Normally, the temple security do not even allow a wheel chair to come near the temple front gate as a rule, but this time they appear to have broken their own rule by allowing a ten-wheel giant in the premise.
“I have a bus to catch to Chennai at 2pm and here I am standing in a queue still far away from the entrance to the temple. Me and my family are tired, thirsty and hungry, I heard that some politician is taking an oath of truth in front of the deity, and here I am praying for simple wish to give me and my family a darshan with the god,” complained Ramanujam Rajan, who came from T Nagar in Chennai to Dharmasthala with his daughter, wife and son.
In the case of Krishnan Kutty of Trishoor it was pathetic, he had stood in the queue at 7am and was stopped in the queue just before he came very close to the door. The reason? Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa has arrived. “The queue stopped after I had stood in the queue for more than 2 hours and being an arthritis patient my legs get severe pains even after standing for 15-20 minutes. I do not know when the queue will be allowed to move,” he said.
Mahesh Rao of RT Nagar, Bangalore had stronger views, “Have our politicians lost faith in pillars of democracy? How can they call themselves ‘democratically elected’ if they do not have trust in the law and justice? I can’t believe this is happening in 21st century India, what will our future generations see – a theocratic state of India?”
“I was happy when BS Yeddyurappa had taken his oath on the farmer when he was sworn in as the chief minister in 2008, but today he is swearing in temples that too against charges of corruption, what is this state coming to, and why should Dharmasthala temple authorities allow such things to take place?” asked Rupali Vaidya from Mumbai suburb Vikhroli.
The locals, however, have other views, they believe that fear of god was the only thing that worked. “They (politicians) do not fear any tenets of democracy, they buy votes, they bend rules to their advantage, they use bureaucrats to carry out their corrupt activities, they do not care for the judiciary and sometimes they also run their own media houses or buy up media persons, so what was left was the fear of god,” said Ramappa Poojary of Laila village in Belthangady taluk who had come to see the ‘religious circus’ at Dharmasthala as he wished to call it.
“Our deity (Manjunatha) does not tolerate falsehood, he will punish those who lie to him or to his judges who dispense justice. I have seen in many instances in the past wherein those who gave wrong or false testimony suffered in life and had to deal with loss of wealth, off springs, power, health and social humiliation. So those who take him lightly and try to legitimise their misdemeanors by testifying in front of him should think twice before doing such a thing,” said philosophical Raghavendra Bhat, a local shop keeper in Dharmasthala.
Apart from Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, 20 MLAs arrived in an air-conditioned white Volvo and drove up to the very threshold of the temple’s main door and coolly walked inside the temple, unmindful of thousands of common people crammed inside a ‘queue cage’ barely 1.5 feet wide.
Normally, the temple security do not even allow a wheel chair to come near the temple front gate as a rule, but this time they appear to have broken their own rule by allowing a ten-wheel giant in the premise.
Also see: First photos from Dharmasthala: HD Kumaraswamy 1, BS Yeddyurappa 0
Dharmasthala: HD Kumaraswamy's letter of truth to Lord Manjunatha
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