An Acharya Under Arrest
By Kollengode S Venkataraman (January, 2005)
The most sensational news during the Deepavali holidays in India was the arrest by Tamil Nadu police of Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendera Saraswati, 70, in Andhra Pradesh on Deepavali day (Nov. 12) over the murder of one Mr. Sankararaman. Sankararaman was with the Kanchi Math as his assistant to Chandrasekhara Saraswati, the previous Kanchi acharya, who died a few years ago when he was one hundred years of age. According to Indian newspapers, Sankararaman, continued to work at the Math, now for Jayendra Saraswati, and developed disagreements with the new acharya on many matters in the Math. Four years ago, he left the math (he was asked to go, by one account), and he worked in the nearby Varadaraja Perumal temple.
In September of 2003, Sankararaman was stabbed to death inside the Perumal temple. Five people, arrested for the murder, during police interrogation, pointed their fingers at the Kanchi Math and implicated Jayendra Saraswati himself for the murder, which led to the arrest. Later, on Nov 23, two prime suspects recanted their earlier statements. Two days later, they recanted their recantations!! The details of the arrest and its aftermath are available almost as a running commentary on the following website:
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/nic/0034/index.htm
The Kanchi Math, traditionally known for its austerity, has a large following inside and outside India. Therefore, understandably, people who revere the Math were in shock.
According to the police and prosecution statements made before courts, there was “incriminating evidence” in terms of money trail and cell phone calls traceable to the Kanchi Math, and to “the acharya himself.” Many people both inside and outside the Math’s sphere of influence _ felt that the modus operandi of the acharya’s arrest (if not the arrest itself) could have been different. But when seen in the context of Tamil Nadu’s social and public life, shaped and dominated by the Dravidian Parties (the DMK, or the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Anna-DMK, a breakaway group from the DMK, and their forebears, the DK, or Dravidar Kazhagam), nothing should surprise anyone on matters of lack of probity and restraint in public life in Tamil Nadu. Just consider these:
* Years back, Jayalalithaa, now the ADMK chief minister of Tamil Nadu, was the leader of the opposition party when DMK’S Karunanidhi was the chief minister. In the open session of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, an elected member of the legislature pulled the pallu of Jayalalithaa’s sari in the assembly hall in the heat of political “debate.”
* A few years later, when Jayalalitha defeated Karunanidhi in elections, she got even with Karunanidhi. Under her orders, police took the 70-plus-year-old Karunanidhi, now the ex-chief minister, in his underwear in the middle of the night and put him in jail.
* In early 2003, the Chennai police, under orders from the ADMK government, roughed up several reporters and the editor of The Hindu, the largest-circulated and the oldest English daily of Southern India, because the paper criticized the government for its rising intolerance in dealing with its political opponents. Ironically, the police actions ordered by the government only proved the point the paper was making.
The timing of Jayendra Saraswati’s arrest (Deepavali Day), and the way the police went about arresting him in great haste will be discussed in a hundred different ways. One wonders whether the Tamil Nadu police would have, under analogous circumstances, arrested, say, the bishop of the Chennai archdiocese on Christmas or Easter Sunday, or an imam of a big mosque in Chennai on Milad-i-Nabi or Ramzan.
But all these diversions do not, in any way, reduce the horror of the Kanchi Math and its chief getting implicated in a murder case.
Many politicians, including Jayalalitha, were, no doubt, close to Jayendra Saraswati. He was socially active and tried to change the way his religious Order functioned. This was difficult for him given the burden of the rigid orthodoxy of a thousand-year-old Math.
People now attribute Jayendra Saraswati’s troubles to his well-publicized political connections. Whether he sought politicians or the politicians sought him, he is not the only one guilty here. On this yardstick, the heads of other Saivite and Vaishnavite sects in India, not to speak of the maulvis, and imams, and the heads of a plethora of Christian denominations, are also culpable. In an environment of increasing criminalization of politics in India, the confluence of politicians, criminal elements, and religious leaders, not to speak of the sleazy Indian film industry types, gives a deadly combination for white-collar and even violent crimes.
In the coming months, the case against Jayendra Saraswati will be played out in courts by prosecutors trying to paint him with the blackest brush, while the defense attorneys try to prove his innocence. From what has come out in papers, it appears that the Tamil Nadu police would not have arrested the acharya without a strong prima facie case
But given the corruption and sloppiness of the criminal justice system in Tamil Nadu, only one thing is for sure: There will be many sharp twists and turns as the case unfolds in courts and in the media, and it will be a long while before justice is done.
Already, there are talks of moving the case outside Tamil Nadu given the sensitivity of the case. Besides, the state assembly elections are due next year. In the elections, the DMK (now allied with the Congress Party) would like to unseat their arch-enemy ADMK’s Jayalalithaa. A long, drawn-out case on Jayendra Saraswati will become the perfect political football.
Political pundits say, Jayalalithaa, who was close to Jayendra Saraswati till recently, by preemptively arresting him, has taken the wind out of Karunanidhi’s political sails for the next election. She simultaneously mollified the Dalit, Christian, and Muslim voters and helped herself among the Dravidian parties’ vote banks.
No matter how the scandal unfolds, the followers of the Kanchi Math are dismayed, even as its detractors within and outside the Hindu faith privately wallow in seeing the head of the Math hauled over burning coals.
The case will slowly wind through the court system. But in the court of public opinion, the Kanchi Math is already gravely damaged. The Kanchi Math has a tougher job setting its house in order towards regaining its credibility. This will be neither easy nor anytime soon.
The Kanchi Order has to learn to be open in the way it is run, and at the barest minimum, keep their financial dealings transparent. After all, their income (except income from investments and fixed assets) comes from the generosity of the faithful public.
If the Kanchi Math does not rise to the dire needs of the occasion and change its method of operation, it will destroy itself, or at the very least, become irrelevant. Its followers’ shock will turn into disillusionment, even betrayal. The Math has learned to use cell phones and computers. So, it sure can introduce modern management practices based on scrutiny, accountability, and transparency in governing itself, if it hopes to become credible again. A very long, difficult road lies ahead for the Math.
There is a bigger question though: Is the Kanchi Math the only culprit among Hindu and other religious organizations in matters of irregularities? •
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Hindu Religious Organizations Need Reforms
Kollengode S Venkataraman, January 2005
As a species, we are reactive organisms. Only the most exceptional among us are capable of proactively changing the status quo even in our personal lives. No wonder, even the institutions we build tend to be reactive. As we have seen time and time again, organizations change the way they operate only in response to huge problems — financial crisis or scandals, usually both. Religious institutions are no different.
Hindu religious institutions, when they become rich, seem to forget that their assets are not in their ornate buildings, jewelry in gold, diamonds, & precious stones, ostentatious floats, and huge bank accounts.
Their real asset — in fact, their only asset— is the trust/faith devotees have in them. After all, devotees donate money to them out of blind faith. Lack of transparency in money matters and organizational details is the starting point for all scandals. When they abuse this trust in matters of money and people, we need to hold them accountable.
US-based Hindu religious organizations, particularly larger temples, are not known for their transparency on money matters and other dealings. These temples’ financial statements are open only till they owe money to banks. Once they clear their debts, a pall of secrecy insidiously settles in.
This can change only if donors, big and small, demand at the very least, information on how their money is spent by the temples’ governing bodies. But this is unlikely to happen any time soon because of donor apathy. Besides, in the case of larger US temples, donors contributing over 90% of temples’ revenue are dispersed all over continent, and don’t have any voice in the affairs of the temple. Eventually, a handful few, often outside the formal organizational chart, end up having disproportionate influence on temple’s temporal affairs.
Besides, on organizational matters, US-based temples buy peace among quarrelling ethnic subgroups by yielding to regional/ethnic pressures, and self-inflicted compulsions of dogma. The governing bodies often hide behind saffron-robed India-based heads of orthodox religious institutions, and others steeped in the ritual part of the faith. These God-men have their own agenda as they try to get a toehold in the lucrative and resourceful North American Hindu organizations.
Many of these Godmen are either unfamiliar with, or do not want to recognize, the diverse composition of US temple-goers, their needs, and the compromises they continuously make. These people struggle to reconcile their traditions and faith with the mainstream ethos, while raising their children in their “newfoundland.” Members of the governing bodies of these temples, for their part, use these God-men as their armor to fend off internal opposition, real and perceived. Soon, these India-based God-men exert enormous influence on US temples’ organizational matters. Scandals in religious organizations start innocuously as policy disagreements among members that morph into irregularities in their internal affairs and billow into scandals. Then these religious organizations, like any other organization, try to buy peace through money and favors, failing which, through intimidation, blackmail, and litigation. And when these also do not work, and if one can get away with it, through violence.
In this matter, Hindu religious organizations are not alone. In the 1980s, the Vatican Bank and Banco Ambrosiano were involved in financial shenanigans involving billions of dollars. Recently, in the US, many Catholic archdioceses filed for financial bankruptcy after pedophilia cases came out against scores of parish priests. The Rev. Jim Bakker’s and the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart’s tryst with prostitutes is another story. The real problem with religious organizations today is their moral and ethical bankruptcy.
So, it is time the faithful donating money to temples started demanding, at the very least, financial transparency from temples and religious heads.
On organizational matters and finances in Hindu temples, skepticism, not implicit faith, is the need of the hour. Often, among Hindus, people’s implicit faith is erroneously founded on the fear of Godly wrath, believed, and often subliminally reinforced, by what people hear second- and third-hand on events in other people’s personal lives. This is a deplorable way to inculcate and reinforce faith.
Don’t get me wrong. Implicit faith, rituals, and catechisms are wonderful, even necessary, in the early stages of one’s life-long spiritual journey. But they are only means to a greater end, not ends in themselves.
When religious organizations are built around rituals and dogma, and are confined to them, they become like any other organization, given to venality, pride, exclusivity, hatred, aggression, and desire for control.
Mercifully, in India, throughout ages, reformers have repeatedly reminded us that the true basis for religion is freedom from ignorance, anxiety, fear, and bondage. Thiruvalluvar, the Tamil sage, over 2000 years ago wrote:
“Grasp and hold on to the One who is free from all attachments, so that you can free yourself from even that grasp.”
US-based Hindu temples would be doing themselves and everybody else a favor if they do some introspection on these. But will they? END