The In­dic Col­lec­tive Trust and IN­TACH have de­nounced the ill-con­ceived de­mo­li­tion of her­itage struc­tures around Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple in Puri and re­buked elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Odisha’s elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives and ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials for their si­lence and com­plic­ity. They sought free­dom of re­li­gion for Hindu wor­ship­pers in Odisha to prac­tice their re­li­gion with­out any en­cum­brance. Re­cently, a WSN team vis­ited Puri and saw first-hand how thou­sand-year-old Hindu Mutts have been mer­ci­lessly razed to the ground.

ON THE EVE OF THE SUPREME COURT HEAR­ING of the Puri’s Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple cor­ri­dor beau­ti­fi­ca­tion plan case on 3 Sep­tem­ber, ac­tivists of the In­dic Col­lec­tive Trust and IN­TACH, while ad­dress­ing a press con­fer­ence in Bhubanesh­war ex­pressed shock and anger at the Odisha gov­ern­men­t’s de­mo­li­tion drive of all her­itage struc­tures around the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple.

Rav­ilochan Iyen­gar of The In­dic Col­lec­tive said that “the act of de­mol­ish­ing cen­turies-old struc­tures, os­ten­si­bly for beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and se­cu­rity, is a bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of the let­ter and spirit of the Places of Wor­ship Act of 1991, which cat­e­gor­i­cally pro­hibits any agency from mod­i­fy­ing phys­i­cally or oth­er­wise the na­ture of a place of wor­ship of any com­mu­nity.”

Call­ing the struc­tures “Il­le­gal” is a mis­chie­vous mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of facts to en­able the gov­ern­ment to con­tinue their un­law­ful cam­paign since the struc­tures have been in ex­is­tence longer than the Re­pub­lic of In­dia and are part of the so­cial and re­li­gious fab­ric of the town of Puri,” he added.

The 3 of the 18 Mutts that have been de­mol­ished have deep his­toric ties to the tem­ple. The Odisha gov­ern­ment in its high-hand­ed­ness have tram­pled upon the rights of devo­tees un­der Ar­ti­cle 26 of the In­dian con­sti­tu­tion. 

Dr Biswa­jit Mo­hanty, IN­TACH

Dr Biswa­jit Mo­hanty of IN­TACH said that “the 3 of the 18 Mutts that have been de­mol­ished so far have deep his­toric ties to the tem­ple and its rit­u­als with sig­nif­i­cant re­li­gious im­por­tance to the mil­lions of ad­her­ents. In de­mol­ish­ing these struc­tures, the Odisha gov­ern­ment in its high-hand­ed­ness have tram­pled upon the rights of devo­tees un­der Ar­ti­cle 26 of the In­dian con­sti­tu­tion.”

In the first week of Sep­tem­ber this year, de­spite a pe­ti­tion by the In­dic Col­lec­tive in the Supreme Court and lo­cal protests, the Emar Mutt, the Bada Akhada Mutt and the Naga Mutt, which were cheek-by-jowl of the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple were de­mol­ished and now a heavy po­lice and para-mil­i­tary pres­ence guards the re­main­ing Mutts which have as­so­ci­a­tional links with the Hindu faith and the visit of Guru Nanak to Puri.

The Emar Mutt was founded by the great Vaish­navite saint Shri Ra­manuja him­self. It has im­mense re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance for Vaish­navites across the coun­try. The Bada Akhada Mutt was the abode of saint Ra­manand, who had stayed and car­ried out his work from there and was as­so­ci­ated with the Naga sect.

Speak­ing on be­half of IN­TACH, con­ser­va­tion ac­tivist Anil Dhir rued the fact that “de­spite 8 of the 18 struc­tures slated for de­mo­li­tion be­ing cer­ti­fied to be her­itage struc­tures by the Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey of In­dia, the ASI and the In­dian Min­istry of Cul­ture ab­jectly failed to ef­fec­tively in­ter­vene to save the 3 Mutts de­mol­ished so far. It was fur­ther pointed out that, the claims of these struc­tures be­ing un­safe for habi­ta­tion were only a ruse to carry out the de­mo­li­tion. The Raghu­nan­dan li­brary was re­cently ren­o­vated and all the de­mol­ished struc­tures were cer­ti­fied as safe by the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.”

Speak­ing at the press meet, Anil Dhir strongly con­demned the strong-arm tac­tics of the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials who sta­tioned a 1000-strong po­lice con­tin­gent to over­awe and in­tim­i­date Shri Ra­manuja Das of Emar Mutt, prior to the de­mo­li­tion of the Mutt.

“8 of the 18 struc­tures slated for de­mo­li­tion are cer­ti­fied her­itage struc­tures by the Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey of In­dia, yet ASI and the In­dian Min­istry of Cul­ture have ab­jectly failed to ef­fec­tively in­ter­vene.”

Anil Dhir, IN­TACH

The In­dic Col­lec­tive Trust’s writ pe­ti­tion filed on be­half of the Pun­jabi Mutts, Rad­ha­bal­labha Mutts and fol­low­ers of Vaish­nava Sam­pra­daya was taken up by the Supreme Court with­out re­prieve in the first in­stance and only at the last hear­ing on Sep­tem­ber 30, the apex court di­rected the gov­ern­ment of Odisha not to take any step with­out tak­ing into ac­count the views of all stake­hold­ers. It may be men­tioned that the court-ap­pointed am­i­cus curie also mis­rep­re­sented facts to the court with­out meet­ing the con­cerned Mutt Ma­hants and oth­ers. The Supreme Court has also granted lib­erty to the pe­ti­tion­ers to chal­lenge the de­mo­li­tion drive be­fore the High Court of Odisha and if the need arises to again ap­proach the Supreme Court of In­dia.

Speak­ing to the me­dia, Dr Biswa­jit Mo­hanty of IN­TACH said, “Notwith­stand­ing whether this atro­cious beau­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ject is part of the so-called HRI­DAY and PRASAD schemes of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia, no kind of en­hanced se­cu­rity and tourist ac­cess can be made avail­able at the cost of van­dal­is­ing and com­pletely de­stroy­ing cen­turies-old re­li­gious shrines which are part of the his­tory and cul­ture of the place, which is against the will of the reign­ing de­ity and which fla­grantly vi­o­lates the sen­si­tiv­i­ties of mil­lions of devo­tees.”

“The de­mo­li­tion of cen­turies-old struc­tures, os­ten­si­bly for beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and se­cu­rity, is a bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of of the Places of Wor­ship Act 1991.”

Rav­ilochan Iyen­gar, The In­dic Col­lec­tive

“The re­li­gious and spir­i­tual sanc­tity of Mutts and the sur­round­ing of the Lord Ja­gan­nath Tem­ple can­not be sac­ri­ficed at the al­tar of re­li­gious tourism. The whole cos­mos of the en­vi­rons is to pro­vide spir­i­tual so­lace and much-needed food, med­i­cine and lodg­ing sup­port sys­tem which gets heav­ily com­pro­mised when spir­i­tual cen­tres be­come tourist par­adises,” he added.

Tak­ing um­brage at the ap­proach of the gov­ern­ment and also of the Col­lec­tor of Puri Bal­want Singh Rathore, which has vi­ti­ated the trust of Hindu ma­hants and mil­lions of devo­tees, the IN­TACH and In­dic Col­lec­tive team sought im­me­di­ate mea­sures to sal­vage the sit­u­a­tion and re­store trust of the peo­ple.

The team has sought pros­e­cu­tion of of­fi­cials of the de­mo­li­tion drive un­der whose su­per­vi­sion the 3 Mutts were de­mol­ished un­der the Places of Wor­ship Act and var­i­ous pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia. They have asked for com­pen­sa­tion for the trauma and le­gal ex­penses through a Cor­pus fund to the Ma­hants of de­mol­ished Mutts and restora­tion of the de­mol­ished struc­tures in con­sul­ta­tion with Ma­hants and con­ser­va­tion ex­perts. To pro­vide suc­cour and sup­port to the Ma­hants and oth­ers who in­hab­ited the 3 de­mol­ished Mutts, the team has sought set­ting up of tem­po­rary struc­tures within the larger Tem­ple com­plex.

“I hope and pray that bet­ter sense will pre­vail and the re­li­gious places of all re­li­gions will be saved for pos­ter­ity,”

Sukhvin­der Kaur, so­cial ac­tivist and ad­vo­cate

So­cial ac­tivist and ad­vo­cate Sukhvin­der Kaur, who took lead to bring up the case of the 3 Mutts set up in the mem­ory of the visit of the founder of Sikhism -Guru Nanak, also ad­dressed the press meet and sought fur­ther re­as­sur­ance from the gov­ern­ment that no dam­age of any kind will be done to the Mangu Mutt, Pun­jabi Mutt and the Baoli Mutt. “I hope and pray that bet­ter sense will pre­vail and the re­li­gious places of all re­li­gions will be saved for pos­ter­ity,” she said.

Will the gov­ern­ment of Odisha lis­ten? Will the Supreme Court of In­dia take all the true facts into con­sid­er­a­tion while deal­ing with this mat­ter of faith?