Permanent solution needed for ‘illegal’ temples built before Merdeka

 

On March 29, FMT reported that former deputy minister of national unity Ti Lian Ker was backing a suggestion that the government legalise houses of worship following the recent controversy sparked by the relocation of a Hindu temple in the Jalan Masjid India area of Kuala Lumpur.

Ti was quoted as saying there was a need to be proactive as racial and religious issues were open to being exploited. I couldn’t agree more, given the fact that some politicians and certain preachers and NGOs thrive on race and religion-related disputes.

He said temples that existed on government land before Merdeka should be automatically granted a “licence”. It was not clear what he meant by licence though.

Ti was commenting on a suggestion by PKR Youth committee member P Nanthakumar that the government initiate a programme to register houses of worship with local councils so that they are not considered as operating illegally.

Their comments came on the back of a controversy ignited by the relocation of the Dewi Sri Pathrakaliamman temple and the initial talk that it was to be demolished to make way for a mosque.

From reports, we know that: one, the temple has been sitting on that piece of land from 1893; two, in 2006 it gave up some land for road expansion and was renovated with the blessings of Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL); three, DBKL sold land in the area, including that on which the temple stands, to Jakel Trading Sdn Bhd, a textile company, in 2014; four, the temple committee was neither consulted nor informed of the sale of the land; five, DBKL did not offer to sell the land on which the temple sits to the committee; six, Jakel had been negotiating with the temple committee for several years to relocate the temple; seven, Jakel had decided to build a mosque – Masjid Madani – on this land; eight, it was announced on March 26 that the temple committee had agreed to relocate to a site about 50m away from its current site; nine, Jakel will pay the cost of moving the temple; and ten, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim did the groundbreaking ceremony for Masjid Madani on March 27.

Anwar described the “orderly” resolution of the matter as a win-win situation. There are those who dispute this, saying, as Urimai chairman P Ramasamy did, that it was a “forced relocation” and that the temple committee had no choice.

Ramasamy was quoted in FMT as saying: “This is not just about one temple — it is about setting a precedent for how heritage and religious rights are treated in Malaysia.”

The fact is, temples have been relocated or demolished in the past in the name of development or on the basis that they stood on government or private land and were therefore illegal structures.

No one knows this better, I think, than A Vaithilingam, the former president of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam (MHS) who also served on three occasions as president of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism.

Vaithilingam told me of the sleepless nights he and MHS officials spent in negotiations between the committees of the temples declared as “illegal” or set for demolition and the authorities from the 1990s.

In 1997, as the matter became heated, Vaithilingam was appointed chairman of a three-man temples survey committee at a meeting of Hindu temples and non-governmental organisations called by then MIC president S Samy Vellu to tackle this issue.

This committee carried out a survey to find out how many temples there were in the country.

Vaithilingam said the committee later recommended that all existing temples, whether big or small, be recognised as legal structures if they had been built on land where employers had allowed it, even if the temple authorities did not have documents to say the land belonged to them.

For example, if the Public Works Department had staff who had built a temple on government land where their quarters were situated, then that temple should be considered a legal structure.

The committee recommended that the same principle apply to temples built by staff of government and former government (now corporatised or privatised) entities such as the Lembaga Letrik Negara (now known as Tenaga Nasional), Telecoms and Railways.

Also, it suggested that temples which had been allowed to be built on estate land by the original land owner should not be demolished.

He noted that the vast majority of temples declared “illegal” were on estate land being developed for commercial or residential purposes.

Matters quietened down after this but the problem resurfaced in 2004. Local authorities began issuing notices to many temple committees – especially those on estates which had now been sold to developers – to remove the temple or face demolition.

In 2006, Samy Vellu told MHS and several other Hindu organisations at a meeting that the mayor of Kuala Lumpur had agreed to establish a special committee to look into temple problems.

“Datuk Seri Samy Vellu then appointed a five-man committee headed by me to assist the main committee of DBKL which was chaired by Datuk Mhd Amin Nordin Abd Aziz, who was then the deputy director-general of DBKL.

“At that time, at least 78 temples had been issued with notices of demolition in Kuala Lumpur alone,” Vaithilingam recalled.

The Dewi Sri Pathrakaliamman temple was one of the 78.

Vaithilingam said: “My committee visited the Dewi Sri Pathrakaliamman temple. We were told that after negotiations, DBKL had asked them to give up a few feet of land to allow the widening of the road beside it and they agreed.

“Subsequently, in 2008, the temple committee held a “kumbhabhisehagam” or consecration ceremony after renovating it. Datuk Seri Samy Vellu and I were among those who attended. As far as the MHS and the committee were concerned, the matter had been amicably resolved.”

Commenting on the current situation, he said: “Both DBKL and the Federal Territories Department erred knowing full well that in 2008 the matter had been resolved. It is a mystery why DBKL sold the land in 2014 to Jakel. DBKL should have offered to sell the land to the temple first.

“But I am relieved that the matter has been resolved peacefully and the temple has been given a new site nearby.”

Asked about the “illegal” status of many temples and shrines in the country, he said people fail to recognise or refuse to understand that most of these temples had been built long before Merdeka.

He said the authorities conveniently forget that the owners of the land – whether the colonial government or estate owners – had allowed temples to be built on their land, and even, in some instances, paid for it, although they did not formalise the transfer of the land title to the temple.

“In my view, it’s not too late to do so,” he added.

The question now is whether the Madani government will take the initiative to regularise or legalise temples built before Merdeka on land which has since had new owners or come up with some workable solution so that this problem does not flare up again and cause unnecessary inter-religious tension.Does it have the political will? - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.