Imagine a captive in a cage whose key is held by the master who defines and redefines the limits of the captive’s freedom inside the cage and the captive’s sustenance entirely depends upon the master's will. In an ordinary sense, it symbolises restriction, control and confinement but in a legal or jurisprudential sense, it symbolises abuse of power, loss of autonomy, and over-regulation. In the face of national concern, a temple signifies the captive, a cage represents the state-made laws for regulation and control of temples, and the state, which holds the key, acts as the master.

The recent Tirupati Laddu controversy where it has been alleged that animal fat was being used to prepare sacred offerings has created a sense of anguish and fear in the minds of millions of Hindu devotees who feel cheated, neglected, and treated as third-class citizens. The indifferent attitude of the previous Andhra Pradesh government and other state governments, in practical terms, has generally been accepted as a blatantly legitimate approach to superimpose restrictions and delimit the freedom of Hindu religious institutions. The temples’ governance framework is a policy that presents an extremely imperious and debauch approach on the part of the state.

State-sanctioned governance framework, though virtually secular but inherently religious, for Hindu temples and other religious institutions has typically been regressive, largely for the purposes of creating an inveterate system of mismanagement and disorders. The idea of the state’s control over Hindu temples and other Hindu religious institutions was the brainchild of the Britishers. It was the Britishers who first kept temples in the cage of state control and later, when India got freedom from the shackles of the Britishers, the superintendence was transferred from the British government to the Indian states. The legislative enactments challenge the independence of Hindu religious institutions as they function only in such a manner as the states ask them to function. States have assumed unfettered powers, to such an extent, that they have been acting arbitrarily from time to time. They have failed miserably in streamlining the administration which has led to “institutionalised corruption”. From misappropriation of temples’ funds, as per their whims and fancies, to taking every decision arbitrarily without any transparency in the functioning of their day-to-day work and decision-making, this denotes the illegitimate relationship of state, religion, and politics, as well as the obnoxious interplay of politics and religion.

Most of the temples are in dilapidated condition. In some places, there are no restrooms at all, and at whichever place they are, they are not in good condition. There are no proper facilities for the devotees at most of the temples. It’s not that they are out of funds, but they have failed in streamlining the administration and imparting their duties. Regulating temples in a democracy, where one of the many goals of the Constitution is to promote Secularism, is not the same as regulating health, economy, education, etc. These are the sectors where the interference of the state is necessary but as far as religious places are concerned, the state should not interfere or have a say in the day-to-day workings of the temples and other religious institutions

For the Britishers, control of temples was the legal means to subjugate the religious institutions of Hindus to achieve evangelical ends and for Indian states, legally sanctioned control of temples was the secularised means to an explicitly religious or unsecular end. India being a multireligious society, the state’s deference from the principle of Secularism and manifestly exercising control over the religious institutions of only one religion does not serve the purpose of enshrining the principle of ‘Secularism’ in the preamble to the Constitution of India and demanding the state to be secular, in theory, and practice. A state that professes to be secular ceases to remain secular as soon as it creates an ecclesiastical department to control the religious institutions of a particular religion, that too in furtherance of political aspirations involving monetary benefits. Franklin A. Presler, in his book ‘Religion under Bureaucracy: Policy and Administration for Temples in South India’ has remarked that,

Throughout the modern period, governments in South India have been deeply involved in temples. Their purpose has been to establish a presence in temple management, and thereby to regulate the use of the temple’s material and symbolic resources. Inevitably, regulation has implied controlling the details of Hindu organization, economy, and worship. This is true despite the fact that for at least a century the state has been committed to non-intervention in religion, and since 1947 has been constitutionally secular.

Bureaucratization and Institutionalized corruption, in the context of temples’ governance, have become analogous to each other. The presence of an ecclesiastical department in the hands of the state and its further delegation to bureaucrats is nothing but an attempt to have control of all the resources and funds of temples in which they have been successful so far. Due to this, there is a constant institutional conflict over the use of economic and cultural sources of the temples. Agitations, by the general public as well as people who are associated with temples and other religious institutions, have failed to garner the attention of a wide section of society because of various reasons.

Temples are not mere walled structures but conscious physical manifestations of belief in faith, religion, traditions, cultures, devotion, welfarism, and spiritualism. The conflict between Faith and the state has led to the withering away of temples, as a religious institution, in the eyes of the state. Temples are living embodiments of faith where divinity, worship and devotees come together. The state control has disturbed the spiritual and management equilibrium of temples across India, and consequently, the Hindu faith has become an orphan owing to an indifferent and insensitive attitude on the part of the state.

The Tirupati Ladoo controversy has only solidified the notion that states have predominantly engaged in tampering with the faith of Hindus. As a result of colonial entrenchment, states have used law-making power to perpetuate control, normalise bureaucratisation and institutionalised corruption, and legitimise their tampering with the faith of Hindus. The perpetual control has led to the perpetual decline in the effective and efficient administration of temples. Amidst all the chaos, the Hindu devotees are just silent spectators and to say the least, the control never started out with the best of intentions and has effectively truncated the rights of Hindus to effectively and efficiently manage their own religious institutions.

So long as the temples remain captives in the cage of the State, temples' sustenance and faith will, undoubtedly, be perpetually in danger. The question isn’t just about the physical sustenance of temples but the spiritual sustenance of temples and the sustenance of faith of millions of Hindu devotees.