posted February 04, 2009 03:34 PM            

A REPORT on August 14 in an Indian newspaper site, which has quite a high visibility across the world, made for disturbing reading. Titled "OSD of Tirumala temple sacked for misappropriation," it must have spoiled the sleep of countless people, who live by the conviction that the sacred place is the epitome of hope for the whole world.

According to the report, P Seshadri, who has been the sole custodian of the temple treasury as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) for the last ten years, got the sack from Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) – the autonomous body that manages the wealthiest temple of India. Apart from this, it said that three more senior officer were suspended for alleged misappropriation of 300 gold coins worth over Rs 15 lakh, based on a probe report submitted on August 5, by the chief vigilance and security officer.

Tirumala-Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh occupies as much veneration as Mecca-Medina, Jerusalem or the Vatican, among believers in India. The dozen or so Vaishnavite temples in the twin town attract an average of 40,000 pilgrims daily from across the world, every day of the year.

Almost a third of the pilgrims, men, women and children, come to fulfil their vow of tonsure and have their locks clipped and heads shaven by hundreds of temple barbers. Offering of hair symbolises ultimate surrender to god and the hair is one of the major sources of income to the temple. Also, the room-sized ‘Hundi’ kept at the temple overflows, needing emptying twice a day. Dozens of employees are engaged round the clock to count the money and valuables deposited. These include gold/silver bangles, necklaces, earrings and other jewellery, currency, bullion, coins, religious icons, expensive watches, promissory notes and even lottery tickets that have bumper prizes.

Among the devotees who flock to Tirupati, are numerous people who believe that one fleeting glimpse at the central icon – going by the name of Venkateshwara, Srivari, Balaji etc – provides spiritual transformation and salvation to the soul. Yet, they keep coming again and again, whenever ‘called’ by His appearance in dream/ subconsciousness. Traders – from petty hawkers to industrial tycoons – are known to routinely part with a pre-decided portion of their income as the god’s ‘share of profits’ in the venture! Annual Hundi collections alone have crossed the Rs 800 crore mark.

Lord Venkateshwara has running accounts in several banks. Foreign currency, cheques and other instruments found in the Hundi are credited to any of these accounts. Currency notes and coins, after being counted by the staff, are deposited daily. The valuables are sent to the TTD Treasury in Tirupati. The inventory of jewellery owned by the richest ‘idol’ on earth is worth over Rs 50,000 crore.

The essence that the news conveyed shattered the age-old notions of ardent believers in Balaji’s miracles: A person who was personally responsible singularly for such a fabulous wealth since 10 years, untainted enough to have his service extended even after retirement in 2006, had indulged in ‘misappropriation’ and breach of trust. The foursome – connivance of three senior officers was implied – had, however, left 99.9997 per cent of the treasure entrusted intact!

The fact of the matter was that the provocative headline and one-sided report had been clearly ‘planted’ to project some prejudices. For one thing, the impugned order was stale stuff, which had been suspended within hours of being issued. Also, everyone was aware that it was set to be revoked! What is more, it had been revoked exactly on the news report date!

An emergency meeting of TTD board of trustees was held that day. Chairman B Karunakara Reddy officially declared that the action initiated the previous week against deputy executive officers R Prabhakar Reddy and A Vasudevan, as well as superintendent E Ramachandra Reddy, was unanimously found to be "not fair… (and) gross injustice was meted out to them." While revoking all the three suspensions, the board also withdrew the termination orders of Parpathyedar (OSD) Seshadri, as it was "unwarranted."

The sinister game had sprinted off at express speed, with a sensation mongering ‘Indian’ newspaper. It had filed a ‘startling scoop’ on August 7, titled "The Lord’s lax servants." It claimed to have obtained an eight-page ‘confidential’ report submitted by Ramana Kumar, TTD’s chief vigilance officer, an IPS (Indian Police Service) officer. Actually, it was a kind of diagnostic report to suggest tightening up the stringent systems in place – initiated after an error of 1.5 kg had come to light in 2006 in the inventory of gold. The gold is used to mint 5-gm gold pendants (dollars in local parlance). Documents had not properly accounted for sales of maybe 300 pendants.

Nobody with even passing exposure to stores audit, like annual stock-taking, perpetual inventory control, writing off/ writing back any discrepancy etc – particularly in operations dealing with such a vast array of inventory – would get too disturbed by possible squaring up of 0.0003 per cent of the total value. It may or may not have been ‘misappropriated’ and the probe obviously was only to prevent occurrence of such discrepancies in future.

Magnifying the exercise to invent a ‘gold dollar scam’, where "servants of God apparently resorted to self-service in the sale of gold pendants," the patriotic ‘new’ newspaper branded it as shocking "sacrilege, or at any rate indifference, on the part of those supposed to serve the Lord." It went further to air "another cause for concern" as the "doubts arising in the minds of the legions who keep presenting jewellery to the Lord as to the security of their offerings." The vigilance report, the newspaper said, slammed Seshadri, "who had an extended stint beyond retirement." TTD was accused of continuing to have him as "sole custodian of the treasury for almost ten years, in violation of the TTD rulebook which envisages a double key system." The learned journalist wondered "how one retired staffer was given custody of the Lord’s jewellery valued over Rs 50,000 crore."

Several less resourceful news sites and newspapers, attaching more importance to ‘express’ speed rather than accuracy or analysis, picked up the sensational report instantly. It made sensational news to to accuse such managements of "keeping mum after receiving full-fledged report." TTD saw the reports as part of a sinister game plan, apparently planted by government bureaucrats trying to assert themselves and interfere in matters of faith. It was feared that the smear campaign, if it prolongs, had the potential to shatter the faith of the devotees. On August 11, the board placed very senior officers, who were at risk of being sullied in the witch-hunting, on suspension and terminated Seshadri, who in any case had retired and did not need the job.

Self-righteous journos jumped with joy, declaring, "TTD was forced to initiate action after the report was published...." However, employees of TTD did not see eye to eye with the board on the need to sacrifice their senior officers, at the "barking of street dogs." They staged a ‘maha dharna’ in front of TTD’s headquarters in Tirupati. The 10-hour-long demonstration, saw representation from all ranks (off-duty, to cause minimal inconvenience to devotees). The staff, who number a whopping 14,000, demanded that the suspensions, based on ‘alleged complicity’ in the ‘missing gold dollars’ case, must be revoked. All the staff attended ‘Pavitrotsavam duty’, wearing black badges to protest against the "ploy to harass the officials."

The staff questioned the rationale of the vigilance probe when CB-CID had already completed investigation and action taken. An emissary of the chairman promised to call an emergency board meeting on Aug 14 "where a decision is expected to be taken in favour of the employees." The staff, who had threatened to go on en masse leave if justice was denied, called off the protest. It was AFTER this development, which was reported widely, that the ‘sack for misappropriation’ news, referred above, appeared. And, the media behemoth that claims to chronicle the times of the country reliably!