The so-called “mass burial” conspiracy at the Dharmasthala temple was more than just a bizarre crime story. It was an audacious attempt to smear one of Karnataka’s most respected Hindu pilgrimage centres, a test case to see how far anti-Hindu narratives could be pushed. But in the end, the episode has not only collapsed under its own falsehoods, it has also cracked open the growing rift within the state’s Congress government.
The drama began when a masked man surfaced with sensational claims: that hundreds of young girls had been raped, murdered, and buried in the forests surrounding Dharmasthala. The grotesque charge was enough to grab headlines and cast a long shadow over the temple’s reputation. In its eagerness—or perhaps nervousness—the Siddaramaiah government acted swiftly, setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and launching excavations at 17 sites flagged by the “whistleblower.”
The outcome was humiliating. As digging progressed, the horror story unravelled. Only a couple of skulls were reportedly found, belonging to men, with no evidence of sexual assault or mass graves. The man eventually admitted he had been paid to make the allegations. What was projected as a scandal exposing temple crimes turned out to be a conspiracy to malign Hindu institutions.
Had it not been for sections of the media—especially Republic TV Kannada—exposing glaring inconsistencies, the damage could have been catastrophic. Imagine the narrative: Dharmasthala, a revered temple serving lakhs across castes and communities, painted as a graveyard of raped women. The psychological assault on Hindu faith would have been enormous. Many now believe the episode was a “trial balloon” to measure just how much venom against temples could be injected into public discourse.
The BJP, unsurprisingly, pounced. It accused the Congress government of amplifying baseless allegations to weaken Hindu faith. But the more consequential fallout is not outside the party—it is inside.
The uneasy partnership between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar has been under strain since day one. Dharmasthala has deepened that divide. Siddaramaiah’s critics whisper that he lent credibility to the masked man too quickly, dragging the government into avoidable embarrassment. Shivakumar’s camp insists it was their leader’s intervention that exposed the conspiracy, turning him into the “saviour” of the party.
Shivakumar has been quick to signal his political instincts. In a striking move inside the Assembly, he even invoked an RSS prayer song—an unmistakable message to the Congress high command that playing with Hindu faith is a political disaster. His loyalists argue that he not only salvaged the party from further humiliation but also reinforced his image as Congress’s insurance policy in Karnataka.
For Siddaramaiah, however, the episode is another addition to a growing list of political headaches. Not long ago, his attempt to undercut Shivakumar during the Royal Challengers Bangalore felicitation backfired. Now, with anti-incumbency slowly simmering, every misstep further erodes the party’s standing among Hindus, a crucial voter base in Karnataka.
The Chief Minister’s camp, meanwhile, accuses Shivakumar of exploiting the fiasco to carve out the mantle of “protector of Hindu faith,” encroaching on Siddaramaiah’s political turf. In short, both sides are spinning the episode to score points, and in the process, exposing the Congress’s fragile unity.
Beyond Congress’s internal war, Dharmasthala raises a larger, more troubling trend: the casual weaponisation of false narratives to discredit temples and Hindu traditions. Each time such fabrications collapse, the immediate damage may be contained, but the long-term risk is an erosion of trust—both in institutions of faith and in governance itself.
For now, the graves at Dharmasthala have turned out to be figments of conspiracy, not reality. But the political graves may yet be real. The BJP has fresh ammunition, Congress has exposed its own fault lines, and Karnataka’s ruling duo remains locked in a cold war for supremacy.
The Dharmasthala conspiracy may have collapsed in the mud of false graves. But it has dug up something far more dangerous for Congress—the cracks in its own house.
