddhist elements as detailed hereunder:

"[……] the fundamental rights of the Buddhists to freedom of religion, freedom to manage religious affairs, right to attendance at religious institutions or religious worship and protection of interest of minorities under specific articles enshrined in part III of the Constitution as Fundamental Rights have been denied."

The Secretary’s letter disclosed that the President of the Republic of India desired to have a status report on this state of affairs of the Bodh Gaya shrine at the earliest. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was the President of India the point of time.

While examining the voluminous file in the Bihar Home Department, I came across a statement made by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in reply to a Memorandum in 1939 by the Sri Lanka Mahabodhi Society [Sri Lanka formerly was known as Ceylon] where he was on a visit:

“Many of us look up to Buddha Gaya, most of us visit it, we believe it should be managed by those who cherish it. But in India there are not only a hundred difficult problems, many steps, which we may wish to take are hedged and obstructed in hundred different ways. It is not easy to give effect to our wishes though we may cherish them.”

One of the top leaders of India’s freedom struggle, who in few years thereafter became the first Prime Minister of India, underlined the critical difficulties most unambiguously in redressing the very basic grievances the Buddhists had highlighted over decades. By the way, prior to Nehru, in January 1921, the first Nobel laureate of India, nay Asia, Rabindranath Tagore visited Bodh Gaya and issued the following statement concerning the problem plaguing the ancient shrine:

“I am sure it will be admitted by all Hindus who are true to their own ideals, that it is an intolerable wrong to allow the temple raised on the spot where Lord Buddha attained his enlightenment to remain under the control of a rival sect which can neither have the intimate knowledge of or sympathy for the Buddhist religion and its rites of worship. I consider it to be a sacred duty for all individuals believing in freedom and justice this great historical site to the community of people who still reverently carry on that particular current of history in their own living faith.” [Jairam Ramesh, Rabindranath Tagore, a poem that defined the Buddha, and Sujata Stupa, The Telegraph online, th June 15, 2021]

The cultured and refined rebuff of the poet, echoed above, seemingly fell on the deaf ears of rival sect to prompt them rectify the wrongs they continue to inflict.

A unanimous resolution the National Commission for Minorities of the Government of India occupies heart of the grievances to which poet Rabindranath Tagore had pointed his finger. The Buddhists, speaking. frankly, have been smarting under wrongs brazenly practised against them at a place known universally for preaching and propagating peace and love for humanity since generations and centuries. The letter of P. M. Nair quoted hereunder highlights the Resolution in question:

“The provisions of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 are not in harmony with the Fundamental Right enshrined in Article 26 of the Constitution guaranteeing the right of freedom to every religious denomination to manage their respective religious affairs. Appropriate legal measures should be taken to ensure that all the members of the Committee entrusted with the Management and Control of Bodh Gaya Temple include the Mahabodhi Mahavihara in the State of Bihar are Buddhists. For this purpose, the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 should either be amended or repealed and appropriate legislation be entrusted either by the Union Government or by Government of Bihar in order that the management of Bodh Gaya Temple is vested exclusively with the Buddhists in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Article of the Constitution.”

The Commission, lo and behold, are of the considered view that the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 runs counter to their Fundamental Rights enshrined in Article 26 of the Constitution of India. This, if so facto, should drive authorities to amend the Act with appropriate provisions with no delay.

At various points of time in the past, be it particularly mentioned, many prominent dignitaries in Indian public, besides social and cultural life, threw their weight in their attempts at promoting interests of the Buddhists urging the authorities at the helm for amendment to the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 and thereby redressing their genuine grievances. They included the former Prime Minister of India Vishwanath Pratap Singh, former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh, former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, and former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, to note a few, each of whom took pains to write letter to the Chief Minister of Bihar sincerely pleading for amendment of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act, 1949 but sadly luck did not smile for them yet. There are many people, who genuinely feel that the aggrieved and agitating Buddhists, above all, a known peace-loving and non-violent community, being a minuscule minority of Indian population, are not taken by authorities at all seriously. Hence their grievances, in the face of protracted nonviolent agitation for redress, go abegging. The authorities would perhaps have, make no mistake, taken very prompt action in the right direction were the agitators aggressive and unruly in their modes and manners of movement per se.

The Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949, enacted to safeguard the religious interests and promote the religious rights of the Buddhists, is actually source of the grievances of the Buddhists ab initio. The provisions of the extant Act mandated the Government of Bihar to constitute Management Committee with eight members----four drawn shall be Hindus including the Mahant of Hindu Temple there and four Buddhists. The District Magistrate, according to its provision, will be the Chairman of the Management Committee, if only he is a Hindu. The Management Committee has been always dominated by Hindus with Chairman, mostly, if not invariably a Hindu. When a District Magistrate, Gaya, an IAS officer, who was a Muslim by faith, in 1960’s was not notified as the Management Committee Chairman. In his place, a non-official Hindu was appointed by the Government as Chairman. Four ambassadors in India representing Buddhist country, e. g., Japan, China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Korea, Laos, and Myanmar, by turn, who, are notified by the Government of Bihar as members.

In the departmental file dealing with the issues of religious minorities, I had proposed constitution of a committee comprising three Officers, e. g., Chief Secretary, Law Secretary and Home Secretary of the State Government as Members, to examine the various technical aspects for comprehensive amendment of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 and to incorporate changes as per the its advice and promulgate an Ordinance tendered by them. My suggestion was also that the proposed amendment should be modelled for the Bodh Gaya Temple on line with that of the management of Golden Temple of Amritsar, Punjab and that of the Ajmir Sarif Dargah, Rajasthan.

The file as examined by me, was submitted for approval of the Adviser to the Governor. This conforms to the Rules of Executive Business of the State Government. After his approval the same was submitted to the Chief Secretary, as the Adviser had specifically wanted me to do so before seeking the Governor’s approval.

The Chief Secretary twice returned the file to the Home Secretary with queries, seeking clarification on certain points, which I explained with due promptness. The second set of queries was repetitive of the former. Third time, the Chief Secretary returned the file with his note that the case might be submitted to the Chief Minister for orders after the Bihar State Legislative Assembly Election, 1995 to obtain orders when the popular government would be in place. That was how the initiative for amendment of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act, 1949 was consigned to the cold storage.

The matter was initiated after an appeal addressed by the Buddhists to the President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Thus, we cannot forget, came to a screeching and frustrating end to an initiative for a comprehensive amendment to amend the Bodh Gaya Temple Act 1949 during the President’s Rule promulgated on March 7, 2005.

The letter, as quoted above, shows that the Fundamental rights of the Buddhists, a religious minority in India, were being violated mindlessly by a monk of a rival sect with complete impunity. In the Buddhist world, the secular credential of country, I am afraid, evoke derision, if not scorn. [1809 words]

(Author: Dr. Atul Krishna Biswas, a retired IAS of Babasaheb Dr B. Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar)