RSS Treating Ram Mandir Donation Scam as ‘Family Matter’: Analyst

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By TRH Op-Ed Desk

Political analyst Manish Anand says the Ram Mandir donation controversy exposes a trust management model RSS itself designed — and is now struggling to defend

New Delhi, July 10, 2026 — The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is approaching the Ram Mandir donation controversy as an internal matter to be managed quietly rather than answered publicly, political analyst Manish Anand said on The Raisina Hills YouTube channel.

Anand argued that the RSS’s response so far — watching the resignations of Trust general secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra in an air of projected detachment — reflects an expectation that the public will simply endorse whatever steps the organisation and its affiliates take, “and not entangle themselves in the allegations and counter-allegations,” rather than demand direct answers.

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust was created by an Act of Parliament as an independent charitable trust, formally outside government control. But Anand pointed out that the Centre appoints 12 of its roughly 15 members, with Uttar Pradesh naming the remaining three — including officials who have themselves sat on the Trust — giving both governments an indirect stake in an institution whose day-to-day finances are now under an SIT (Special Investigation Team) probe.

He noted that even Nripendra Misra, former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, served as an ex-officio chairman of the Trust’s construction committee, making the scale of ignorance now being claimed hard for the public to accept.

According to Anand, the controversy cuts directly against a long-running RSS campaign to free major Hindu temples from government-linked trust and shrine-board control, on the argument that state involvement diverts temple offerings away from religious and welfare use.

The Ram Mandir Trust, he said, was meant to demonstrate that a charitable trust model, without government interference, could manage a major temple responsibly. The donation theft allegations — which include claims, per media reports, that diverted funds were invested in the stock market and used to buy land in Ayodhya at inflated rates — undercut that argument directly.

Anand said the silence extends beyond the two resignations: treasurer-level office-bearers have “accepted responsibility” without stepping down, Champat Rai has said he will only respond once the SIT report is out, and the RSS itself has gone quiet, discouraging any talk that could be framed as an attack on Hindu faith.

The belligerence of the existing members of the Trust to hold on to their positions may give a sense that individuals in the RSS ecosystem are more important than the sanctity of institutions, said Anand. This, he added, runs sharply against the RSS’s claims of being an institution of “character and nation building.”

He called this “a defence mechanism” to avoid answering questions of accountability — while noting that other major faith institutions worldwide, from Mecca to the Vatican, have faced similar controversies and eventually reformed and become more transparent as a result.

The politics are sharpened by timing: Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls within a year, and the BJP under Yogi Adityanath will seek a third mandate in a state where the Ram Mandir sits at the centre of the party’s narrative.

Anand said a UP government SIT probe promised within 14 days has stretched past a month without the report being made public, and predicted the Opposition will raise the matter when Parliament’s monsoon session begins, since Parliament itself legislated the Trust into existence.

(Report is based on Manish Anand’s monologue for The Raisina Hills.)