Swamis playing saviours, people left as spectators
The sight of seven Karnataka swamis marching into Delhi darbar to plead for D Gang rescue would have been comical if it were not so tragic. Men burdened with their own baggage of scandals—Vachanananda swami with his tainted past, Vajradehi swami with a kidnap complaint—proclaimed with pride that they had convinced the Union Home Minister to consider an NIA probe into Dharmasthala’s festering crimes. For once, the saffron robes did not conceal the naked political intent. Let us be clear: the NIA has no business here. It is meant for terrorism, cross-border conspiracies, and matters of national security. Dharmasthala is about rapes, murders, and disappearances under the nose of a feudal family and its protectors. That is law and order, and that is the state’s domain. Only a Special Investigation Team fits the bill. Yet the swamis, clutching the well-worn “foreign hand” cliché, tell us that people’s agitation for truth and justice for the Dharmasthala crimes and YouTuber...