Professional Documents
Culture Documents
htm
The bureaucracy is also compromised. Hence where government finances are completely out of alignment with revenue realities, the temptation will be to use these invaluable treasures to fulfill the insatiable personal and political greed of our politicians to fund populist schemes like "food security" for all with resources belonging to Lord Vishnu. Already more than 80 per cent of the incomes of major temples is used for 'secular' causes rather than for 'sacred' purposes. Sorry to sound repetitive, but I would once again like to ask, what use is this wealth if it will lie idle? During the days of the rajas, such money was in the reserve fund. It was used only at a time of natural calamity when the rest of the coffers went dry. The money belonging to the Lord should be used only when the Lord creates a calamity. We must appreciate our kings who had kept this wealth safe for us. In the past, the kings have used this wealth to wriggle the society out of a crisis. We must keep the wealth for the same. Do you mean that we have gained nothing by revealing the details of this wealth? Absolutely nothing. Anti-State elements will eye our temples more. Other countries in distress will have their eyes on it. As a result of all this we will have to pray in temples in the presence of gun-trotting security guards. The entire atmosphere in temples will be vitiated. Could you explain further? The temples of India contain several billion dollars worth of treasures and such details have been revealed at a time that is dangerous for our polity. Given the economic depression in Europe and the acute unemployment situation in the United States, such news items could tempt such countries. Let us take note of the fact that the US had invaded Iraq on the ground that there were some weapons, which were ultimately not there. If we open up the vaults of our temples then such factors could only tempt such countries. So are you saying that the US like the British invade our temple wealth? I am not saying they would, I am just saying they could. Moreover this is not just about them. Temples are targets of terrorists and they could invade them too. Giving out such details to those terrorists could only attract them into our temples in order to loot our wealth. The Middle East too is under crisis and they could also prove dangerous to our temple wealth. Under such a situation we need to be cautious.
So what do you suppose be done now? For the sake of dharma and for God's sake, our courts and government should stop digging for treasures in our temples. We need to have a temple protection force and the responsibility should be shared between the central and state government. We are speaking in terms of trillions over here and there is a need to protect this wealth from prying eyes. This is national treasure and hence the protection ought to be very high.