Theft in Ayodhya’s Ram Temple: Is the Seed of Hatred Now Bearing Fruit?

Swami Raghavendra, Convenor of Satya Dharam Samvad, is a dear friend of Hindus for Human Rights and a courageous voice for a Hinduism rooted in truth, compassion, pluralism, and justice. In 2024, he and Satya Dharam Samvad were honored with our SAMA — the Swami Agnivesh Memorial Award — in recognition of their work challenging hate and defending interfaith harmony in India. In this translated essay, Swami Raghavendra brings that same moral clarity to the recent allegations of theft at the Ayodhya Ram Temple, asking what happens when a sacred space is built not on accountability and compassion, but on the long political cultivation of division.

FULL ARTICLE IN HINDI https://thewirehindi.com/331091/ram-temple-theft-and-the-legacy-of-political-hindutva/

Translation Note: This article has been translated from the original Hindi using automatic computer translation. The translation may contain errors or limitations, and readers should consult the original Hindi version for authoritative wording.

Swami Raghavendra
16/06/2026 | Opinion

The seed is never destroyed; as soon as it finds favorable conditions, it takes the form of a plant. The recent incident involving the alleged embezzlement of seven crore rupees in cash from the donation box of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Temple in Ayodhya further strengthens this belief. In its essential quality, a temple is a center of compassion, mercy, love, and goodwill. It is another matter how many temples actually live up to this ideal principle. Unfortunately, this ideal has been absent from this temple, from the movement around it to its establishment.

At the very foundation of this movement lie hatred and the killing of a pure-hearted sadhu, Baba Lal Das. If you have seen Anand Patwardhan’s documentary Ram Ke Naam, Baba Lal Das’s statement is recorded in it. In the early 1980s, the Lucknow High Court appointed him the chief mahant of the idols of Ram Lalla inside the Babri Masjid complex. But on November 16, 1993, he was shot dead in Ranipur Chhattar village. He was an outspoken critic of the Ram Temple movement and strongly opposed the politics of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He also opposed Lal Krishna Advani’s Rath Yatra, because of which the then Kalyan Singh government removed him from the position of chief priest.

My point is that, from the murder of a sadhu to the fragmentation of composite unity across the country in the name of this temple, the damage will take centuries to repair. Ultimately, Hindus themselves are paying the price for this, and will continue to do so. The way polarization in the name of religion has turned temples into commercial centers does not directly degrade any other community; it degrades Hindus themselves.

The recent statement by the temple’s former accounts officer, Mahipal Singh, regarding the theft from the donation box supports the claim that this temple has been turned into a commercial center. From the very beginning, according to these allegations, embezzlement was carried out in a planned manner in the process of collecting and managing donations. It is alleged that this was done through collusion between bank employees and some people connected to the trust. The fact that Mahipal Singh, who made the complaint, was removed from his post itself points toward their involvement in this matter.

Speaking to media houses, Singh said: “There was tampering with the bundles of cash deposited in the bank, where fewer bundles of notes were recorded than the actual number. These claims require an impartial investigation. It is necessary to find out who was appointed by the trust and the bank over the past four years, on whose recommendation they were hired, and how many employees were removed. Also, what is the reason for the difference between the cash received in the bank boxes and the amount recorded in the records? Theft in the temple is nothing new; it used to happen every day. I myself caught theft taking place and complained about it to Champat Rai and Gopal ji. But the very next day, Champat Rai removed me from my post. Eight months of old CCTV footage from the cameras installed in the temple was also deleted. Champat Rai is a person who likes disorder and runs the arrangements in the temple complex according to his own whims. If anyone protests, they are removed.”

BJP leader and Bajrang Dal founder Vinay Katiyar has also said that this matter should be investigated, because it is connected to the faith and trust of crores of people.

It is worth noting that even before the temple was built, during the Ram Temple movement, reports of donation embezzlement surfaced from time to time. After the Supreme Court’s decision, when more than five thousand crore rupees in donations were received, reports of irregularities emerged then as well. But these issues were repeatedly suppressed, and no broad discussion or resolution was allowed to take place.

Even when the Ram Temple administration could not easily persuade the mahants of Ayodhya’s ancient temples to merge their temples into the Janmabhoomi complex, the Uttar Pradesh government frightened them with the issue of Nazul and Khadar land, and in this way many temples were merged. Many mahants of Ayodhya still confirm this with authentic documents.

An ordinary Hindu can understand the power of the Ram Temple administration from the fact that Mahant Kamalnayan Das, successor-disciple of Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, the chairperson of the government trust of the Janmabhoomi temple, himself said: “If any irregularity has occurred anywhere, it must certainly be investigated. But who will investigate? Those who investigate are themselves dishonest. Those who are making noise are also not clean. Those who once rode bicycles now move around in big cars and live in luxurious buildings. Society should also get an answer to how all this happened. As one acts, so will God give the fruit.”

Similarly, when the media asked well-known BJP leader and former president of the Wrestling Federation of India Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh about this theft, he said: “They are big people; if I say anything about them, I will get into trouble.”

The silence of a strongman leader who carries a tulsi rosary in his hand, dresses as a sadhu, and advocates political Hindu religion speaks volumes about this plunder of the temple. Ordinary Hindus must understand this: where the “dominance” of the powerful disappears, are they giving their hard-earned money to fill the pockets of RSS or other leaders?

When local Samajwadi Party leader Pawan Pandey raised this matter, and later SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and local BJP leader and spokesperson Rajneesh Singh wrote letters to the PMO, only then did newspapers report that an investigation by a retired justice would be conducted. The level of indecent remarks made about Akhilesh Yadav’s daughter in order to suppress this entire episode is not something I consider appropriate to write here.

Ordinary Hindus need to learn from this that these people can go to any extent to hide their theft. When a true sadhu, Baba Lal Das, challenged their agenda of hatred, he was shot dead. Even today, when some sadhus and mahants of Ayodhya openly oppose this political-commercial agenda of theirs, they are badly humiliated. Are they not Hindus?

All of us Hindus must understand that a seed that has been sown will one day surely bear fruit. That seed has now taken the form of a plant. This plant of political Hindutva exploits compassion, composite unity, and harmony. Hatred lies at its very foundation, and its final goal is only to obtain power. If they had even the slightest concern for religion, incidents such as donation irregularities, land scams, and now the theft of such a large amount from the donation box would never have come to light.

The author is the convenor of Satya Dharma Samvad.