New diktat in Tirumala turns Hinduism upside down | M.R. Narayan Swamy

Until some years ago, a familiar although unusual sight at a prominent south Indian temple in Delhi was a middle-aged Sikh gentleman. He was married to a Tamil woman and knew Tamil devotional songs too. He was devoted to the deities in the decades-old shrine.

As it often happens, there were groups among the temple administrators. An influential section took a dislike for the Sikh man. So, one day, the group ousted him as a member of the management committee. What was stated to force him out? A belated realization that only Hindus must serve in a Hindu temple!

A similar ‘wisdom’ has now dawned on the new chairman of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) board, BR Naidu, who has declared that all those who work in the hill shrine, the revered abode of Lord Venkateswara, should be Hindus.

Calling himself an ardent devotee, BR Naidu added that he will be making the recommendation to the Andhra Pradesh government, which appointed him. He suggested that non-Hindus in TTD could be shunted to other government departments or given voluntary retirement. BR Naidu seems confident that chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who actively wooed Muslims to catapult to power, will act on his advice. “Everyone who works at Tirumala should be a Hindu.”

The TTD chairman could not have done a greater disservice to the Hindu religion he belongs to or the Lord whom he has chosen to serve by insisting on the ouster of non-Hindus from the shrine. His wish would have been branded sacrilegious by some of the greatest seers produced by Hindu religion.

Without doubt, one who would have taken serious offence to the fiat would have been Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, the 68th pontiff of the Kanchi Kamakoti Pitam in Tamil Nadu, perhaps the most admired and respected saint of the Adi Sankara lineage in modern times. The holy man, who breathed his last at age 100 in 1994, has prayed at the Tirupati shrine too.

The Mahaperiyava (Great Elder), as he was widely referred to out of respect and affection, was one of the greatest votaries of Sanatan Dharma and Hindu unity. But he shunned communalism of all varieties. He repeatedly told his devotees to respect all religions, underlying that all of them had the common goal of reaching God. To him, non-Hindus needed to be given the same respect that we extend to fellow religionists.

“Indian secularism does not mean godlessness or deprecating and reviling other religions,” the Mahaperiyava told C Subramaniam, then a colleague of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in 1980. “True secularism,” he emphasized, “is equal respect for all religions – Sarva Dharma Samabhava.”

The sage of Kanchipuram would insist that unless a Hindu was a true Hindu, a Muslim a true Muslim and a Christian a true Christian (by which he meant people remaining loyal to their own religions), the spiritual richness of the world would get depleted. He desired that Hindus, Muslims and Christians must follow the tenets laid down in their respective scriptures.

In equal measure, the Mahaperiyava was against religious conversion – of all hues. He did not appreciate Hindus trying to embrace other religion; at the same time, he prevailed upon Christians and Muslims (foreigners included) to stick to their faith when they asked him if they could become Hindu. His explained that God had placed people in different religions; one must be loyal to the religion into which he or she was born. He conveyed the same message to a noted Tamil-speaking Muslim judge while praising him for being an ardent exponent of Kamba Ramayan and a devotee of Lord Ram.

The well-informed saint did not hesitate, unlike some secularists of the modern era, to whitewash the negative acts of Mughal kings who ruled this country. But he placed it in a larger and secular perspective. He told an audience at Kumbakonam (Tamil Nadu) in April 1953: “The Muslims who came to India were no doubt guilty of excesses and conversions, but once they settled down to rule and shoulder responsibilities, they learned to treat all citizens alike irrespective of whether one was a Hindu or a Muslim. Some of their rulers,” he went on, “were even better than Hindu rulers.”

It is no wonder that innumerable members of other faiths flocked to him for blessings because they saw Chandrasekharendra Saraswati as a messenger of divinity, not a mere Hindu leader. Many of them, like other devotees, would offer him flowers and fruits. A few even read out poems praising his virtues. On his part, he never forced non-Hindus to accept vibuthi (sacred ash) or kumkum (vermillion) – which he otherwise gave to all devotees — but was generous with his eagerly sought blessings.

The Mahaperiyava pulled up a devotee who wondered why the Muslim visitors did not do shashtang namaskaram to the sage like Hindus; he said prostration of that kind was not a part of Islam and he respected them for being true to their religion. When some 300 mostly Christian students of a school came to see him, he gave them a banana each but refrained from thrusting vibuthi or kumkum. He told his aides that one should never hurt anyone’s religious sensibilities.

Another spiritual giant, who was the 34th head of the Sringeri Sharada Peetam in present day Karnataka, was Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati, who too held near identical views. Both the sages, it must be noted, lived during a tumultuous time in the British era when Hindu-Muslim conflict was on the rise. When a devotee told the Sringeri head that the British administration’s neutral attitude towards Hinduism was preferable to the earlier Islamic rule, Chandrasekhara Bharati disagreed. He accused the visitor of being swayed by a British slant of Indian history. His views, revolutionary even by today’s standards, need to be quoted at some length.

“When the Muslims invaded this country, they set up a rule of their own, it is true; but they came here to settle down, not simply to get what they could and return back to their native country. They made this country their home and very soon forgot that they had any other homeland. When they settled here, their interests came to be identical with those of the sons of the soil. The prosperity and safety of the rulers depended upon the prosperity and safety of the people. They laid roads, built bridges and undertook extensive works of irrigation for the benefit of the people. They tried their best to establish a peaceful and contended rule, for they knew that their security rested on the peace and contentment of the people.” The sage did not put a carpet on the excesses of some Muslim rulers but gave a rational explanation for everything they did.

While on a tour, Chandrasekhara Bharati (who too was sought out by members of all faiths) got disgusted with some of his devotees who suggested that he lead them in a procession which would go past a mosque playing loud music at Tiptur in Timkur district (Karnataka). After berating the devotees for even thinking of hurting the sentiments of another community, he gave them an earful: “Enmity, hatred, jealousy and retaliation do not foster religious sentiments and spiritual growth.” In a rare display of anger, the saint quit Tiptur and went away to his next halt, Honavalli.

Contrast the thinking and actions of these illustrious Hindu religious leaders with the anti-Muslim ranting of the new administrative head of one of India’s most revered temples. Imagine the hurt he has caused to non-Hindus who serve Lord Venkateshwara most willingly. Will non-Hindus now be told not to pray at the Tirupati shrine? It is a pity the regressive view was made public on Diwali – a day when all of us need to defeat the Ravana, however miniscule, within us.

The Andhra Pradesh chief minister will be demeaning himself and Hinduism if he were act on the suggestion to bar devoted non-Hindus from Tirumala.