Why Are Buddhist Monks Protesting At Bodh Gaya, What Are Their Demands? Explained

Bodh Gaya is considered to be one of the four sacred sites of Buddhism; the other three being Lumbini – Lord Buddha’s birthplace — Sarnath, where he gave his first sermon and Kusinagar, where he attained nirvana.

Why Do Buddhists Want Repeal Of The 1949 Act?

The Bihar government had passed the BTA to resolve a festering dispute between the Buddhist and Hindu heads of the Mahabodhi Temple for control over the site.

The BTA set up a committee with four Hindus and four Buddhists as members. The Act made the local district magistrate an ex-officio chairperson of the committee.

The idea of the district magistrate, who was the ex-officio chairman, assuming leadership if he was from the Hindu community was resented by the Buddhist bodies.

This rule was changed by the state government in 2013 and instead inserted a provision for the ex-officio chairman to be of any faith.

In the 1990s, Lalu Prasad Yadav, then chief minister of Bihar, drafted the Bodh Gaya Mahvihara Bill to replace the BTA. It allowed handing over the management of the temple to Buddhists. The Bill prohibited idol immersions inside the temple and Hindu marriages. But the bill went into cold storage.

Swami Vivekananda Giri, who looks after the Bodh Gaya Math, told Al Jazeera that Hindus owned the temple before the Act and India’s Independence. He said the protests were “politically motivated", noting it comes ahead of the Bihar assembly elections.

Giri further said, “When the Buddhists abandoned it after the invasion of Muslim rulers, we preserved and took care of the temple. Yet we never treated Buddhist visitors as ‘others’."

Have There Been Protests Before?

Akash Lama, general secretary of the All India Buddhist Forum (AIBF) told Al Jazeera that several Buddhist organisations had held rallies from Ladakh in the north to Mumbai in the west, and Mysuru in south.

Buddhists have pointed out that all religions in India manage their own religious sites. They also said Buddha was opposed to Vedic rituals.

In November 2023, Buddhist monks held a rally in Gaya and submitted a memorandum to the Central and state governments. As it failed to have the desired effect, the monks scaled up the protest and held a rally in Patna last year to press for repealing the Act.

In 2012, two monks had filed a petition before the Supreme Court to repeal the 1949 law which gives Hindus a say in the running of the shrine. The petition is yet to be heard.

On February 27, reportedly, two dozen Buddhist monks who were sitting on a hunger strike for 14 days on the temple premises, were removed at midnight by the Bihar police and forced to relocate outside the temple.

The Importance Of Mahabodhi Temple

Emperor Ashoka built the Mahabodhi Temple in 260 BCE after embracing Buddhism. It has now become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Reportedly, it remained under Buddhist management for years, until major political changes of the 13th century.

King Ashoka used to worship under the Bodhi tree, where Gautam Siddhartha attained enlightenment. Bodh Gaya was then described as the Mecca of Buddhism, and in many ways popularised Buddhism in the West.

From the time of Ashoka to the Palas, the Bodhi temple continued to be a Buddhist place of worship and a site of pilgrimage.

Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang visited Bodh Gaya in 629 AD during the reign of Harshavardhana. Incidentally, Hiuen Tsang called it a Buddhist site, and is said to have found only Buddhist relics for a statue of Avaloktishvara.

After the invasion of Bakhtiyar Khilji in the 13th century, Buddhism began to decline. As per UNESCO, the shrine was mostly abandoned between the 13th and 18th centuries till the British started renovations.

During Akbar’s reign, in 1590, a Hindu monk established the Bodh Gaya mutt. He formed the Bodh Gaya Math, a Hindu monastery, and the temple has been controlled by descendants of Giri.

In the late 19th century, visiting Sri Lankan and Japanese Buddhist monks, founded the Maha Bodhi Society to lead a movement to reclaim the site. Then, in 1903, Lord Curzon tried negotiating a deal between Hindu and Buddhist sides, but failed. Two years after India’s Independence, the Bihar government brought in the Act.