Post Tirupati – The Way forward

It is alright to have been able to plan such a fantastic Maha Padayatra. Alright to temporarily gloat over the success of the meet. And how much how few of us could achieve. Things which we thought were beyond our reach, as the whole thing began.

But, what is most important to all of us is Post-Tirupati – What is the way forward?

For quite some years now, a few of us have been personally meeting a lot of our Swamijis, Acharyas and leaders of Hindu Organizations, regularly. Everyone agreed with our vision that Hindus should one day manage our own Mandirs and administer our own endowed properties with the care and diligence for which Bhaktas had endowed these. Endowed, with fond hope that, we, the future generations of Hindus will take care of them. Little would these kings, Zamindars, peasants and some very poor Bhaktas have imagined that the Kings would be replaced by new set of emperors, the peasants would face more apathy than under the christist white rule and that the simple Hindu Bhakta would suddenly become “secular”, docile and incompetent to let others manage his affairs. Little would those that endowed the property, those that built these majestic structures of Bhakti would have ever imagined that there would be a breed of funny Hindus who would facilitate the erosion of Hindu Dharma and the properties of Mandirs. Little would these Rajahs ever have imagined that their Mandirs would one day witness bad days. Most of them in ruins. No Pujas. No Dhoop, Dheep and Neivedya for the Gods. Bad days created deliberately by Hindus themselves.

Certain simple questions nagged us:

While everyone shared the vision that Mandirs should be handed back to the Hindu Samaj, NO BODY had any answers to my simple questions:

Do we have a structure in place that can replace the endowment department in any State of South India?

Are we working in this direction?

Do we have clear vision on how to take over our Mandirs?

Suppose the CM of AP or TN says tomorrow, the Government is ready to hand over the Mandirs to Hindu Samaj, pray who will receive them? To whom should they be handed over?

How do we take care of them, from day one?

The way forward – our concept:

Now, how to start making one such structure. Start with Villages. How do we reach such villages?

Visit them. How?

By walk, so they take us seriously. With Bhakti. With due respect. And only those with such unstinted Bhakti would come forward. Voluntarily.

Sri Kamal Kumar ji took Sanyasa.

The first step to connecting simple people to the movement. Bringing them to the forefront, to train them to manage their own affairs.

This Maha Padayatra of Sri Kamal Kumar ji has given us a clear direction as to how we can attempt to go about it.

During the first Maha Padayatra, Sri Kamal ji covered 3200 Kms by foot, visiting close to 2500 Village Mandirs in half the districts of AP. The Second Maha Padayatra is scheduled to begin in August and this will take him to the rest of the Districts and the villages, this time covering 5000 Kms.

At each village, we have been able to identify the group of people who supported the cause and have exhibited great enthusiasm and Bhakti, forming reception committees at grass root levels. These have been connected to the respective District level of the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti. No wonder, we had 8000 simple Bhaktas visiting Tirupati on the 24 Jan for the Bhakti Sangamam meeting. Voluntarily.

Sri Kamal ji will now visit all these villages, which he visited during his Pada Yatra, by car. He will meet the people, thank them for their support to the cause. Reinforce their devotion. Give them the required confidence and direction. And at each village form the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti officially. Getting the committee members in place and in working order. The structure starts from the bottom, with a strong foundation and grows upwards into a super-structure. The Org Chart will be in place, drawn meticulously to become functional. These committees will be represented by Bhaktas from all caste configurations of each village, giving representation to ALL Hindu Bhaktas.

During the next padayatra, he will form similar committees in each village he visits. Thus we will have the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti committees spread into close to 5000 plus village Mandirs in Andhra Pradesh.

These committees will be affiliated to their respective District Units which will in turn be affiliated to the State Unit of the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti.

Currently, the Government of Andhra Pradesh has ordered to give away 30,000 Mandirs, meaning de-link them from the Endowment Department. The Government is planning to float a Dharma Parishad with members hand-picked by the Government to administer it. We are totally opposed to the formation of the Dharma Parishad by the Government as we see this as nothing but one venomous devil replacing the other. We do not want ANY Government interference in the administration of the Mandirs. More importantly, we want the simple Bhakta teams in each district to administer their own mandirs. The Mandirs forming the count of 30,000 which the AP Government has proposed is nothing but those the government has already stripped of its assets. There is no Dhoop, Dheep, Neivedyam in majority of these Mandirs. Some of them may not even have the semblance of the original structure. Some of them are the neo-Mandirs that had seen good times attracting the evil take over of the Mandirs, thus fallen into bad times again.

No to Government’s Dharma Parishad:

Our aim is to currently demand the government to drop the idea of the formation of its Dharma Parishad. We want the government to hand over these Mandirs and its administration to the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti. With the presence of our Samiti at the village and district level, we will be in a better position to initiate the resuscitation of Nithya Pujas in these Mandirs. The Samaj will come forward to bring the Mandirs back to their pristine glory. It is a test to the truth of the Bhakti of each Hindu, as we achieve our goal within a time frame of three years from now.

The Blessings of our Gods, our Acharyas, our Swamijis and our Sadhu Sant will always be there with us as we embark on this ideal. We know that they will always provide us with the spiritual guidance. More importantly, once the Mandirs are back with the Hindu Samaj, They are always there to provide us with the advice on all the religious matters governing each Mandir.

Believe me, each of the Mandirs will be on its way to its original glory. These will unite the Hindus. We will all come together, learn to manage our own Mandirs. Thus, our own religious and political affairs, in the long run.

The builders of these Mandirs placed their trust in us. the future generation of Hindus.

Time to start living up to their trust.

Namaste,

S V Badri

Ps: This is the broad outlook of our plan. Naturally, we will fine-tune our approach as we start our networking process vigorously at the grass-root levels.

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