Who Looted India in the Name of Religion and Temple Building? The Businessmen & Politician Nexus Centered in Gujarat
Who Looted India in the Name of
Religion and Temple Building? The Businessmen & Politician Nexus Centered
in Gujarat
Any serious discussion about the political economy of
religion in modern India must begin with intellectual honesty. Soft language
protects powerful interests. Naming systems, origins, and beneficiaries is not
hatred. It is accountability. Recent Indian history makes one reality
increasingly difficult to deny: a significant share of the machinery that
turned religion into a tool of profit and political control has been driven by
elite networks rooted largely in Gujarat and Maharashtra. This is not an indictment
of ordinary people from these states. It is a critique of entrenched power
structures that learned how to monetize faith.
The contemporary project of Hindutva did not emerge as a
spontaneous spiritual awakening. Its organized political form was shaped in
Gujarat and Maharashtra, refined through ideological institutions, and later
exported nationwide. The objective was not religious reform. It was a political
consolidation. Religious polarization proved to be the most effective method
for fracturing society, silencing economic concerns, and converting anger into
identity conflict.
Once society is permanently divided, accountability
disappears. Corruption becomes invisible. Loot is reframed as devotion.
The Ram Mandir provides a recent and well-documented case
study. Public records and investigative reporting show that land parcels
located kilometers away from the core site were purchased by private
individuals at modest prices and resold to the temple trust within days at
massively inflated rates. This was not market behavior. It was insider access
operating under religious cover. The beneficiaries were not devotees. They were
politically connected businessmen; many were tied to Gujarat-based corporate
and political networks.
Thousands of crores were collected from ordinary citizens
across India to build the temple. Yet within months of completion, reports
surfaced of water leakage, structural defects, and questionable construction
quality. For a project funded by public faith and public money, such outcomes
point to one conclusion: extraction, not excellence. When devotion is monetized
at this scale, poor execution is not a mistake. It is evidence.
Reports of exceptionally high-value donations, including
precious stones allegedly worth hundreds of crores, raise further red flags.
Donations of this magnitude typically generate massive tax deductions. In
practice, this converts private wealth into religious assets while
simultaneously producing enormous tax savings for donors. This is not charity.
It is structured tax avoidance facilitated by opacity. Once again, the
financial trail repeatedly leads to a narrow circle of politically favored
corporate actors, many headquartered in Gujarat.
This pattern has deep historical roots. The Somnath Temple is
often invoked as a symbol of external invasion and civilizational victimhood.
But the narrative collapses under basic scrutiny. Temples of that scale do not
lose vast quantities of wealth unless insiders know where valuables are stored,
how they are protected, and how they can be moved. External invaders make
convenient villains. Internal collaborators are rarely examined.
For centuries, religious institutions have functioned as
vaults for elite wealth. By embedding riches within temples, the ruling classes
shielded assets from taxation, redistribution, and public oversight. Control
over temples also meant control over society. Restricted access, myth-making,
and sanctity were tools of domination. This logic aligns neatly with social
hierarchies justified by texts like the Manusmriti, where knowledge and
education were restricted, while devotion and obedience were encouraged.
The modern translation of that ideology is visible
everywhere. Universities are starved while temples are celebrated. Scientific
institutions are weakened while mythology is amplified. Citizens are encouraged
to take pride in stone structures instead of demanding schools, hospitals,
jobs, and accountability. This is not a cultural revival. It is a strategic
distraction.
Promoting temple construction over education is not about
faith. It is about control. An educated population asks questions. A polarized
population fights itself.
The rest of India has paid the price. While vast regions
struggle with unemployment, collapsing public services, and shrinking
opportunities, a small group of businessmen and politicians has accumulated
extraordinary wealth and influence. Religion provides the shield. Nationalism
provides the noise. Accountability quietly vanishes.
This is why naming origins matters. Not to stigmatize
communities, but to expose systems. The problem is not Gujarat or Maharashtra
as places. The problem is the elite nexus that emerged from these regions,
perfected the fusion of religion and profit, and imposed it on the rest of the
country.
Faith deserves respect. Belief deserves protection. But when
religion is turned into a business model and a political weapon, silence
becomes complicity.
India will not secure its future by building more temples. It
will do so by dismantling the structures that use temples to hide theft,
manufacture hate, and keep citizens distracted while the nation is quietly
stripped of its wealth, its institutions, and its democratic soul.
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