The kind of political theatre that only India can deliver on a regular basis was what we got in front of the Lok Sabha last Friday, and it was a chapter full of fire this time. While other opposition legislators, dressed in saffron and in the roles of temple priests, stuffed money notes into their pockets rather than the collection box, Pappu Yadav MP (also in saffron) did it with stealth. In just half a day the skit had led to FIRs in Varanasi and Delhi, a breach-of-privilege notice in the Lok Sabha, complaints against him from Uttar Pradesh's seers and a battle between BJP leaders and an opposition group that seems to be backing down. The seemingly street theatre over the accounting irregularities at the temple in Ayodhya has, in classic Indian fashion, turned into a proxy battle over religious sentiment, parliamentary behaviour and who speaks for Sanatan Dharma.

While the grievance is real, so too has become the way it is expressed. Eight individuals are now in jail for their alleged involvement in counting and handing over cash donations at the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Uttar Pradesh, since the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was set up on its own request, identified irregularities in the process. Opposition leaders have pointed out that the investigators' description of the accused, who were hired as counting staff through a banking affiliated agency on low monthly wages of twelve to fifteen thousand rupees, suggests that the situation was more of institutional neglect than individual greed. One of those, the purported ringmaster, is also accused of doubling as a driver for the senior trustee and having inserted a family member into the counting room. Staffing the operation was the State Bank of India, which had voiced concerns about the same staff three months earlier but an internal drive to replace them was reportedly held up by officials related to trust.

The amount of money flowing in and out of Ayodhya is the big part of this story, that is not just a routine graft story. Since the fundraising campaign really got under way, the temple trust has accepted donations exceeding five thousand crore rupees, placing it among the biggest voluntary religious collection drives in the world on scale with the endowment drives of major cathedrals and pilgrimage sites, though few with the mix of cash-based informal giving and virtually no centralised digital tracking that exists in India. In this background, the amounts that are part of the current debate appear to be quite small police records show that about seven lakh and eight lakh rupees were recovered, the treasurer of the trust has stated that the missing money is closer to three crore, while the opposition parties have claimed two hundred crore is the actual amount. What's significant here is the disparity the difference between these numbers reveals how little certainty exists in a cash economy of this magnitude, and the extent to which a true failure of financial control can become a basis for wildly varying political calculations.

The SIT's initial conclusions, based on video footage, bank statements and staff accounts, indicate that it was not a singular incident but a pattern the staff often concealled bills in their clothes and shoes, no one ever frisked at entry and exit points, and there were standard operating procedures on paper that were never followed in practice. It's the kind of discovery that ought to give anyone with an interest in the way things operate around India's religious economy, which quietly outdoes mid-sized corporate balance sheets and influences tourism, hospitality and local jobs over a whole district, cause for concern. The change in Ayodhya since the temple's consecration has been an economic story as well as a religious one, and hotel occupancy, air connections, and infrastructure of the municipal corporation are all booming to cater to the pilgrim numbers of tens of millions each year. The credibility issue at the collection counter has far reaching consequences for not only the people who donated but also on the trust of donors, and it is not the first time that fraudsters have tried to take advantage of the temple's name after earlier cyber scams involving fake donation websites and prasad delivery schemes duped hundreds of thousands of people.

But none of that financial backstory is what is front of mind this week. Dilip Ghosh's comment that "society will not condone" the "perceived insult" on Lord Ram and his wider shot at Mamata Banerjee's political approach is in a league of its own with many other BJP commentators calling for accountability for "mockery of Hindu tradition". In response, the opposition argues that the anger is being whipped up to cover up the original allegation, suggesting that the government indulges in “narrative management” routinely with regard to allegations of criminal activities.On the other hand, the opposition says the anger is being whipped-up to bury the original allegation, and the response of the ruling party was a “narrative management”. Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav dismissed the government's response as “narrative management” and said it routinely criminalises dissent. The protest by Yadav himself has been presented as a dignified and non-House one, pointing out that some of the insults he had faced over the years in Parliament were by Congress and Samajwadi leaders but did not lead to any such privilege proceedings.

Remove the theatre and there are two questions left to be answered: one is whether there was any mismanagement of temple money on such a large scale that it would cause any loss of confidence in the public among the people responsible for handling it, and the other is whether a democratically elected legislature is the proper forum for symbolic protest using religious imagery. Reasonable and reasonable persons can and do find themselves in violent disagreement on all points around the question of faith, money and politics in India, and in any democracy facing the issue of collision of the three. The amount of investigation into whether there was any money at all, which is still ongoing, is more worthy of national interest than the debate over how it was dramatised.