Temples & the English Legal System

Appadurai studies the dynamics between the English legal system and the temples of South India, while also examining the different dimensions involved in the interaction. The Hindu king, before the British rule was the one who resolved conflicts regarding the temples, and his role was that of an administrator rather than a legislator. There were no clear written set of laws to be followed at all times, and decisions were made based on the context considering what the King deemed right at that point. This is in stark contrast to the English legal structure which works on a fixed set of rules, while taking into account judicial precedents. 

The British policies in law tried to keep the tradition and culture intact, while adding large doses of reason to the process. When the British Crown assumed direct control over India in 1862, a system of courts were established with High Courts in the three major presidencies, and provincial courts. The only difference between the English judicial system and this model set up in India, Appadurai says, is that it lacked the difference between law and equity that the English system boasted of.

This change in the legal system brought with it an inevitable change in the Indian society. The English principles of law introduced concepts like equality before law, economic relations based on contract rather than status, settling only the case at hand without considering setting examples, and the need to make decisions more than compromises. Another dilemma created by this system was the constant disagreement of the civil law with personal laws like those pertaining to marriage, inheritance, etc. especially with the high level of influence that religion had on these issues. This became much more complicated due to the fact that these religious laws were unwritten and vague. The British tried to mobilise Hindu texts to create a basis for Hindu law, but even this did not help. Cases were mostly solved based on precedent, rather than law when it involved personal laws but the cases of religious endowments were too important and frequent for it to be ignored. 

It is in these circumstances that the British were forced to affect the Religious Endowment Act XX of 1863. Section 539 of the Civil Procedure Code of 1877, and the slightly altered Section 539 of the 1882 and 1908 versions are other statuettes of law that are vital in the attempted British resolution of the temple conflict. Section 30 of the Civil Procedure Code of 1877 and 1882, revised as Order 1, Rule 8 in the 1908 Code is the third important provision.

The English administration brought in the model of "charitable trusts" to the Indian temple scene, and this did not go down well because endowed property was transferred to, and vested in, a trustee for the benefit of others, called "beneficiaries". The property was to be vested in the idol and only managed by the trustee according to the Hindu concept. It was in this scenario that temples were exempted from the Indian Trusts Act of 1882. The Religious Endowments Act was based on the English view that the protection of trusts was under the ambit of courts. This was heavily based on parallel legislature passed in England, refining the working of charitable trusts, without direct administrative involvement.Section 539 defined the powers of the court with respect to conflicts, and Section 30 was a practical solution of using representatives, to solve the problem of trial without presence. 

All the laws evolved over time, after hundreds of cases of conflict all over India. However, one constraint that remained was the impractical nature of  the difference between private and public rights, with respect to temples and charitable trusts related to it. The legal scuffle surrounding the case between the Sri Partasarati Swami Temple and the British courts was monumental with respect to this evolution of the legal aspect of temples and conflicts related to them.