Temples, mosques, churches and money

Cross posted at Mutiny

If I were to ask any ordinary malayalee, if Kerala is a secular state or not, the answer will be an outright yes. The state hasn’t witnessed religious tension for a very long time as Hindus, Muslims and Christians co-exist here celebrating each others festivals with much joy (in front of the television of course!). But after speaking to a friend of mine I am having second thoughts on the secular nature of the Govt in Kerala.

Why oh why, should the govt have rights over all the money that comes into the temples in Kerala? In other words, why does the govt have control over the devaswams (a body that makes revenue, administrative decisions, for temples)?
In other words why is Kerala govt concerned solely about the money that comes into Hindu temples alone? Why don’t they form devaswams like body for churches and mosques in Kerala? Why?

Is this secularism? Can this be even considered to be a secular act? Why does the govt have to keep a tab on what temples are doing with their money, when no such attempt is made with churches and mosques?

So should govt have a say over monetary transactions of religious institutions at all? I would say yes to that. Because having an eye on the administrative functions of religious bodies, govt can control religious extremism which might originate within the closed doors of religious institutions.

So where has the Kerala govt gone wrong? In not making the law applicable for all religions? In other states, this wouldn’t be such a big issue because of the fact that followers of Christianity and Islam form a minority. But in Kerala Muslims and Christians together form almost 40% of the population, while in many areas they form a majority. Also, many of these institutions receive flurry of money in form of donations from malayalees settled abroad. Their income may not be as big as that of the devaswams; but they are still pretty high.

Is it right to let huge sums of money go unaccounted? No, they create problems for these religious institutions. We have already heard enough allegations (even on mutiny) on how church is misusing funding so availed for conversion and how mosques might be encouraging extremism!

Can’t govt put an end to all this by making it a LAW*, than a biased restriction?

* By LAW I mean a rule that is applicable to everyone and not to a particular class of society alone.

PS: The ‘friend’ I mentioned in the first paragraph is son of a Devaswam employee

Filed under: India, Kerala, Religion , Christianity, hinduism, Islam, Kerala, Religion

Pin is mightier than sword

The saying used to be Pen is mightier than sword, but for a woman, a pin is mightier than a sword? Wondering why? I will tell you a story.. An incident involving a guy, and a girl in a night bus with of course a pin playing the lead role!

The situation is as follows… Girl decides to travel to Kerala from Bangalore and ends up getting her seat next to a guy, who looked ‘decent’.. so she decided not to switch seats next to an another lady like she does usually would. So she sat there waiting for the bus to leave. The crowd who came to see her off had left so she had no one to talk to and that seemed to be the case with the guy as well.. so they set off talking on the surface, not disclosing any information about their lives in Kerala…. Bus started leaving and soon they fell asleep..

The girl was deep asleep, dreaming of makeup, clothes, perfumes, hot guys, the usual girly stuff, when she feels it. A hand; it was gently caressing her; the grip became tighter by the second. Was she just dreaming or was it for real? Her sub-conscious mind couldn’t figure out.. She opens her eyes gently just to come to senses and lo the hand was still there… What should she do now?

1> Create a ruckus and wake up fellow passengers and complain?
2> Get up silently walk to the conductor and tell him what happened?
3> Speak to the guy directly tell him not to do what he is doing?
4> None of the above… (Something else of course)

If you selected 1, the fellow passengers will crib of waking them up from sleep. The fellow next to you will deny all accusations and he will get away with it, as he looks ‘decent’. So bad idea!

If you selected 2, the conductor if awake, may or may not take her seriously. He might even give her that look, which penetrate one’s clothes. Okay, in case he bothers to come and ask the guy, there will be noise, fellow passengers will wake up and even comments like, “because she dressed so,” will come up (even though she was wearing a ‘proper’ top with jeans). Bad idea again.

Option 3, he will deny doing any such thing, and blame you for imagining things and might repeat it again when she go to sleep. Boo again

So what is a lone girl supposed to do? Well here is a part I missed out.. The girl in question had long hair and she uses a hair pin to tie it up in a neat bun…. That’s her weapon in distress, she takes it out, pokes (jabs) the guy (hard) and then goes back to sleep.. If he decides to scream people will shout at him, after all why would a girl poke anyone with a hair pin?

Moral: If you are a guy — Stay away from girls when in a journey. They are armed (dangerous) and have license to kill.. Like Bond!
If you a girl — Pin is mightier than sword!

PS: I wasn’t the guy in the story, in case you thought so. And the girl in question is not my girl friend either just one of my close friends!

Filed under: Bangalore, Kerala, Women , Bangalore, bus journey, family, girls, Kerala

Karnataka vs Kerala

v/s

I have lived the bulk of my life in Kerala, but I have spent the last three years of my life in Karnataka. Both states have a lot in common. Blessed by nature with greenery, plenty of water and frequent fights with TN over water!

But the biggest similarity is with the politicians..

In Kerela there is a father son duo who are hated more than liked; Karnatak too possess one.

In Kerala, the father is known by the name of Leader among his followers, but the common man in the state know him by the name of K Karunakaran. He has a good for nothing son called K Muralidharan.

Getting to Karnataka… The father is known by the name of ex-prime minister but the people here call him Deva Gowda.

He too has a son with great political ambitions and his name is HD Kumaraswamy.

What else do Karunakaran and Gowda have in common?

Here goes

Both wanted to become PM of India (Karunakaran didn’t make it.. Gowda did )

Both of them have ruled a state as CM (Karunakaran managed it thrice)

Both managed to split the party (Karunakaran initiated the spilt and formed DIC(K) Gowda lead the party after the spit)

Both used to be a part of Congress once upon a time!

Gowda was blamed for poor show of JD(S) in the recent election. tie up with Karunakaran’s (party) DIC(K) was blamed for the failure of Cong in the past election!

Both of them are ‘popular’ for heir ability to topple governments

Karunakaran is now sidelined and his word is given no priority… If Gowda continues with his antics I will have one more similarity to add to the list!

PS: On a lighter note.. I dont know who gave the great idea to call a political party DIC(K).. it stands for Democratic Indira Congress(Karunakaran)! But I guess the politicians behind didn’t think much about the acronym and it’s meanings!

Filed under: Bangalore, Kerala , Bangalore, Gowda, Karunakaran, Kerala, politics