Dear sravna,
You said:
I personally feel that religious leaders should stay away from politics. Unless you are an avatar of God you cannot but dirty yourself if you get yourself involved in politics. There is so much at stake for those who are in politics and high positions that if anything contrary to their interest happens they don't hesitate to neutralize that whoever might be the cause.
Ultimately and inevitably it is the Godmen who get involved in politics who earn a bad name for themselves and along with that for the religion. So they should be aware they carry the responsibility of upholding the sanctity of religion and not involve themselves in matters that are not only extraneous to their responsibilities but are also detrimental to self and religion.
One way of keeping away from controversies is to keep aloof as suggested by you. Attend to only religious matters, do your daily pooja, give lectures to sishyas, offer clarifications on Sruti and smrutis and keep quiet rest of the time. This is not possible these days. Being in the thick of a fast changing society the acharyas have to guide their followers in many worldly matters too. Not doing anything in worldly matters to the followers will be equivalent to disowning them and followers will go looking for alternative leaders. So there is another way of dealing with the situation. I am giving this as a suggestion. If this happens to be read by some one in the higher levels of the hierarchy in the matom he may give some thought to this. My this suggestion comes from my experience with christian religious heads ( I had the opportunities to deal with them).
Present administrative set up in matoms:
This leaves much wanting. The religious head is all in all here. From a simple decision like what should be dumped in a room in the matom which has fallen vacant to how to deal with a scandalous attack on the matom and its followers, every decision is taken by the religious head personally. Most of the assistants in the immediate circle around the religious head (RH) are just time servers. They have no modern education and hence their knowledge of history and geography is next to nothing. The curriculum of many of the patasalas(this is the training ground from which the Srikaryams, Dharmathikaris and mudhrathikaris of the matom are recruited) and their syllabus are such that there is a marked slant towards religion to the complete exclusion of worldly matters such as economics, finance, management, law of the country and local and national politics. So, when a problem presents itself, the RH is given unnecessary early exposure to the public. Every action he takes to deal with the problem is sort of on a grand stage in lime light with every Tom Dick and Harry having a grandstand view of them. Most of the RHs are satvic in nature and can not tell a lie easily as it is against their very basic and dear values. Not even a புரைதீர்த்து நன்மை பயக்கும் பொய். So he blunders from interview to interview with media sleuths, from encounter to encounter with Government agencies (which all can speak a lot of lies, plant stories, spread innuendos etc). In the world of RH there is no conceit or deceit, no game playing, no lies, no double talk and no disrespect to his position. The Dharmathikaris, mudhradhikaris etc are also belonging to the same category as they have been chosen by the RH for these very qualities. So it is a big crowd of well-meaning, innocent in a way, blundering most of the time, feeling like scared chicken let out in the open suddenly in a forest kind of people. The world outside the matoms is a ruthless world from which sishyas of different kind come including those who want to shine in the world flaunting the apparent approval from the matom as a certificate and ticket to dignified society. So what do we do? We can not desire to change the acharyas/RHs. Let us see what can be done.
Please read my next post on what I have in my mind as suggestions. Please hold fire till then.
Cheers.