Karnataka police have arrested a man for repeatedly breaking and vandalising murtis of Hindu deities in Saligrama village near K.R. Nagar in Mysuru district of Karnataka, police said on Friday.

The accused has told police that he was breaking murtis as he thought people were being ‘deceived’ as they worshiped ‘idols of stones’. The police are keeping his identity confidential for ‘security reasons’.

The accused had broken the door of Sri Siddalingeshwara and Mahadeshwara temple. After barging inside, he had broken Shivlings installed inside the temple in Bherya village on December 7. The incident had created a tense situation in the region.

District Superintendent R. Chetan had visited the spot and a special team under the leadership of the Deputy Superintendent of Police Dr. A.R. Sumith was formed. The special team had gathered information about the accused and arrested him from Bherya village. The accused had confessed to the crime in the investigation.  

The accused had dethroned the statue of Sri Lakshmi Devi and threw it into a well after deforming the murti. The incident had taken place in the limits of K.R. Pet Rural police station. He had also told police that when he was about to break the lock and enter Sri Anjaneya temple in Beeravalli village, but had to flee as people came.

According to police, the accused had completed his SSLC (Class 10) and he is into agriculture. He has gotten into the habit of breaking murtis of Hindu deities for a long time. He thought that people were being ‘deceived as they worshiped idols’. He did not touch gold and silver ornaments, embellishments, or cash kept in the temples. Further investigation is on.

The assault on Hindu temples and Hindu Dharma

‘Idol worship’ is one of the gravest sins as per core doctrines of Abrahamic religions, i.e. Christianity and Islam. There are lakhs of radical mosques, churches and other Abrahamic organizations that are indoctrinating their followers with hate for Hindu Dharma, where murti puja (considered ‘idol worship’ by Abrahamic fundamentalists) is one of the main methods of worshipping the divine.

When a murti is first installed in a temple, the prana pratishtha (rite of consecrating a murti in a temple) ceremony invites the deity to be a resident guest, and the ritual is considered to infuse divine life into the murti and temple. Sadly, even many HINOs (Hindus in name only) today are not aware of this basic fact and thus fall for propaganda that ‘idol worship’ is transactional or ‘Brahminical’, and inherently worthless.

Such anti-Hindu attitudes are not limited to Abrahamic supremacists alone. They are also shared by communists, Ambedkarite neo-Buddhists and left-liberals. In the guise of critiquing certain feudal attitudes or rituals, the whole of Hindu Dharma is demonized. The gradual brainwashing of Hindu society through education and mass media has allowed such hatred and bigotry to be mainstreamed and often go unchallenged.

Hindu temples are constantly desecrated and vandalized in our neighbouring Muslim countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But seventy-five years of secularism has mainstreamed such anti-Hindu attitudes even in Bharat. Our secular state has been hijacked by elements who harbor a deep-seated dislike for Hindu Dharma, starting with our first PM Nehru who had stated “Hindu temples repel me, suppress my spirit“.

Vandalization of temples and desecration of murtis occurs with mind-numbing frequency all across our country today. This epidemic is severe in states like Andhra where over 100 such incidents have been reported in the last few years ever since the Christian Jagan Reddy, who comes from a rabidly evangelical family, became CM. Such incidents are rapidly increasing in Tamil Nadu and now Karnataka too. But even northern states like UP, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh witness such hate crimes with alarming regularity.

It is time to revoke the ‘right to propagate’ religion granted in our Constitution to Abrahamic religions, which has been abused by fanatical elements with overt/covert support from mainstream Christian/Muslim organizations and our secular state.

Protecting indigenous religious traditions and cultures is the duty of our state. While Dharma has always been open to respectful dialogue, vaad-prativaad, between different spiritual paths, the situation has deteriorated so much that unprecedented measures are needed. A law against Hinduphobia, which should cover profanity against all Dharmic belief systems including tribal ones, is the need of the hour, if only for a limited period of say 20 years.

On the one hand, the state brushes brutal lynching of a poor beggar falsely charged with ‘sacrilege’ in a minority place of worship under the carpet. On the other, it suppresses even the identity of someone who has been repeatedly vandalizing murtis and temples – forget acknowledging the religious indoctrination which gives rise to such hate crimes.

If this serious issue is not addressed asap and Hindu Dharmic belief systems continue to face such persecution and hate crimes, the country risks plunging into internecine warfare. Hindus can only stomach so much abuse, ridicule and systemic discrimination by the state.

(With IANS inputs)

(Featured image: Representative only)