In Telangana바카라�s Chilkur Balaji Temple, It's Ram Rajya vs Ram Rajya

Many of the devotees are here hoping the deity바카라�s blessings would help them go abroad, especially to the United States. Indeed, so popular is this belief that Venkateswara Balaji is now also known as the 바카라�Visa God바카라�. Prayers offered at this temple are said to ease the visa application process. Some others have come seeking better health or to circumambulate the temple 108 times (pradakshina) to thank the deity after recovering from illness.

Along the pathway leading to the temple, vendors compete for attention, calling out to the passing devotees and persuading them to buy their coconuts for ritual offerings. However, unlike at most other popular temples, there are no VIP queues and no donation collection box (hundi).

The temple made headlines recently when the priest, C.S. Rangarajan, survived a physical assault on February 7 after a group of 20-22 men in black clothes who had saffron shawls wrapped around them barged into his residence. Besides asking for a hefty donation, they demanded that the priest hand over details of the visitors to the temple so they could be approached to sign up for the 바카라�Rama Rajyam Army바카라�.

In a video that the attackers shot and shared online, Rangarajan can be seen facing verbal abuse and physical assault, while the gang바카라�s leader and chief of the fringe outfit, Veer Raghava Reddy, is heard claiming to be a descendant of the mythical Ikshvaku dynasty, the ancestral bloodline to which Lord Rama belonged.

In the complaint Rangarajan lodged with the police the next day, it바카라�s alleged that Reddy claimed to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva and threatened the priest with dire consequences if he refused to yield to his demands. The police arrested Reddy and 21 others.

At the temple a few days later, a visibly tired Rangarajan refuses to talk about the assault. 바카라�The matter is under investigation,바카라� he says. 바카라�Instead, let me tell you about the temple protection movement, its objective and philosophy바카라�.바카라� The fatigue seems to give way to enthusiasm as he launches into an elaborate narrative on why and how he has been trying to 바카라�liberate temples from the control of the government바카라�, about his fight against 바카라�altering the character of the deities바카라�. He also talks about his father, Soundararajan, who waged many legal battles for 바카라�liberating바카라� many temples as well as to 바카라�establish the fundamental rights of the deities바카라�.

One of those battles concerned Soundararajan바카라�s petition in the Sabarimala case, where the traditional ban on entry of menstruating women at the Lord Ayyappa temple in Kerala was sought to be upheld as a 바카라�fundamental right of the deity바카라�. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, saying deities have no fundamental rights바카라�an observation dangerous for Hindutva, according to Rangarajan, a postgraduate in law who was trained as a biomedical engineer. Fascinated by the idea of temple protection, he had given up his profession to follow in his father바카라�s path.

Like Reddy바카라�s 바카라�Rama Rajyam Army바카라�, Rangarajan, too, talks of 바카라�Rama Rajya바카라� but he claims his idea of it is of a starkly different kind. 바카라�Violence has no place in Rama Rajya,바카라� he says. 바카라�This man (Reddy) came to meet me a couple of weeks before this incident. He said he wanted to talk to me. I told him I was busy and couldn바카라�t talk. He came once more and this happened again. It might have infuriated him. The police are looking into it.바카라�

Unlike the 바카라�Rama Rajyam Army바카라� whose mission is to establish a 바카라�Rama Rajya바카라� by forming private armies to enforce the agenda and punish those who do not comply, the priest claims his version of Rama Rajya is compatible with the Constitution of India.

바카라�Rama Rajya comes under the basic structure of the Constitution. According to the Supreme Court바카라�s landmark 1973 judgment in Kesavananda Bharati vs. the State of Kerala, legislators cannot alter the Constitution바카라�s basic structure,바카라� says Rangarajan, who claims the illustrations in the original text of the Constitution highlight the idea of Rama Rajya.

In a February 2022 article in the RSS-leaning Swarajya, he wrote: 바카라�The Constitution of India that is Bharat, which was adopted on November 26, 1949, and which came into force on January 26, 1950, had pictures of Shri Rama, Sita Devi and Sri Lakshmana returning from Lanka to establish Rama Rajya at Ayodhya. Thus, even though it was not actually part of any of the written Articles, Rama Rajya, it can be argued, forms a part of the very basic structure of our Constitution.바카라�

Founded by Reddy in 2022, the Rama Rajyam Army operates primarily on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Through videos on YouTube, Reddy has been promoting the recruitment of members for his Rama Rajyam Army, offering them a monthly salary of Rs 20,000. Those who apply for the job need to be physically fit바카라�they should be able to walk five km and run two km at a stretch. He found quite a few applicants and formed an 바카라�army바카라� comprising around 25 members in January 2024, according to the police, who also claim the gang gathered at Yapral in Hyderabad on February 6 before setting off to Rangarajan바카라�s residence the next day with the intention to assault the priest.

In several videos바카라�later deleted from YouTube바카라�Reddy often appears to be criticising judges and the judiciary for 바카라�not protecting the Hindu dharma바카라�. He demands that the judges should be impeached and the system of judiciary scrapped. He also criticises legislators and political leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for not impeaching judges. He claims he was sent by Lord Shiva to establish Rama Rajya. Most of the content on the outfit바카라�s website and YouTube channel propagated extreme Hindutva views.

Reddy wanted Rangarajan to collect the personal data of the devotees coming to the temple and to persuade them to join the Rama Rajya Army. By analysing the collected data gathered at the temple, Reddy hoped to find the right men to recruit. However, Rangarajan turned down this demand along with the demand for funds.

The Ownership Battle

In the backdrop of the apparent differences between the priest and the fringe outfit, both of whom declare their ideal model of society to be Rama Rajya, a long battle for power, money and ownership of the temple also unfolds.

Rangarajan바카라�s father Soundararajan is party to a legal battle over ownership of the Chilkur Balaji temple. The other party is the Gunnala Reddy family in Chilkur village who claim to be the legal owners of the temple. According to G. Malla Reddy, the current head of the family, they are descendants of Gunnala Madhava Reddy, who lived about 500 years ago. Madhava Reddy was a devoted follower of Lord Balaji Venkateshwara Swamy and regularly visited Tirumala, in Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh, for darshan. When he grew older and could no longer make the journey to Tirumala, he saw a dream in which Lord Balaji revealed that his idol was located near his village, Chilkur. The next morning, Madhava Reddy and the villagers searched for the idol based on the dream바카라�s instructions and found it. The idol was later installed and consecrated, and a temple built in its honour at Chilkur. Malla Reddy claims that Soundararajan바카라�s family was given only the right to perform the rituals. Denying this, Rangarajan says, 바카라�Nobody established the temple. It is swayambhu (self-revealed).바카라�

The legal fight over the ownership of the temple that started in early 2000 went in favour of the Gunnala Reddy family. After perusing the evidence, the Assistant Commissioner of Endowments filed a report that the Reddy family바카라�s claim that Gunnala Madhava Reddy was the founder of the temple was legitimate. The Deputy Commissioner of Endowments, too, ratified it and declared the Gunnala Reddy family as the original owners of the temple.

Though Soundararajan challenged this order in the court, the Principal District Judge of Ranga Reddy district endorsed the report of the commissioner and pronounced an order in favour of the Reddy family in 2006. Soundararajan, who refused to end the battle, went to the High Court of Telangana with an appeal. After 16 years, the high court pronounced its judgment on November 7, 2022, upholding the judgment of the lower court.

Soundararajan then knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court, but luck did not turn in his favour. In March 2023, the apex court dismissed the special leave petition filed by Soundararajan against the order of the high court with a one-line order that the court did not find any ground to interfere with the order of the high court.

Rangarajan claims the legal battle is yet to be over. 바카라�We have filed a curative petition and are waiting for an order on it,바카라� he says. Asked whether the dispute could have anything to do with the February 7 attack on him, he says he does not believe that the Gunnala Reddy family is capable of doing such an act.

One of the claims about the temple is that it does not make money as it has no hundi for collecting donations. 바카라�As we do not have any monetary intentions, we do not collect money from the devotees,바카라� says Rangarajan. Then how is the temple administration run? The devotees buy a magazine with content on the deity and the history of the temple that costs Rs 5. 바카라�This is our only income, which we use for the day-to-day administration. The devotees sometimes contribute more,바카라� says Rangarajan. Malla Reddy, however, alleges that Soundararajan and Rangarajan make a lot of money out of selling the magazine and run the administration as 바카라�their family affair바카라�. 바카라�They are dragging this legal fight only to buy time to maintain the status quo. We are denied justice,바카라� Malla Reddy says. He alleges that the priest and his father are using their political influence to keep the temple under their control.

All바카라�s Not Well in the Parivar?

The assault on Rangarajan has put the Sangh Parivar organisations in a fix. Though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) condemned the attack, the assault on a popular Hindu leader by a fanatic Hindu group has caused them huge embarrassment. 바카라�It is very unfortunate,바카라� says Vasudevan, an RSS activist and journalist who claims the Rama Rajyam Army has no ground support within the Hindu fold.

Left-leaning Telugu journalist and political analyst Talakappalli Ravi accuses the Sangh Parivar of 바카라�strengthening their ideology by creating hate and dividing people바카라�. 바카라�Such incidents are only an outcome of that,바카라� says Ravi, adding that the February 7 assault was only one in the series of similar incidents.

바카라�A few years ago, a Rama temple was vandalised and the idol was beheaded. Nobody has been arrested for the act so far,바카라� Ravi says, recalling an incident of December 2020 in which a 400-year-old Rama temple was vandalised and the statue was found beheaded at the Sita Lakshmana Kodandarama temple in Andhra Pradesh바카라�s Ramatheertham. 바카라�In another incident in 2020, just two months before the beheading of the Rama statue, the wooden chariot of the Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple at Antarvedi area in East Godavari district was set on fire. In that case, too, none of the assailants was caught,바카라� says Ravi.

While condemning the vandalising of the idol of Rama, Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu said that 123 incidents of attacks on temples took place over a period of two years in Telangana and 23 idols were demolished in those attacks, according to media reports. In September 2024, the chariot at the Sriram temple in Hanakanahal village in Anantapur district was set on fire and a man named Easwar Reddy was arrested in connection with this incident. 바카라�There is a concerted effort to make the Hindu community feel threatened,바카라� says Ravi. 바카라�The Sangh Parivar is making political gains from it.바카라�

Shahina K.K. is a senior reporter covering South India

(This article appeared as an overlap story in Outlook's March 11, 2025 Women's Day special issue 'Women at Work'. It appeared in print as 'Ram Rajya vs Ram Rajya')