Role of the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments for Protection of Temple and Temple Properties: Issues and Challenges

India is a land of diversities, belief, faith and rich culture. Thousands of Indians daily pray to his respective God regardless of his religion, caste, colour, creed, race, and gender to give them a life with dignity, a life with fulfillment, happiness, and divinity. Temples are such living testament of such faith and belief. Our country India is well known for protecting every asset of the nation. Our Constitution declared in its preamble “WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA.” So, each and every public asset is the asset of each and every citizen of the country. In a way Hindu temple properties were started to be administered by the Government elected by the people, for the people and of the people. Different states started their own religious bodies to protect the interests and properties of Hindu Religious Temples and worship places. Some of the well-known such establishments are the Travancore Devaswom Board, Cochin Devaswom Board, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department of Tamil Nadu, etc., In particularly this paper focuses on the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department of Tamil Nadu. Even though set up for supporting temple administration, at present we can see that the role of this department is getting corporatized and is used for acquiring temple properties for purposes other than religious one and remaining inactive doing a minimal conservation to thousands of temples around the state. Even though conservation activities are undertaken but, such activities are being done only at temples which attract huge public and no other temples. This leads us to a serious question whether the department is acting only to protect those religious institutions which have more assets and properties. In order to find the answers, we would like to discuss in detail in this paper regarding the recent allegations arised, cases filed and observation done by us as a team, by virtue of which we would like to discuss on these issues of mis – maintanence by the HR&CE department of Tamil Nadu and critically analyse HR&CE ‘s role in Hindu Temples and Religious Institutions.