Gods, Crowds and Courts

The Uttar Pradesh government’s takeover of Shri Bankey Bihari Mandir raises the urgent question whether Hindus can manage their temples without the intervention of courts and the state?

Uttar Pradesh

Last month, the Uttar Pradesh government formally assumed control of Shri Bankey Bihari Mandir through a new ordinance. It was the culmination of a long legal saga and a response to a tragedy.

The Shri Bankey Bihari Ji Mandir Nyas Adhiniyam, 2025, came just ten days after the Supreme Court issued a landmark verdict allowing the state to acquire land for developing the temple’s surroundings but only if the land remained in the name of the temple’s deity, not the government. The ordinance creates a trust board to manage the temple, composed of bureaucrats, scholars and two representatives from the traditional Goswami families who have overseen the temple’s rituals for generations.

The legal and constitutional stakes are significant. Under Articles 25 and 26 of India’s Constitution, religious groups have the right to manage their own affairs. But Article 25(2) allows the state to regulate these rights in the interest of public order, morality or health. That is precisely the clause the Supreme Court invoked when it ruled that the state could step in to fix what had become a dangerously mismanaged religious institution. In this case, the trigger was a deadly stampede in 2022 during Janmashtami celebrations that killed devotees and injured many more. The temple had become an overcrowded hazard with no emergency exits, poor crowd control and inadequate infrastructure to handle the more than 5 lakh pilgrims who descend during festivals.

The tragedy had prompted a Public Interest Litigation in the Allahabad High Court, highlighting the failure of existing management systems and calling for urgent safety measures. The state responded with a plan to acquire 5 acres of land around the temple to develop restrooms, parking lots, security infrastructure and wider access roads to the tune of over Rs. 700 crore. Initially, the government proposed to use Rs. 300 crore from the temple’s own corpus to fund land acquisition, but the High Court refused, wary of inflaming ongoing disputes between the Goswami lineages over control of the temple’s finances. The Supreme Court eventually allowed it, as long as the land remained under the temple’s name.

The Supreme Court’s intervention was shaped not just by the crisis at Bankey Bihari but by a broader malaise of temple mismanagement, notably in the case of Mathura. Nearly 200 temples are currently caught in litigation, many overseen by court-appointed lawyers who have converted spiritual stewardship into permanent sinecures. The SC derided this phenomenon as ‘Receiver Raj’ and demanded an audit of all such arrangements.

Opponents of state intervention argue that the move infringes on Hindu autonomy. But the facts speak for themselves. The temple had been under the control of a Civil Judge since 2016, with little improvement. Rituals remained sacrosanct, but basic safety, sanitation and crowd control were ignored. A spiritual centre attracting lakhs was run like a rural shrine. The Goswamis, hereditary priests entrusted with sacred duties, lacked both the capacity and the infrastructure to manage a modern religious complex. Their spiritual authority did not translate into civic competence.

When temple governance fails to prevent stampedes or provide clean facilities, the state has a constitutional obligation to act. As the SC judgment noted, what applies to stadiums and hospitals must apply to temples too, especially those that serve millions.

The takeover also reframes a larger dilemma as to who should steward dharma in public life? While Hindus argue for the right to manage their temples, that right comes with legal, ethical and spiritual obligations. When those are shirked, the vacuum invites state control.

One possible way forward is to establish an independent Civil Temple Management Board which would be a professional, accountable body distinct from both traditional custodians and the government. Such a model would also reduce the risk of state overreach while ensuring that temples are run with the seriousness and safety expected of any large public institution.

The saga of Shri Bankey Bihari Mandir is about rethinking how India, while respecting faith, must modernise the management of its religious heritage.