In Asia, Emperor Wu Ti (145-87 BC), who claimed the “Mandate of Heaven” for himself, was the biggest and most spectacular hustler among his contemporary sovereigns. He was also an immodest monopolist who looked down on his advisers and ministers among whom a grand historian to the Court was even castrated. His crime ? He dared put in a word in favour of a disgraced Generag. Wu Ti declared that his divine right allowed him to squeeze his sixty million subjects and make them pay maximum taxes which would then be diverted to his coffers to improve his lands.Land, Wu Ti said was the ultimate possession and the borders of this vast wealth must be guarded fiercely against the Huns gathering there like locusts. He was livid that those uncouth migrants, the Huns demanded tributes in gold and silk in exchange for not invading his China.The Huns’ greed for collecting riches was on par with Wu Ti’s. British historian Edward Gibbon says like all nomadic bands of hustlers, the Huns were totally irreligious and averse to the moral ambiguities of settled human lives. They were led by powerful dictatorial leaders like Attila who lusted after not land but “fire-bright gold’ from the land-rich settlers. For gold and gems and silks the Huns would massacre, snatch and loot what they could from rich settlements.Like the trillionaire corporate of today, the dictator led a life marked by a strange distancing from his courtiers. Byzantine ambassadors to the camp of Attila the Hun noticed the opulence that surrounded Attila’s tent. But he ate off simple bowls while his courtiers wore extravagant silks, and drank from golden goblets studded with gems stones. Money, more money that was his hunger for.A tsunami of allegations about missing offerings to the Ram templeOne was reminded of these legendary collectors of gold and gems when stories about opulent treasuries of the newly-built Ayodhya Ram temple began to surface, followed by astounding allegations about how a band of trusted temple operators may have been quietly looting God’s own coffers. Not just that. With some nod and wink from the authorities, lucrative land deals were struck which made many involved in the maintenance of the temple, millionaires several times over.There have been plenty of reports of major land sales in deemed holy areas to politically connected realtors at a fraction of their real value have been plenty. They have emanated from Uttarakhand , Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, where major holy places were renovated at great cost and drew millions of pilgrims after the state governments published a barrage of ads in the media inviting the pilgrims to see the deity and wash their sins away.Soon a tsunami of media allegations about the vast amounts of gold, silver, gemstone studded jewellery and cash offerings found missing in temples came from vigilant local folks. At the newly inaugurated Ram temple in Ayodhya, a jeweller from Mumbai claimed not being given a proper explanation for a missing brick encrusted with diamonds he had donated to Ram Lalla. Another alleged that an offering of a diamond studded necklace for the deity which he was assured would be duly put around the idol’s neck, was missing. A group of Sindhi businessmen who had donated over 270 kilos of silver shaped like bricks for the temple, were also aghast at not getting satisfactory reply to their queries about where the ricks lay. The Ram Janmbhoomi Nyas to which they had presented these items was a trusted and respected body and was overseeing the maintenance of the temple’s coffers.The Trustees were long in denial. They were they said, servants of the Lord and it was unimaginable for them to doubt the integrity of volunteers they had appointed to count the daily offerings by devotees manually. Nripendra Mishra, chairman of the Controlling Committee agreed that the management system for counting, listing and depositing the offerings made by countless devotees, was flawed. It was run largely by volunteers and lacked formal protocols for ensuring transparency.Finally, after the first protests about missing bullion and cash were filed and a special investigation team (SIT) was mandated to look into the alleged thefts, it took the UP Police 12 days to register an FIR. Unsurprisingly there are no names of trustees in the FIR.In the midst of this hullabaloo, a major English daily broke another story about a scandalous land grab by people connected to a state’s first family. The town in central India is an ancient pilgrimage spot where pilgrims have been thronging to its legendary Shiva temple. The city has of late come up as one of the hottest property markets in India due to large scale construction work in the area: roads, major highway projects and a new Master Plan.The Plan has changed land use patterns to meet a huge demand for residential and commercial spaces in the region, also breeding a number of land acquisition and compensation disputes. “ Should we shut down just because the CM happens to be from the family?..My father is not the sole owner..” said the irate scion of a realty company to the correspondent investigating the matter.The ruling Parivar’s values don’t include Gandhian and Ambedkarite notionsThe stories, in whichever way you look at them, are by now a complex web of public trust, political power conferred from above and not the electorate. Aren’t these the national values promoted by the ruling Parivar? For them, India must be taken as an extension of the Hindu Parivar that since times immemorial has rested on certain caste hierarchies confirmed by their Sanatan Dharma with its own inner language and protocols. And many of those values do not include Gandhian and Ambedkarite notions of equality, austerity and the concept of leaders as trustees.The spokespersons for the government often hint that the democratic system borrowed from the West and foisted on us by Nehru and Ambedkar, is in need of severe tweaking. World capitalism remains the guiding pole star in the path to progress in the future for the new Hindu democracy. A leap into that arena alone can make Hindu Rashtra as one nation under one leader and one flag, the third largest economic power in the world.Recently on X , the writer Joyce Carol Oates wrote about Elon Musk, the owner of the platform and the richest man in the world,“So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates-..The poorest persons on Twitter may have more access to beauty and meaning in life…”Pleonexia, is Greek for insatiable lust for money in men. Plato cautioned Athens centuries ago against it. For Socrates the moral failure of the rich creates a fundamental weakness. Emperor Wu Ti, that great collector of riches amassed his coveted collection of high breed horses, left a sad wife who summed up her decrepit life in a poem: “A tent is my house/Of felt are my walls:/Raw flesh my food/With mare’s milk to drink…/My heart so sad within (Translation by Arthur Waley)”.Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.