India, July 24 -- One of the longest-standing debates in Indian constitutional law and politics has been around whether and to what extent the State should control the affairs of religious and charitable institutions. From before Independence and after, Hindu religious institutions, for example, have been subject to a complex and layered regulatory mechanism. At present, this takes the form of umbrella enactments called The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, which are enacted by different states. Opponents of this regulatory framework gather under the banner of "free the temples," and question why the State needs to beinvolved in questions of faith, and of the administration of the institutions of faith. At first blush, this is a fair question: An element of contemporary secularism is a separation of the State and religion. In other countries, the relationship between the State and religious institutions ismuch more light-touch and is limited tooverarching questions of tax law and jurisdiction in case of offences. Religious institutional autonomy, in other words, is given far greater importance. To understand why the situation in India is different, one must go back to the Constituent Assembly Debates. When the religious freedom clauses of the Constitution were being debated, Ambedkar observed that the conception of religion in India was much wider than its counterpartin the west: From birth to death, religion claimed a vast domain of an individual's life, including conditions and obligations of marriage, inheritance, and so on. Consequently, Ambedkar noted, unlessconstitutional protection was limited tothat which was "essentially religious", a vast swathe of the State's social reform agenda risked being declared unconstitutional, andcitizens' civil rights left to the mercy of thediktats of religious institutions. Ambedkar's concern was born out of personal experience. As a Dalit leader, he - alongside others - had fought many a battle against social discrimination cloaked in the garb of religious diktat. Two battles, in particular, stood out: forthe right to drink from the public wells (which were often attached to temples), and indeed,for the right to enter temples on a non-discriminatory basis. The colonial court had denied him andothers relief, and the Constituent Assemblywas determined that the new constitutional order would not replicate and re-entrenchthe same hierarchies that had existed in the times to come. Consequently, Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution - which deal with religious freedom and State control - are very carefully worded: They guarantee a zone of freedom for individual religious conscience, but also permit the State to enact laws with the aim of social reform; they limit the rights of religious denominations strictly to matters of religion. Indeed, the foresight of this constitutional framework was demonstrated in the early years of the Constitution, when temples that wished to continue discriminatory practice regarding the right of entry, attempted to invoke their freedom as "religious denominations" to do so. These arguments were repelled by the Supreme Court, invoking the social reform clause, as well as overarching constitutional principles. One other factor weighed with the early legislators: Over the years, temples and religious and charitable endowments had acquired vast amounts of wealth, which took them outside the domain of strictly private bodies, lending them a quasi-public character, and thus within the regulatory domain. It would be incumbent upon the State to ensure that there was no misappropriation or misuse of funds by those who controlled these establishments. It is obvious that these conditions continue to prevail, even today. For this reason, Ambedkar's observation in the Constituent Assembly has aged well, and demonstrates why institutional autonomy in this regard must be subject to constitutional norms and principles. Of course, that does not mean that the laws in question are beyond cavil. Many of thestate laws set up a dense web of bureaucracy and control that, as a matter of policy, isquestionable; at the end of the day, what is important is that basic constitutional norms are complied with, and that the community of believers is not swindled. The minutiae of these laws, thus, canbe debated from the perspective of whetheror not they adequately serve those purposes.This, however, is a question about thewisdom of policy; the constitutional need for regulations remains....