Temple heritage of Hyderabad shrouds in mystery

Hyderabad: For years, several temples in Telangana have been in a state of neglect with the successive governments doing very little to develop them.

BJP’s fire brand leader Yamuna Pathak feels that there are many temples of rich heritage in the state which are put under wraps. She claims that there are around 200 temples in Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency itself which are shrouded in mystery as both the state Endowments and the Department of Archaeology are tight-lipped over the issue.

Out of the total temples reportedly on the Endowments department’s list, only around 150 could be identified at the time of the survey with visible marks. Even out of this, only about 50 are functional with nominal to daily rituals being performed.

The reason for this secrecy is that the officials are under pressure not to talk about them. Talking to Hans India Yamuna said an earlier survey by the Endowments Department has reportedly recorded that around 200 temples exist in many areas including Rajendranagar, Malakpet, Karwan, Goshamahal, Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Yakutpura, Bahadurpura Assembly segments under the Hyderabad parliamentary constituency.

Sources told to Hans India, that the age of temples ranges from as low as about 30 years to 800 years. However, the list of age-wise and location-wise temples has been kept under wraps for decades which made leaving generations of people of Hyderabad to grow in forgetfulness of their cultural and historical heritage the allegation that the state endowment and archaeological departments are now facing.

Interestingly most of them are identified as dedicated to Gram Devatas, and some are private temples founded by different families much earlier to the 1820s.

Speaking to Hans India, Ramnaik (name changed), a resident who frequently

visits Kasibugga temple, said, “We did approach the Endowments department several times but the officials said not to make an issue about the list of temples as it is sensitive issue.

They said one way to identify the temples and its properties was to geo-tag them but they can do nothing unless the government takes a policy decision at the highest level. Secondly, whenever there were complaints the endowment and revenue officials team up and take the help of the police to put up fencing or barricading the boundaries of the temple assets. At no point in time, the state archaeology department, or Archeological Survey of India (ASI) was made part of the official teams to ensure the dating of the temple heritage.

A case to point out was that only after much effort that the state endowment department swung into action and took up name-sake revival of the Jai Hanuman Temple in Bahadurpura which has been buried under a hill of garbage piled upon it.