Profiteers of poverty are driving the Dharmasthala backlash

New Delhi: For centuries, the Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Temple has been more than a shrine. It has fed the hungry, freed families from debt, fought alcoholism, educated rural youth and helped lift millions out of poverty. 

Today, that legacy is being dragged into a storm built on one sensational, unproven allegation, pushed hard on social media and consumed for outrage. To those who know the institution’s work, this doesn’t look like a search for truth. It looks like a targeted hit on Karnataka’s social and spiritual backbone.

What’s really at stake

This is not a doctrinal quarrel. It is a fight over power and resources dressed up as moral outrage.

For decades, the temple and its social arm, the Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP), have been a lifeline for lakhs across Karnataka. That lifeline has choked old profit streams that once fed on rural distress. The beneficiaries of that system are now angry, and organised.

Follow the money

In many coastal and rural districts, predatory moneylenders thrived by charging desperate families 60% interest or more. SKDRDP broke that trap with microfinance at about 12% per annum, giving families a way out of crippling debt. Every household that exits the usury cycle is a direct loss to those lenders. The resentment is predictable.

The temple’s Jana Jagruthi Vedike has run relentless anti-alcohol work, de-addiction camps for over 1.3 lakh people and “Navajeevi Samithis” to sustain sobriety. That dents liquor sales across villages. Liquor syndicates don’t forget hits to their bottom line.

By coupling welfare with Dharma, free healthcare, mass marriages, education for rural youth, Dharmasthala has reduced the social and economic vulnerabilities that conversion networks exploit. When incomes stabilise and dignity returns, the room for aggressive conversions shrinks. That, too, creates enemies.

Put together, you get a curious coalition: predatory lenders, liquor syndicates and conversion lobbies, each bruised by Dharmasthala’s interventions, now aligned in tarnishing its image. The noise machine is not exposing wrongdoing; it is running a smear to reclaim lost ground.

A model that works and therefore threatens

Dharmasthala pioneered mass marriages that cut dowry and caste barriers, removing crushing costs for poor couples. Hospitals under the SDM Medical Trust deliver free or affordable care. Over six million Self-Help Group members, many of them rural women, access loans for agriculture, small businesses and education. Pension schemes have disbursed Rs 110 crore to the elderly and infirm. Dairy cooperatives have received Rs 37.85 crore in aid, raising farmer incomes.

Besides temple’s reputation, it is also about a model that has reportedly lifted over 2.3 million people out of poverty and strengthened rural Karnataka’s economic backbone. Institutions that actually reduce poverty disrupt entrenched business models built on debt, addiction and division. Of course there is backlash.

The playbook in motion

Step one: float a dramatic claim. Step two: flood social feeds. Step three: force the institution to explain itself, not its work. Meanwhile, the decades-long ledger of service is pushed off the screen. When a legacy is on trial by hashtag, nuance dies first.

The question to ask is simple: who gains if Dharmasthala is weakened? The answer isn’t the poor, the indebted or the addicted. It is the networks that profited when rural families had no alternatives.

Don’t miss the larger battle

The “House of Dharma” is being accused not for failing the poor, but for succeeding at dismantling systems that thrived on them. When microfinance undercuts usury, when anti-addiction work cuts into liquor sales, when welfare and dignity blunt coercive conversions, those who lost influence will try to get it back.

So be clear about the stakes. This is a contest for Karnataka’s soul: between those who build resilience in villages and those who profit from despair. The allegations swirling today have not been tested. The record of service has been tested for decades.

As the noise grows, ask the only question that matters: is this about justice, or about breaking an institution that dared to make the poor unprofitable?