How a political and legal battle 25 years ago halted efforts to preserve the Tiruvannamalai Temple

The controversy surrounding the Subramaniya Swamy temple in Thirupparankundram in Madurai has taken a new twist with a plea in the Supreme Court praying for the ‘takeover and control’ of the temple by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). But about 25 years ago, a well-intentioned initiative by the ASI to ‘take over and control’ the Chola-era Arunachaleswara temple in Tiruvannamalai, about 200 km west of Chennai, ended in failure.

The Act and Rules on Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains do not allow the ASI to take over or control any temple. At most, the authority can declare a temple a ‘monument of national importance’ and designate areas near a protected monument as prohibited (up to 100 metres) or regulated (up to 200 metres) for mining activities and construction work.

Perhaps without this basic understanding, a row arose due to vested interests – both political and commercial – over the ASI’s decision to declare the Arunachaleswara temple as a ‘monument of national importance’. Subsequently, those protesting against the Central Agency’s decision managed to prevent the Tiruvannamalai Temple from developing on the lines of the Vaishno Devi Temple in Jammu and Kashmir.

Situated at the foot of an 800-metre-high hill, the Arunachaleshwara Temple, spread over a campus of 24.35 hectares, is a beautiful illustration of Dravidian (South Indian) architecture and sculpture. According to inscriptions found there, the temple was built during the early Chola period (9th century CE) and expanded during the periods of the later Chola, Hoysala and Nayak kings. The temple has about 300 shrines covering the Amman Shrine; nine towers with four rajagopurams in four directions; many mandapams, including one with 1000 pillars; and two huge tanks, the Sivaganga Punniya Theertham and the Brahma Theertham. The temple is maintained by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the state government and had its last kumbabishekam in February 2017.

Rampant infringements

It all started in April 2002 when the then Union Minister of Tourism and Culture, Jagmohan, visited the temple town. Although he was impressed by the beauty of several features of the temple – its architecture, sculpture, engineering and art – he was disturbed by the sight of numerous shops and encroachments in the vicinity of the temple.

In fact, the problem of encroachments has only increased over the years, even as authorities have carried out their removal at regular intervals. About two months ago, encroachments – mainly roadside outlets and extensions of existing shops in all four Mada streets surrounding the temple – were demolished to provide more space for pilgrims during the Karthigai Deepam festival in December. The problem has become acute; On part of the hill and on the 14 km Girivalam trail near the temple, illegal settlements were so large that they had become vulnerable to landslides. On December 1, 2024, seven people died after heavy rains caused a landslide in the hills. Authorities are now taking steps to declare certain places near the temple as reserve forests to prevent landslides. Structural damage was also caused to the temple in the absence of a conservation plan as the skin of the granite stones at the base of the gopuram on the north side became loose due to sandblasting, the report said. Guide to the conservation and restoration of monuments written by R. Kannan, former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of 1981 batch, known for his passion for heritage conservation, in 2007.

Controversial plan

Despite the problem of encroachments, Jagmohan had advised his officials to prepare a plan for the development of the temple. “Normally, a proposal is sent from the ASI local unit or from the director general’s office. However, in Tiruvannamalai, it was the minister who initiated the proposal, she [local traders] claim,” said a report by The Hindu on November 9, 2002. The traders and the real estate lobby were convinced that the restrictions that the ASI would impose in case of implementation of the conservation plan would seriously affect their business.

CP Singh, Dr. Kannan’s batchmate in the IAS and who served as State Tourism Commissioner and Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation in 2002-03, recalls being present during a conversation Jagmohan had with the then Tourism Minister at the Center, Rathi Vinay Jha, in Chennai. Ms Jha had impressed the minister on the need to develop Tiruvannamalai town and temple, which had suffered from lack of facilities for devotees who would flock there in large numbers. It was then that the decision was taken to implement the development plan through the ASI, Mr Singh added.

The fact that the ASI issued an interim notice under Section 4(1) of the Act in September only came to the fore when the traders and political parties at the local level started their protest in the first week of November. The notification expressed the Central Agency’s intention to declare the Arunachaleswara Temple as a ‘monument of national importance’. It was pasted on the temple premises and other public places of Tiruvannamalai to enable individuals and organizations objecting to the proposal to express their views within six weeks before November 20. The law stipulates that the Director General, ASI, would consider all objections and if a final notification were received, an area within a radius of up to 300 meters from the temple would be declared ‘prohibited and regulated’.

On November 5, 2002, the then ASI archaeologist for the Chennai circle, KT Narasimhan, held a meeting with representatives of the Arunachaleswara Temple Protection Committee at Tiruvannamalai and explained to them the rationale behind the ASI’s plan. But the representatives left the meeting. The next day, the city held a bandh as a mark of protest against the proposed ‘takeover’. Possibly seen in this episode as an opportunity to corner the Union government, which had representatives from its party’s main opponent, the DMK, the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who headed the AIADMK, had decided to challenge the ASI notice in the Madras High Court. This newspaper reported on November 7, 2002 four reasons as attributed by the state government. These included the government’s ‘continuous and strenuous efforts’ to enable the temple’s growth in size, and the ‘unilateral step’ taken by the ASI without consulting the state government.

In New Delhi, Jagmohan himself had clarified before the media the position that the idea behind the ASI’s attempts to declare any place as a monument of national importance was to restore such a place to its original glory. Echoing the minister’s stance, Mr. Narasimhan told reporters in Chennai that “our prime duty is to preserve the grandeur of the temple for posterity,” he told a daily newspaper on November 8, 2002. “We will not interfere in the religious administration nor levy any fee on devotees for the maintenance of the temple,” he explained. His organization had ‘preserved’ as many as 410 ancient structures and sites in Tamil Nadu, including the Brahadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur and St Mary’s Church near the Secretariat, but the state government has not raised any objection in the past to bringing these buildings under ‘our purview’, Mr Narasimhan added. The Hinduin its editorial entitled “Conserving a Heritage,” published on November 11, 2002, supported the ASI initiative and argued that “it would be contrary to long-term interests to block it through orchestrated ‘public protests’ on specious grounds or to inflate it as a ‘Center versus State’ issue or by resorting to legal wrangling.”

Political argument

Meanwhile, the critics of the move had mobilized support from almost the entire political class comprising the AIADMK, DMK, Congress and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK). A former ASI official says even the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which headed a coalition ministry at the time, was against the proposed conservation project. Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi also jumped on the protest bandwagon.

On November 13, the Madras High Court stayed the notification. The next day, the Center approached the Supreme Court with a petition, seeking justification, according to a news report by this daily on November 15, 2002. Despite being one of the country’s revered places, Tiruvannmalai was desecrated by “rampant and illegal” construction at its base, between the path of the hill and the hill itself. In August 1997, two natural caves, Skandashramam and Virupakshi ashram, and the passage leading from Ramanashramam to Skandashramam, were declared monuments of national importance, the Center had moved the Supreme Court. However, the state government claimed that the level of encroachment in the area was “minimal” and no central intervention was required as it could be addressed by the district administration and local body, according to a report by The Hindu on May 1, 2004.

With the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government [in which the DMK was a major constituent] When the Union government subsequently took charge at the Centre, it informed the Court on July 12 that year that it had withdrawn the September 2002 notification, keeping the Tiruvannamalai temple conservation project on hold.