Shivarama Karanth’s voice for our times

 It has been more than a quarter century since Kota Shivarama Karanth, the great rationalist, novelist, playwright, environmentalist, and fearless public intellectual, passed away at the age of 95. Karanth was often called a “one-man university” because of the vastness of his knowledge and the range of his contributions. But more than that, he was known for his uncompromising courage: he never hesitated to call a spade a spade, no matter how powerful the interests ranged against him.

Karanth lived in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district, the very soil that has now been rocked by allegations of serial rapes, murders, and cover-ups in Dharmasthala. The names of two young women, Vedavalli (killed in 1983) and Padmalatha (whose death also shocked the district), remain symbols of those unnatural deaths that were hushed up at the time. Today, as the controversy has returned with far greater force, one cannot help but ask: What would Shivarama Karanth have said if he were alive now?

To imagine that, we must turn to the essence of his voice: blunt, rational, and morally uncompromising. Here is a speculative oration — in the spirit of Karanth — as he might have spoken today.

---

“My fellow Kannadigas, my brothers and sisters of Dakshina Kannada…”

When I stand before you today, in my mind echo the names of two young women — Vedavalli and Padmalatha. Their lives were cut short in ways unnatural, cruel, and unspeakable. Their deaths shook this soil where I too was born and raised. And yet, decades later, the soil still remains stained, the truth buried, and justice denied.

What kind of society are we, if the cries of our daughters can be muffled by money, by influence, by the false glamour of piety? What use is our learning, our culture, our temples, our festivals — if we cannot give dignity and safety to women in our midst?

I have said all my life: do not live in fear of authority, do not close your eyes to injustice merely because it comes dressed in silk or cloaked in ritual. A spade must be called a spade. And if that spade has blood on it, then let us say so aloud — no matter whose hands wield it.

When Vedavalli was killed, whispers spread, but courage was absent. When Padmalatha’s life ended, the district reeled, but very soon silence fell, heavy and unnatural. People bowed their heads, not in mourning, but in surrender. The powerful hushed it all up. The newspapers, the leaders, the institutions — they all turned away. And those who dared to speak were branded enemies.

But truth has a strange way of returning. You can bury it for years, for decades. But it will rise again, like a spring under stone, breaking through, unstoppable. And now, in our Karnataka, this truth has burst into public discourse.

What would I say today? I would thunder — shame on us if we cannot even ask who killed Vedavalli, who silenced Padmalatha, who trampled upon the innocence of hundreds of voiceless girls and women. Shame on us if we bow before power instead of standing by the weak.

Do not tell me about service projects, about wealth, about charity. No amount of hospitals, schools, or temples can erase a single crime against a woman. Do not tell me that great deeds excuse dark deeds. Justice is indivisible. One Vedavalli denied is a wound on the whole of society. One Padmalatha silenced is a curse upon us all.

My brothers and sisters — truth and justice are not ornaments to be worn when convenient. They are duties to be lived, even when dangerous. Silence is not dharma. Silence is betrayal.

If I were younger, if my body had strength, I would walk into Dharmasthala myself and demand: who are the guilty? Why are they protected? Why is justice denied? But my voice, even in its old age, refuses to be silent. And I ask you — will your voices remain silent?

Let this land of ours not be remembered as the land of hushed-up crimes. Let it be remembered as the land where people rose, questioned, and refused to bow down before lies. For that is the only way dharma will survive.

Truth alone is dharma. Justice alone is dharma. Everything else is falsehood.