An audit of Kerala’s revered Guruvayur temple has exposed glaring irregularities in its asset management, opening yet another chapter in the long saga of temple mismanagement under Communist rule in the state. The audit revealed that precious donations of gold, ivory, saffron, and cookware have gone missing—echoing similar episodes seen at the Sabarimala temple earlier this year.
The Guruvayur Gold Theft Scandal
A 2019 audit report, publicized only in October 2025, documented serious procedural lapses in how the Guruvayur Devaswom handled temple valuables. The report indicated that temple gold and ivory had been stored and moved without due process, and that items worth lakhs—including 2,000 kilograms of traditional cookware (uruli) and offerings like manchadi seeds—were missing. The audit also cited a financial loss of ₹79 lakh due to mismanagement of gold deposits in a State Bank of India gold deposit scheme.
The Board, which oversees 12 temples across Kerala, admitted to discrepancies but claimed they had been rectified and reported to the Kerala High Court. Opposition leaders, however, have called this a whitewash. BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar accused the Communist-led government of supervising “loot in the name of administration,” demanding a central investigation akin to the ongoing Sabarimala probe.
Pattern of Communist Interference in Temple Affairs
This incident is not isolated—it reflects a wider pattern of systematic interference by Kerala’s Communist government in temple administration. Over the past several years, the CPI(M)-controlled Travancore and Guruvayur Devaswom Boards have faced allegations ranging from temple land encroachments to gold misappropriation. A recent exposé listed 14 major cases of government meddling in temple traditions and finances since 2019, including the Sabarimala gold scandal where nearly 475 grams of gold disappeared from the sanctum’s guardian idols.
Even after repeated pleas from devotees and Hindu organizations, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has publicly refused to return administrative control to devotees, arguing that state oversight is necessary for “revival.” Critics describe this as a political justification for retaining control over vast temple revenues and assets.
Parallels with Dravidianist and Congress Rule
Similar patterns can be seen in Tamil Nadu and Congress-ruled states. The Tamil Nadu HR&CE Department under Dravidianists controls more than 40,000 temples, often auctioning temple lands and diverting donations to state funds. In Congress-ruled regions like Karnataka, temple revenues have been repurposed for non-religious projects and welfare schemes benefiting minority groups. These practices point to a broader ideological disdain for Hindu institutions rooted in leftist and Dravidianist thought, mirroring the situation in Kerala.
Reclaiming Temples for the Hindu Samaj
The Guruvayur and Sabarimala controversies reignite an old debate: Should the state have control over Hindu temples? Temples are living institutions, maintained by faith and voluntary donations. Yet, in Left-ruled or secular-controlled states, they have been politicized, bureaucratized, and in many cases, looted under the guise of “public administration.”
Restoring temple management to the Hindu Samaj—through elected bodies of devotees, priests, and community representatives—would ensure accountability rooted in faith rather than politics. Devotees argue that just as churches, mosques, and gurdwaras remain self-governed, Hindu temples too must be freed from state control. Only then can spiritual institutions like Guruvayur regain both their sanctity and their trust among devotees.
I find it logical that author Jamadagnya says in this news article that control of Hindu community assets must be in the hands of Hindus, just as being done for Mohammadans and Christians. Our constitution was changed to include word ‘secular’, but where Hindu religious management is concerned, the state governments become owner, director, and manager of Hindu religious affairs.
So the biggest head-scratcher in this open loot and abuse of Hindu religious affairs management is: What is causing majority Hindus to be so passive, nonchalant and self-destructive? One symptom of this brain damage, I think appears in this following expression by the author:
“In Congress-ruled regions like Karnataka, temple revenues have been repurposed for non-religious projects and welfare schemes benefiting minority groups.”
This mental defeatism is so depressing and demoralizing! 😞 Implicit in our national culture is the assumption that Hindus as “majority” are riding rough shod, and “poor religious minorities” need special protection and handling at the cost of Hindus.
When will Hindu authors stop using self-insulting terms coined by mischievous religious antagonists? In majority of cases where the word “minorities” is used, it has nothing to do with Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, but almost always Mohammadans, who as “minority” have carved out not only two “Islamic” nations where remaining Hindus are utterly debased and openly treated as part of their cruel Islamic predatory gaming, but within Bharat too have created their own nation within nation, where there is almost always one way conversion in marriages and grooming and where the ‘minority’ brazenly employs terroristic intimidation of Hindus, including beheadings, bullying, stone-pelting and other physical attacks frequently during Hindu festivals or if they detect any criticism of Mohammadan character in TV, print and social media.
But hey, the same apathy and defeatism that majority Hindus are suffering from also reflexively affects the Hindu braves. Is it too much to ask HinduPost and their writers to refrain from the use of the self-abusive words like minority, polytheism, idol-worship, secular etc. as used in the context directed by their hostile haters? HinduPost have accused me earlier like “never have anything good to say about Hindu Samaj and keep constantly slandering Hindu Samaj, rituals and activists by nitpicking on smallest of the things like the terms used…” (Another example of same reflexiveness!?
Alas! Terms used may look minor like a tip of the iceberg, but hides an insidious phenomenon beneath it.
Still, in the tradition reminiscing of shashtrarth (शास्त्रार्थ), HinduPost have graciously published my comments earlier. I am grateful for that.🙏