A Great Hero vs. Contemptible Mercenary Politicians
In my article “The Twelve Indian Political Figures I Like, Respect and Admire the Most”, one of the twelve persons I named was: “Dara Singh (of Orissa fame)”. While I have found had to be embarrassed (at having so fulsomely included them in my list) by the words and actions of one or two of the still-living “political figures”, two of the still-living ones in that list who will always be heroes in my eyes are Dara Singh and “The unknown, unnamed Sentinelese tribal who shot an arrow and killed the American missionary boy of Chinese origin in November 2018”.
Dara Singh is in the news again. The facts may be noted:
1. He has been in prison since January 2000, that is already close to 27 years. Another person convicted in the same case, Mahendra Hembram, was released prematurely in April 2025 after 25 years of imprisonment.
2. Mahendra Hembram, was released prematurely in April 2025 after 25 years of imprisonment on the grounds of good conduct.
Dara Singh was also recommended to be released by the Director-General
of Prisons and Correctional Services on
exactly similar grounds of good conduct. But, apparently at
the behest of the BJP government of Orissa, the State
Sentence Review Board (SSRB) reversed the
recommendation and cancelled Dara Singh’s release on the grounds
of “potential
communal disturbances, provocative gatherings by supporters outside the jail,
and the gravity of his convictions across multiple murder cases”.
3. The Supreme Court directed the SSRB and the Orissa government to take a decision on Dara Singh’s plea for premature release. The Orissa government, and the Chief Minister of Orissa, Mohan Majhi, officially rejected Dara Singh’s plea for premature release.
It
may be noted that this man, Mohan Majhi, who rejected Dara
Singh’s plea for premature release, is the same man who had sat on
dharna in 2022 demanding that Dara Singh be prematurely
released. At that time the state was being ruled by a BJD government and
the BJP was in the opposition. As soon as it came to power the crooked,
mercenary BJP − very, very, typically, as per its very consistent
record − has executed a full about-turn on this whole issue and now
refuses to release Dara Singh.
The
case is apparently scheduled to go before the Supreme Court again
tomorrow 17 September 2026. I do not know what will
be the decision tomorrow. But, regardless of what happens in the Supreme
Court, let us see what is the crux of the whole matter.
The twitter/internet is abuzz with arguments both for and against the release of Dara Singh. Many of the supporters of Dara Singh are sharply critical of the crooked BJP which never fails to prove that it is Enemy Number One of Hindus: always pretending to stand for Hindu Issues and Causes when not in power, and in order to come to power, and then unfailingly stabbing Hindus in the back after coming to power,
I will not bother to repeat what the supporters of Dara Singh are saying on twitter and other internet media spaces: let me simply state that bI am in absolutely total agreement with them. To me Dara Singh is a True Hindutva Hero, and if there had been many more like him India would not be fated to become a Hindu-minority country in 50-100 years from now. Dara Singh should not only be released, but his status as a Hindutva Hero must be recognized and declared.
But I will speak about those who are opposed to the release of Dara Singh and pretend to be full of moral horror at his act in killing the Staines family. Is it right to kill people, especially children? Obviously not! But that is not the issue here. This fake “moral horror” is the same fake “moral horror” that anti-Israel bleeding hearts profess to feel when they accuse Israel of “killing children”. I have already written articles on that subject. This kind of selective “moral horror” or “moral outrage” has zero value in my eyes, and should have zero value in the eyes of all sane and honest people.
How many of these people who feel moral outrage and moral horror at the fact that Hindu activists can consider Dara Singh to be a Hero, also feel the same moral outrage and moral horror at the fact that Francis Xavier, a man responsible for the institution of the Goa Inquisition, for the destruction of a large number of idols and Hindu temples in Goa and the flight of a large number of Hindus from Goa to other territories to escape active persecution, is considered not only by Catholics but also by countless brainless Hindus to be a Saint?
This same BJP now ruling in Orissa, a party which comes to power every time by stoking Hindu issues, and which (after having agitated for the release of Dara Singh just four years ago when they were not in power in Orissa) now refuses to release him after coming to power in that state.
And this is the same BJP which is ruling in Goa, and which, exactly five months ago, arrested a Hindu speaker, Gautam Khattar of the Sanatan Mahasangh, for criticizing Xavier during an event in Vasco, Goa, on April 19, 2026, calling him a "barbaric ruler" and a "terrorist" who destroyed Hindu temples and pushed for the Goa Inquisition. He was arrested five days later.
Unless it is officially recognized in India that Xavier was a "terrorist" who destroyed Hindu temples and pushed for the Goa Inquisition, and not a “saint”, no-one has any “moral” right to object in any way to Dara Singh being considered a Hindu and Hindutva Hero.
As I said, I do not know what will happen tomorrow in the Supreme Court.
APPENDIX ADDED 17 Sept 2026:
Someone brought to my notice this interesting quote from the Bible, Deuteronomy 13:6-9: “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or your cherished wife or your closest companion should try to entice you in secrecy, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’, gods that neither you nor your forefathers have known, from the gods of the people all around you, whether those near you or far away from you, from one end of the land to the other end of the land, you must not give in to him or listen to him; nor should you show pity or feel compassion or protect him; instead you should kill him without fail. Your hand should be the first to come upon him to put him to death, and the hand of all the people afterward.”
Isn’t this exactly what Dara Singh is supposed to have done? Can Bible-worshippers condemn him for this?
APPENDIX ADDED 19 Sept 2026:
A reader asked me a very interesting question in a personal mail:
In your article ‘Internal Sabotage or The Enemies Within”, you
wrote “Christianity does not typically convert people of target
communities by appealing to them to embrace their ancestral identities (in this
case, the alleged “pre-Hindu” “non-Aryan” religious heritage of Dravidian-language
speakers). Christianity (like its successor Islam) typically converts people by
telling them that their ancestral religious identities are “Heathen” or “Pagan”
identities which will take them to Hell and must therefore be abandoned
for the One True Religion.”
How does this above verse, which condemns people who abandon the religion of their ancestors, fit in with this?”
A very important question! The point is that the above verses from Deuteronomy do not belong to the Christian New Testament but to the Jewish Old Testament (and in fact to the Torah, the most sacred part of the Jewish Old Testament), and, in fact, along with other similar verses which abound in the Old Testament, they underline the very fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism is a religion which totally frowns on conversion from one religion to another and the abandonment of ancestral Gods for the Gods of others (the Old Testament is full of such statements), while making people abandon their ancestral gods for the god of Jesus is the most fundamental tenet of Christianity.
Of course the Old Testament does not make these pronouncements for all the people of the world but for Jews: to the Old Testament, Jehovah is the special god of the Jews alone and the Jews alone are his “chosen people”. In the above quotation from Deuteronomy, the next verse, verse 10, specifically says “And you must stone him to death, because he has sought to turn you away from Jehovah your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”. Notably, while the Old Testament repeatedly keeps telling the Jews not to abandon their ancestral God Jehovah, it nowhere asks the Jews to compel or ask non-Jews to abandon their ancestral Gods and adopt Jehovah.
When Christianity was taking birth, the first aim of the First Christians was to claim that Jesus was the “promised Messiah” (of the Jews), promised in the Old Testament, and all Jews alone were called upon to accept this. When this bid failed, they reached out to “Gentiles” (non-Jews) and turned hostile to Jews who refused to join their bandwagon. So the above verse from Deuteronomy prohibiting the adoption of “other Gods” was as applicable, in the eyes of Jews, to the “God of Jesus” as to all the “other Gods”.
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