(Vishnu Kumar Balai is the author of the letter given below, originally written in Hindi and reproduced here with his permission. He is a resident of Barana village in Asind Tehsil, Bhilwara, Rajasthan and is the priest at the Khakul Dev ji temple built by his ancestors. In this letter addressed to the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, he says that the temple belonging to his ancestors has been usurped, and that he and his family have been subjected to physical assaults.)
To,
Dr Mohan Bhagwat ji,
Sarsanghchalak, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,
Dr Hedgewar Bhawan, Sangh Building Road,
Mahal Chowk,
Nagpur, Maharashtra – 440032
Subject: Regarding Sangh workers usurping temple belonging to Dalit priest
Respected sir,
I, Vishnu Kumar, son of Shrawanlal ji Balai, am a resident of Barana village (Asind Tehsil, Bhilwara), Rajasthan and the priest at the age-old Khakul Dev ji temple built by my ancestors. My father Shrawan ji and, before him, my grandfather Harlal ji were the Bhopaji[1] of the temple. Harlal ji would be possessed by a spirit and he would help the poor and the needy.
Our ancestor Ghisaji Balai established this temple on Friday, the 13th day of the Shukla Paksha of Vikram Samvat 1681. It was just a raised platform then. Thereafter, my ancestors Uda ji Balai, Dhula ji Balai, Kalu ji Balai and Harlal ji were the priests at the temple. Thus, for around 400 years, my family has looked after the temple and performed puja and other rituals there. Today, that platform has turned into a magnificent temple with a shikhar (spire).
This temple finds mention in the copper plate presented to our ancestors by the rulers of the then Mewar princely state and in the Bhat ki Pothi[2] . Not a penny was collected from the residents of the village for the construction or the maintenance of the temple. Donations made by devotees and our family have funded the construction of the temple. Now, the temple has a “pyayu”[3] and a rest house for travellers.
The past 400 years have not witnessed any dispute related to the temple. In the year 2023, Sampat Jat, a liquor trader from the village, who is an active member of the RSS and comes from the Jat community, stoked a controversy. He was backed by some other “Tritiya Varsh Shikshit”[4] swayamsevaks from the village. They did not allow the holding of the annual fair at the temple in 2024 and 2025. We were forced to hold the fair at a venue away from the temple.
For the sake of maintaining peace and protecting the dignity of Shri Khakul Dev ji, we quietly put up with the atrocities committed against us Dalit priests. We didn’t protest. In fact, we contributed Rs 5,100 for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and hosted a ceremony to welcome the “path sanchalan”[5] by the RSS. But the RSS workers of Barana do not consider us Dalits as Hindus. They are rabidly casteist and practise untouchability and discrimination. They keep harassing us.
Sir, on 14 August 2025, RSS volunteers led by swayamsevak and liquor trader Sampat Jat, along with anti-Dalit villagers, assaulted the family of this Dalit priest on the premises of the Shri Khakul Dev ji Temple. They indulged in violence, hurled casteist abuses and forcibly placed a donation box on the premises. They declared that henceforth, the Dalit priest and his family would have nothing to do with the temple and that the residents of the village would perform the puja and other rituals and run the temple. We had an FIR filed at the Asind police station and submitted a memorandum detailing the assault and the usurping of the private temple. But no action was taken on our FIR, because the anti-Dalit RSS volunteers enjoyed the backing of the local BJP MLA Jabbar Singh. Following protests by organizations representing the Scheduled Castes, the police initiated an investigation. The charges were found to be true, yet the accused were not arrested. They were allowed to roam free. They managed to obtain a stay on their arrest from the Rajasthan High Court and are now tormenting us.
Sir, not only did the local Swayamsevaks assault us, but they also secretly constituted a trust to grab the temple. That is not all. Sampat Jat and other RSS workers held a Maha Panchayat of Sakal Hindu Samaj against Dalits. The following day, casteist newspapers of Bhilwara carried the news about the meeting with the headline “Sakal Hindu Samaj roars in Barana”. Not a single Muslim family resides in the Barana village Panchayat area. Then whom did the Sakal Hindu Samaj led by RSS workers roar against? You would appreciate that the “roaring” was aimed at us Dalits. Venom was spewed against the Dalits at the Sakal Hindu Samaj meeting.
Sir, your diligent workers and the volunteers trained up to “Tritiya Varsh” used a gas-cutter to remove the donation box installed by this Dalit priest and dumped it in a faraway well. Despite lodging a complaint and making CCTV footage of the vandalism available, no case was registered against them. Instead, we were threatened that if we continued to make complaints, we would have to bear the consequences.
Using the controversy created by the casteist RSS volunteers as a pretext, the BJP government of Rajasthan, with the help of party MLA Jabbar Singh Sankhla and the administration, has usurped our private temple built by our ancestors from us Dalit priests by appointing the Tehsildar as a receiver.
No one – the police, the Tehsildar, the administration, the court or the BJP government – is ready to listen to us. If we visit the temple or perform a puja there, the RSS Swayamsevak Sampat Jat and his supporters lodge false complaints against us at the police station. Shraddha Pachauri, the CI of the local police station, has us detained and herded into the lock-up. She threatens to “open a history sheet” against us. Other administrative officers tell us that they have already appointed a receiver and soon they will hand over the temple to Devasthan[6].
Sir, I Vishnu Kumar, the priest of the temple, consider myself a part of the Hindu community and I perform puja and other rituals at the Shri Khakil Dev ji Temple in keeping with Hindu traditions and customs. I have met RSS leaders at Asind and Bhilwara and have shared my agony with them. I told them that “Tritiya Varsh Shikshit” RSS volunteers are trying to grab the temple from me – a Dalit priest. But none of them did anything. Hence, I am forced to write this letter to you. You say that Hindu community is one, you talk about harmony between castes and you are against caste-based discrimination. The RSS has been running the campaign “Ek kuan, ek shamshan, ek mandir” (One well, one cremation ground, one temple). But RSS volunteers have usurped this temple that belongs to me, a Dalit priest – and now want to throw me and my family members behind bars on the basis of fabricated cases. They even want to kill us. What they are doing is just the opposite of what you have been saying.
I request you with folded hands to put an end to this terrorizing in the name of Sakal Hindu Samaj. Please stop your swayamsevaks. Please do not usurp the temple from me – a Dalit priest. Ask the Rajasthan Government to terminate the receivership of the temple and hand it back to us, the Dalit priests, and allow legal and police action against accused Swayamsevaks so that we can lead our lives as Hindus.
I am hopeful that you would listen to my prayer.
With regards
Vishnu Kumar Balai
(Signed)
(Pujari, Shri Khakul Dev ji)
Village Barana, Post- Barana,
Tehsil Asind, Bhilwara – 311001
Mob: 9783456134
Attachments:
Receipt of donation for Ram Mandir
FIR
Welcoming of Path Sanchalan
News item about Hindu Panchayat
News item about attack on the family of Dalit priest
[1] Traditional priest
[2] Records of the family tree
[3] Drinking water facility
[4] The highest level of training for RSS volunteers
[5] Procession
[6] The department of the Rajasthan government that maintains temples
(Translation from the original Hindi by Amrish Herdenia)
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