Original Sin

A FOULED GUN CARTRIDGE, in its time, has been known to spark an insurrection, but a laddu? While the jury is still out on who greased the holy laddus offered at the Tirumala Tirupati temple, one shouldn’t underestimate their power to trigger sectarian anxiety. The Hindus who turned on the British in 1857 for handing them gun cartridges greased with beef tallow and pork lard are still very much around. All these years later, some may have embraced a few Western mores, but they are yet to lose their distaste for beef, pork, or fish—the blasphemous medley that was allegedly mixed into the Tirumala Tirupati laddus.

And had the laddus not been a deified symbol of Hindu sacrosanctity, one doubts if Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu would have made much of their supposed adulteration.

For this act of sacrilege, Naidu solely blames his predecessor, YSRCP supremo Jagan Mohan Reddy. Naidu is convinced that Reddy conspired to contract dairy suppliers of dubious bona fides to cut costs on purchasing pure ghee. The penny pinching, a show of disrespect to the resident deity, reportedly compromised the sanctity of the revered confections created in the Tirumala Tirupati temple kitchen. At least that’s what Naidu has alleged.

The former Andhra Pradesh chief minister has also struck a defiant posture. Reddy has accused Naidu of running a slander campaign.

But the damage has been done. By all accounts, Naidu’s revelations have stuck. And it does not help Reddy’s case that he is a practising Christian. Luckily, angry Hindus haven’t spilled out into the streets.

While that’s a relief, what isn’t is that very few have paused to check the veracity of the ‘facts’ put out by Naidu. Fewer still are ready to accept the possibility that Naidu’s claims could be part of a larger, daresay, cynical communal plot.

The incumbent chief minister’s critics, especially arch foe Jagan Reddy’s supporters, say Naidu is trying to position himself as Andhra’s king of Hindu hearts. Naidu hopes, so the theory goes, to outflank his allies BJP and Pawan Kalyan, who are both past masters at playing the Hindu card. Naidu, who is playing the long game, is convinced that winning the race to cement his Hindu credentials can ensure his electoral longevity and also create political space for his son and heir, Nara Lokesh.

As the Naidu camp trades accusations with the Jagan camp, it has become virtually impossible to apportion guilt.

Only an independent inquiry can dredge the truth to the surface. But what some Hindu well-wishers are thankful for is that L’affaire Laddu has finally brought the focus back to the nationalisation of Hinduism.

It’s a travesty that Hindus in the land of their birth have had to cede to state control of their customs, practices, and places of worship. It’s a shame that only Hindu religious customs have been by-and-large codified by the state and not those of other faiths.

It is equally disappointing that the state has cleverly insinuated itself in the business of administering, principally, Hindu temples. The state’s ecclesiastical paternalism mocks Articles 25-28 of the Constitution that guarantee the Right to Freedom of Religion.

It is a scandal that every penny donated by devotees is diverted by the state government for ‘secular purposes’ rather than temple upkeep.

The nationalisation of Hinduism is so near-total that devotees who cram thousands of hundreds of crores of rupees into the donation boxes of the Tirumala Tirupati temple annually cannot even ensure that their money is being used to prepare kosher prasadam.

Would the state dream of denying the adherents of other faiths the right to decide how their contribution should be used?

No. In fact, the Centre expressly permits Muslim donors via the Dargah Khwaja Saheb Act of 1955 to dictate the specific purpose for which their donations are to be used. Moreover, it allows the devout Muslim donor to demand an audit.

If Chandrababu Naidu, Pawan Kalyan, and the many BJP plenipotentiaries are truly concerned about blasphemy against Hindus, they must punish the original sin. They must dismantle state laws and by-laws that have nationalised Hinduism. For far too long, Hindus have allowed a rootless, Westernised elite to pass off state subjugation of Hinduism as a secular pursuit.

Chandrababu Naiduladdusnationnationalised HinduismPawan KalyanreligionTirumala Tirupati