Guruvayur Temple in Kerala is the abode of Sri Vishnu in his Avatar as Sri Krishna. The temple is believed to be over 5000 years old. An estimated two crore devotees visit the temple each year. 

The temple receives hundi collections of between 6-7 crores, 15 kilos of gold and other precious stones each month. It has various fixed deposits with banks to the tune of around 1500 cores. It also has an estimated 2 tons of gold deposits.

The interest earned from such deposits are now being used shamelessly by atheists to fund various schemes of the CPM in the name of ‘relief funds’, be it Okhi, Kerala Floods and recently the Chinese virus catastrophes.

Temples in Kerala are managed by Devaswoms. Members are nominated by the Government of Kerala. The current Travancore Devaswom Board(TDB) Chairman is Adv. K B Mohandas. He is a Communist Party Marxist (CPM) frontman. Like many CPM leaders he is involved in abkari (manufacture or sale of liquors or drugs) business and has hotels in Trichur district. Guruvayur temple is also situated in Trichur.

In the aftermath of the 2018 Kerala floods, the same Devaswom had handed over Rs. 5 Crores to the CM Relief Fund. That donation was disputed by the local BJP leaders and the decision is pending with the Kerala High Court. These ‘relief funds’ are mired in controversies. This comes at a time when all and sundry in the CPM are usurping these funds for their personal gain. 

Now the same Devaswom has handed over another cheque to the CM Covid relief fund in the name of  unavailability of funds to pay for salaries and pensions for Government employees. This has to be read along with the fact that 83% of Government funds in Kerala (this happens nowhere else in Bharat and probably nowhere else on earth) are utilised for paying the salaries and pensions of leftist babus. 

Hindu devotees are asking as to why other religious institutions like churches and mosques are not being forced to make such donations. When questioned by the media, Adv. KB Mohandas invoked the ‘social responsibility’ card to justify his decision. Mohandas comfortably forgot the fact that this is in total violation of Section 27 of the Guruvayur Devaswom Act which specifies that Shri Krishna (the Main Deity), is a minor and is the owner of all property and income. Income should be used for temple purposes only. The law explicitly prohibits spending money on anything else other than temple expenses. 

All this comes at a time when salaries of employees at Guruvayur temple for the month of May have not been settled yet. There is also seething anger amongst devotees due to the fact that some other temples under the administration of the TDB are facing acute financial crunch. They are finding it hard to even light lamps and conduct daily pooja rituals.

The BJP has said that funds donated by devotees for the upkeep and development of the temple should not be handed over to the Government. But other ‘secular’ parties like Congress and even BJP have been guilty of appropriating or mismanaging temple assets in other states like Maharashtra etc.

This short video is worth watching –

Using the unconstitutional and despicable Devaswom boards, the Kerala government is on a mission to destroy the Temple ecosystem in the state. pic.twitter.com/9D0HsLZd5k

— Unroll (@unroll_media) May 8, 2020

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