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When Vishnu Kumar Balai, the hereditary priest of the Khakul Dev Temple of Barana village in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district, wrote to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat in May this year asking, “Are we not Hindus?”, his appeal was widely understood as only an instance of caste discrimination and exploitation. But that reading misses what makes the Barana dispute historically and socially significant. 

This is not a story about Dalits seeking entry into Brahminical temples or demanding the right to perform rituals in Brahminical spaces. It is about a Dalit family which founded, owned and served as hereditary custodians of a temple for nearly four centuries, and whose assertions whose claims are supported by a body of historical material preserved by the family. 

Letter written by Vishnu Kumar Balai to RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat. Photo: By arrangement

Per the evidence furnished by the family, their position as priests and owners was recognised through a tamrapatra (copper-plate grant), issued by Maharana Karan Singh II of Mewar, grandson of Maharana Pratap, in 1624 CE. That historical continuity makes the present controversy all the more remarkable: a custodianship they say was acknowledged under a 17th-century Mewar ruler now finds itself challenged in 21st-century democratic India.

The Khakul Dev dispute, therefore, raises a question that extends far beyond one village: why has a centuries-old Dalit temple ownership become the subject of contemporary political contestation?

A scanned copy of the copper-plate inscription dated 1624 CE (1681 V.S.), confirming the hereditary ownership of the temple. Photo: By arrangement

The Balai priestly family traces its association with Khakul Dev to Ghasiramji Balai, who, according to family tradition, discovered the deity in the early seventeenth century near present-day Hadkiya village. The shrine was subsequently established at Barana and gradually developed into an important regional place of worship.

The family preserves a body of historical material – including genealogies, temple records, inscriptions and the 1624 tamrapatra – which it documents uninterrupted hereditary succession. The tamrapatra, as attested by the family, recognises their custodianship and ownership over both the temple and land attached to its maintenance, including their right for hereditary priesthood.

Taken together, these records suggest that the family’s claim is rooted in a long tradition of hereditary custodianship rather than being a recent assertion. 

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