State’s interference in religion is root cause of desecration of all tirths: Spiritual sovereign

New Delhi: The 79th successor to Tirthankar Mahavir Swami, spiritual sovereign Jainacharya Yugbhushan Suri has said that not just Shikharji Hills but all tirths (pilgrimage sites) nationwide which have been taken over by the state, are facing severe attack to their sanctity.

The root cause of all these depredations is the liberty the state takes to interfere in religions and hamper their autonomy.

Addressing a press conference, he said: "State interference in religion is a virus in a balanced and civilised society and is alien to Bharatiya tradition."

The press conference was called at the behest of His Holiness against the backdrop of an Interim Application (IA) filed by a Jain lady in the course of a litigation going on since 1967. The intent behind this IA is to stop the desecration of the Hills due to the action and inaction of the state. The IA was filed because the state of Jharkhand plays a key role in this ordeal of Jains.

The state, first having allegedly taken away 16,000 acres of the Hills in 1953 under the garb of land and agrarian reforms, is now acting like its owner and desecrating the Hills. It has reneged on its multiple promises to protect the sanctity of the Hills. The long period of six decades of pending litigation gave adequate room for various factors to intermittently emerge and cause desecration.

From his 20 years of involvement as an advisor on this case, His Holiness shared his insights: “Since long, there is a malafide portrayal that the Shikharji dispute is between Shwetambars and Digambars, but the reality is that it is between Jains and the state.” The IA applicant is also party to the main case.

However, referring to the larger issue, the religious guru pointed to State interference as the root cause of all this. He took a strong jibe at India's secularism and said that Bharat has nurtured a most ill-conceived form of secularism, which prohibits any interference of religion in the affairs of the state but allows any level of state interference into religions.

Throwing light on the Bharatiya tradition of secularism, His Holiness said: "Traditional Bharatiya secularism prohibits any interference of the spiritual domain into the temporal domain and vice versa. The structure of society was such that the state acted as a facilitator to religions. Each domain was complementary and supplementary to the other, and each had its separate and independent source of power and jurisdiction, with the spiritual domain being supreme."

Highlighting global scenarios regarding state interference, he said that historically, in almost all civilisations, the prevalent norm was that temporal authority never interfered in the spiritual domain. Even today, the constitutions of many countries like the US, Italy, etc., strictly prescribe this norm.

He further said: “Today, globally, it is observed that the sanctity of significant places of worship is protected. The Saudi government banned non-Muslims within 15 miles of Mecca-Medina. Mount Athos in Greece, enjoying the constitutional promise of maintaining its ancient privileged status and the autonomy of Holy Monasteries over the Hill, is exempt from expropriation to preserve its sanctity. Protecting the sanctity and integrity of significant places of worship is prime. Unfortunately, Shikharji is embroiled in a long litigation and, in the meantime, faces the onslaught of every cause of defilement prohibited by Jainism.”

Justifying his stand on why non-interference must be adhered to, he said: “Will you accept governing powers interfering with the EC or the Ministry of Finance indulging in the affairs of the CAG or RBI? Would it be legitimate for executives to intrude upon the CBI, R&AW and IB? If institutions part of a secular government also need appropriate autonomy, how can religious institutions, which serve a different domain altogether, be interfered with?”

He pointed out that autonomy is required for religions to perform the unique service of the decriminalisation of society in a most non-deterrent way, and this autonomy will build a strong society and vibrant civilisation. He bashed the overreach of the temporal government through the saying: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's."

Upon being asked how internal religious conflict would be handled, he said: “Every religion should have an internal dispute resolution and grievance redressing system. Due to the continuous onslaught on Oriental religions, especially by the British, since centuries, those systems might have collapsed or become redundant. However, that does not authorise the state to interfere; rather, as its duty, it must facilitate rehabilitation and reform while maintaining their due respect in society.”

Jainacharya further said: “A nation is considered to have healthy and strong governance when there is a strong separation of power amongst three wings (the legislative, executive and judiciary), with clear lines of demarcation and with no wing overreaching in another's domain yet working together to achieve robust governance. Similarly, a sign of a healthy and strong social order in any civilisation is interference-free temporal and spiritual domains. The autonomy of the spiritual domain is a robust source of soft power, and a lack of this autonomy is a path to social disasters.”

Conclusively, he said that Jains are the live personification of the adage that justice delayed is justice denied. Shikharji has been embroiled in legal tangles for the last six decades, during which, the tirth has regularly faced severe blows to its sanctity. Today, state's interference into religion has caused Jains particularly to feel more insecure in independent India than under British or Mughal rule.