As the president of FIRA and a resident of Dakshina Kannada, I feel it is relevant to speak about these happenings in Karnataka which have caused an uproar both at the local, national and international levels. This district has a long history and is the home of Tulu language, one of the oldest Dravidian languages and a culture rooted in the local ethos. In the last millennium, the local customs, the culture, the language and even its history has been changed to suit the interests of the sanatanis who want to impose their value systems. This is the story of Dharmasthala and Veerendra Heggade who is the defacto owner of a temple and a group of businesses all run in the name of religion. He is also a member of the Rajya Sabha nominated by the BJP. He also sports titles like Dharmadhikari, Khavanda and people, particularly the devotees do not address him by name! He is also a Padma Vibhushan and sports a ‘Dr’ title which though is not an academic qualification, is by the virtue of an honorary doctorate bestowed by the Mangalore University. He is a big advocate of Hindutva! While there is nothing strange about BJP members plugging their religion and the Sanatana supremacy, the fact is that Veerendra Heggade is not a Hindu but a Jain! Here is a case of an atheist Jain owning a Hindu temple which worships an idol of Shiva in an avatar called Manjunatha!
More than that here is the sordid story of unsolved murders, exhumed skeletons, a whistle blower turned betrayer, with both the ruling party bigwigs and the two opposition parties of Karnataka supporting him. Here are also cases of land grabbing, forging of records, submission of false declarations and manipulation at every level. There are various activities being run by this group starting from educational institutions to money lending. But, at the heart of every one of these is a web of superstitions, lies and hypocrisy. Though the place supposedly has a system of delivery of justice and an alternative platform for the courts, the owner has filed hundreds of cases against tenants! Though it is claimed that the guardian deity Manjunatha and his minions called as daivas will avenge any miscarriage of justice there have been unsolved murder cases pending since decades!
The history of this place goes back to a few centuries. The temple and its Shivalinga has a lot of stories behind it and it can be considered as mythology. However, history shows how this place called Kuduma became Dharmasthala and its ownership went into the hands of the Jain Heggade family. It was a reward bestowed by the British for having helped them against their wars against Tippu Sultan. In 1800 or so, Kumara, an ancestor of the present ruler Veerendra Heggade (though this term is unconstitutional, the conduct of the person is very befitting this feudal designation) took over the place. As per the existent practice these feudal elements exercised their power through suppression of the working class and violent reprisals against any form of dissent. Since Shiva was to be worshipped the process would be by rule done by Brahmins only! So, as per the practice these were sent to do the pujas. So, finally a temple with Buddhist origins, OBC deities and rooted in local forms of worship became a Hindu temple owned by Jains who neither believe in any of these nor worship them!
As time rolled on India got independence and the govt made laws to take over temples and bring them under the supervision of the state. This was with the intention of prevention of misuse of funds and exploitation of the faith of the people. But, the owners of this temple managed to get out of the endowment act by claiming that it is a family affair. They also claimed that it was an entity called ‘institutions of Dharmasthala’ which was running the show! Of course, the institutions were owned by one family.
As years passed, they managed to expand their empire by starting so-called ‘educational institutions’, social service, employment training etc. Then came the land reforms brought by the Devaraj Urs govt during the emergency days. These limited the holdings of agricultural lands to some acres per member of the family. But, here there were thousands of acres of land. There were people who were the tillers of the land to whom it would go. By hook or crook, threats and inducements they still managed to hold on to a major portion of it. Those who had submitted what were called ‘declarations’ were neutralised by various means. Some of them who had managed to file them and get the lands in their favour at the district level land tribunals had to face the litigation in the high court of Karnataka. Well, nothing strange in aggrieved parties going to court for interpretation of the law. But, here is the strange case of a person who claims that the temple at Dharmasthala of which he is the owner, provides a mechanism for out of court settlements of civil disputes in 326 cases pending in various courts! So much for his claim of dispensing justice by fast methods! Even the claims of settling disputes are questionable. It is rumoured that when families go to him with land disputes, they are brought to an end by the disputed property ending up as his by a ‘settlement’ by getting them transferred to him or his parties at a throwaway price!
In coastal Karnataka, there is a form of worship called bhoothas. These are rituals conducted to propitiate some spirits. These rituals have been going on for centuries with many families having their own ones. These were all made subservient to one Annappa daiva which was a vassal of Manjunatha, the presiding deity at Dharmasthala, thereby bringing all the OBCs under his effective control. Stories were manufactured to support all these claims and anyone disputing them would be punished allegedly by the powers of the presiding deity but actually by the goons of the feudal landlord! Getting used to such power, the advent of
democracy and the questioning of his ways along with the media changed the situation. This led to exposure of the happenings at the place and its surrounding areas!
These events of rebellion go back to the 1980s when a school teacher at Dharmasthala high school called Vedavalli rebelled against his diktats. She was the seniormost and due for promotion as the headmaster of the school. She was asked to forget it so that the one who was the candidate of the management to take over. It need not be reiterated here that though this candidate was junior, her caste and connections made her more suitable! As expected the management candidate got the appointment. She challenged in the court and won her case. But the management took revenge in the worst way. When her husband, Dr. Harale was away on a meeting at Mangalore in April,1979 he returned to see her dead body raped, murdered and burnt in the bathroom of their govt quarters at Ujire. This created a furore and the matter was raised in the Karnataka Assembly but everything was hushed up. They tried to implicate him as the murderer but the case was closed. Dr. Harale did not run away from the place. He continued his service there and even after his retirement he served the people in that area. The case was never solved though Dr.Harale had given the name of the head of the gang which had committed the crime.
The next case to hit the headlines in 1986 end-87 was that of Padmalatha, a student of their own college at Ujire nearby. Her father Devanand, a communist, had contested the Panchayat election. The ‘custom’ there was that there would be no elections. All the members would be nominated by the top man! It was an affront to him that an atheist communist was contesting elections! He was asked to withdraw his nomination. Since he refused, she was kidnapped and kept for several weeks and finally her dead body, rather the skeleton, was found in a river nearby. This led to protests and a COD investigation was conducted and when it was nearing its logical end, the inspector in charge was transferred and a C report was filed!
Then came the two cases- the mahout and his sister’s murder in September 2012. Narayana, a retired mahout who had been taking care of the elephant at the temple during his service and his sister Yamuna owned a piece of land which was of interest to the powers that be. He was asked to sell it which he refused. So, one morning the dead bodies of both were found with their heads crushed by a grinding stone. The land was taken over later and in the meanwhile a c report was filed by the police. In the same land a hotel has come up.
“These events of rebellion go back to the 1980s when a school teacher at Dharmasthala high school called Vedavalli rebelled against his diktats. She was the seniormost and due for promotion as the headmaster of the school. She was asked to forget it so that the one who was the candidate of the management to take over.”
In October of the same year a more sensational rape and murder case happened Saujanya, a 17 year old student of the same college at Ujire where Padmalatha had been studying was kidnapped in broad daylight. Though the alarm was raised and they searched everywhere they could not locate her. The next day morning her naked body was found. She was state of undress, raped and murdered. This led to a furore and public protests. However, the autopsy reports were botched; the investigation manipulated and an innocent Santosh Rao was framed who was acquitted after a trial as no evidence linking him to the crime existed. The whole process took a decade. The protests continued and a few months ago the govt of Karnataka constituted a special investigation team nab the murderers. This SIT was formed when a person called Chinnayya from Tumakur came to public with allegations of burying bodies under the instructions of people from the top. He claimed to have buried hundreds of such bodies over the past two decades and had fled the place. He had filed a statement before a magistrate and the same was placed on record. As the investigations started he was asked to show the spots where the bodies had been buried. A number of them were dug but very few skeletons came up. In the meanwhile, he changed his statement and said that he had made false averments under oath and had been a part of a conspiracy plotted by the activists who had been fighting against these! He was arrested for perjury and attempts were made to arrest the activists who had fought for justice.
As the investigations are going on, there has been political support for the murder accused. Those who protested are targeted and made the accused. The reporting of the matter was attempted to be stayed through courts. The three main political parties of Karnataka have tried to defend the temple owner and his family by declaring them innocent even before the investigations had started! In fact the Congress itself in its last stint in power had appointed a committee under a prominent leader ex MP Ugrappa in 2019 to investigate the deaths at this place. That committee had submitted a report about hundreds of unnatural deaths and disappearances at this place. There have been representations to the govt to implement the recommendations of this body.
It is not just these murders that have attracted the wrath of the public. The temple owners are also running schemes called self-help groups which are basically money lending schemes collecting usurious rates of interest for amounts lent by getting funds from nationalised banks at cheap rates. The employees are exploited and facilities are being denied to them. In fact, the Karnataka High court has remarked that the management has not come to them with clean hands when they tried to challenge an order from the PF commissioner to contribute to PF for the temple employees. The staff of the educational institutions have complained of violation of govt rules about reservations and misuse of public funds. There have been cases filed about forgery of govt documents, land records, getting govt land sanctioned filing false declarations etc.
The Dharmasthala case is a typical example of how justice can be delayed, denied and manipulated in this country by money, political influence and power. While the logical end to this is awaited the common citizen is asking whether some people are above the law in this country.
