Author: Rajeev Srinivasan
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: November 22, 2004
URL: http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/nov/22rajeev.htm
I have been hearing recently that
there are proposals to take over religious institutions and use their funds
to pay for the UPA government's programmes. One of the first uses for these
funds would be to pay for the Rs 24,000 crores allocated to Jammu &
Kashmir. As Manmohan Singh pointed out, the Congress has had close ties
with J&K from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv
Gandhi. 'Kashmir has a special place in our hearts.'
Since the population of J&K
is roughly 1 crore, this means the UPA government is offering Rs 24,000
per head. Compare this to the central assistance of Rs 1,137 per head to
people in all other states in 2000- 2001. And this Rs 24,000 per head is
for people who wish to secede from India, who prefer Pakistani terrorists
over the Indian Army, who ethnic-cleanse, torture, rape, murder, oppress
fellow-Kashmiris based on religion. A cynic might say this is reward for
bad behaviour, but we should not judge others, should we?
In the past, I have looked at the
tribute extracted by Kashmir, and this latest cornucopia is even more bountiful.
J&K has the lowest incidence of poverty in India (at 3.4% in 2000-2001
compared to 26% for the whole country), and even before this new munificence
it was on course to be India's first and only state with nobody below the
poverty line. But I must not carp or cavil. Since the Congress has 'a special
place in [their] hearts' for Kashmiris we must keep giving and giving to
them.
Now comes the interesting question
of how to fund all this: given that the combined central and state deficits
are at alarming levels, that is a non-trivial problem. That's where the
wealth in the religious institutions comes into the picture. This is a
wonderful idea, why didn't I think of it? This is along the same lines
as the idea of taking India's foreign- exchange holdings, and using them
for building infrastructure (and incidentally for rewarding our friends).
Clearly, the UPA's brilliant economists such as Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram
and Jairam Ramesh are onto a good thing.
I can point explicitly to some religious
institutions that I am familiar with. I merely have to drive in Trivandrum
from the secretariat to the Kaudiar Palace to see a bunch of prosperous
religious institutions that would fit the bill. I must apologise for not
knowing the names of these institutions, but I will give precise enough
directions so it is not hard to find them. Next time I go to Trivandrum
I'll try to get their names. Let us see:
At Spencer Junction, there is a
large white church on the right hand side.
Go a little further, and there
is a spanking new church on the right hand side opposite the University
Library
At the junction look to your right,
and next to the Martyr's Square is the large pink Jama Masjid mosque
Across the Square from the mosque
is the soaring Catholic Cathedral, with its statue of a benedictory Jesus
rising high above the surrounding buildings
Another half-mile, and across from
the state legislative assembly, there is a fine-looking old white church
on the right- hand side in a nice garden compound
Just beyond the legislative assembly,
on the left-hand side, there is a newly-built entrance hall to a small
Hanuman temple
Go around the stadium and on the
left-hand side, across from the museum, there is the very large plot (30
acres?) belonging to the London Missionary Society and the Church of South
India
Go another mile or so, and on the
right, just next to the Raj Bhavan, is the huge 35-acre plot housing an
elegant Bishop's Palace, church, and other buildings
Proceed another mile, and on the
left, at Kaudiar Square, next to the Maharaja's Palace, is the giant 50-acre
plot belonging to the Salvation Army (which also has other land just beyond
on the road to Pattom) including a school, prayer halls, etc.
It would be a capital idea if the
government were to take over all these: if I am not mistaken, all of them
are built on public land that was ceded. The bounty for the Christians
came during the Maharaja's rule, when under pressure from the British Resident,
land was given away, and is not even taxed at fair market value now. One
Resident, a Colonel Munro, was very diligent: he got Hindu temple lands
annexed and commingled with Travancore government land on the one hand;
on the other hand, he coerced the government to give away land to Christian
churches. Not to mention he got them a government grant of Rs 10,000 in
1819, which was a colossal sum: about Rs 480 million in today's terms at
a discount rate of 6%.
The Muslims got their largesse about
thirty years ago, probably under the Marxists, when prime land was given
to them to build their mosque. The Hindus got the area in front of the
Hanuman temple about ten years ago after much agitation: the government
wanted to build a memorial to a Muslim minister there.
These are all the religious institutions
on one main road in Trivandrum. When you land at Trivandrum airport, you
can see a bunch of others: a dozen Muslim mosques and Christians churches
can be seen from the air, and most of them are fairly new, having come
up in the last twenty years. The only Hindu temple you see is the rather
ill-maintained old Devi temple on the beach, right in front of which there
is a gigantic 50- foot-long sculpture of a naked, voluptuous, sexually-aroused
woman, recumbent. 'Secularism' in action: the place to put this is clearly
in front of a Hindu temple to a goddess, wouldn't dream of putting this
in front of the Virgin Mary church nearby.
If you drive north on the National
Highway from Trivandrum towards Kollam, or south towards Kanyakumari, a
profusion of new mosques is in evidence. On a stretch of about 2 kilometers
towards Kollam, there are at least five mosques, all but one of which have
come up in the last ten years.
And if you drive into Kanyakumari
district, there is nothing but churches: this district is at least 50%
Christian, and they are very religious people, so the place is chock-a-block
with churches. Which is also the case if you go north to Kottayam district
or Ernakulam district, which have, respectively, the second-largest and
largest numbers of Christians in any district in India. Kottayam, in particular,
has some magnificent churches, which must be very prosperous.
If you drive further into Malabar,
for instance Malappuram and Kozhikode districts, there must be large numbers
of mosques: I am not familiar with the area.
Imagine the amount of money that
is held in all these religious institutions! People have been talking about
the huge amounts of Christian conversion money pouring into India. There
are also reports that Rs 700 crores came into Kerala as hawala money, probably
from West Asia. The Marxists are saying this, so it must obviously be true:http://pd.cpim.org/2004/1107/11072004_kerala.htm
and http:// www.hindu.com/2004/10/25/stories/2004102504280400.htm (and
some Rs 2 to 3 crore more per day) and surely some of that ends up in the
mosques.
I think if the government can mobilise
the funds from all these religious institutions, in no time the national
debt can be retired. So I for one fully endorse the purported government
moves to take these over. After all, what better use of the people's money
other than to fund the Indian government's white elephants and illogical
expenditures? In the bargain, if some foreigners' money also goes into
the kitty, so much the better.
