We Are Still Not Living in a Democracy: We Are No Different from People 1,000 Years Ago
The recent horror story from the Mastala Temple in Karnataka, India, is not an isolated scandal. It is a mirror. It shows that, despite smartphones, elections, and “modern” institutions, we are still living under the same old systems of power, fear, and silence that ruled people 1,000 years ago. The only difference is the packaging: today’s kings wear suits and titles, not crowns and swords.
In this case, a former temple cleaner came forward after decades of forced complicity. From 1995 to 2014, he says he was made to burn hundreds of bodies—mostly women and children, many of them sexually assaulted, some as young as infants. He watched girls arrive with torn clothes, bodies marked by violence, and then watched them disappear in flames, along with any evidence. For years he stayed silent, not because he agreed, but because he was threatened: if he spoke, his family would be “cut into pieces.” That is not a metaphor; that is the language of feudal terror.
When his own female relative was sexually harassed by temple authorities, he finally fled with his family and lived in hiding for ten years before daring to report. This is not the behavior of citizens in a functioning democracy. In a real democracy, people do not need to run, hide, or fear for their lives when they expose crimes. They can walk into a police station, file a complaint, and trust that the law will protect them, not the powerful.
Yet here, the accused are linked to the Heggade family, a religious and political dynasty whose influence reaches deep into local institutions. Despite repeated reports of missing persons near the temple, the police did little. Even now, with such grave accusations and a detailed confession, the real decision‑makers at the temple have not been formally named as suspects. This is not justice; this is the old pattern of impunity, where the powerful decide who gets punished and who gets protected.
What this reveals is that democracy, for most ordinary people, remains a ritual rather than a reality. We vote, but the real power still lies with dynasties, religious elites, and local strongmen who control land, faith, and fear. The temple is not just a place of worship; it is a center of unchecked authority, where crimes can be hidden under the cloak of tradition and divine legitimacy. The cleaner’s story is the story of the serf, the peasant, the voiceless—someone who witnesses evil every day but is forced to serve it or be destroyed.
We like to believe that we are “modern” and “progressive,” but the structures around us are medieval. Power is still concentrated in the hands of a few; dissent is still punished; truth is still buried. The only real difference between us and people 1,000 years ago is that today we have cameras, internet, and hashtags—but even those are often controlled, censored, or drowned out by propaganda and fear.
If we are serious about democracy, we must stop pretending that elections alone are enough. Democracy means that no one is above the law, that no institution is untouchable, and that the weakest person in society can speak without fear and be believed. Until that happens, we are not living in a democracy. We are living in the same old world of kings, temples, and terror—just with better lighting and worse excuses.
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