After Kannada lecturer and Dalit activist Hulikunte Murthy was subjected to casteist slurs and personal attacks for a social media post he made about the Chandrayaan 3 mission, he clarified that he was questioning the scientific temperament of the people behind the mission since they had taken a miniature model of the spacecraft to a temple to ‘offer prayers’.
Murthy, who works as a Kannada lecturer in the Government PU College, Malleswaram, allegedly wrote a Facebook post in Kannada that read: “Chandrayaan-3 will be a failure…” Using the ‘Tirupati nama’ phrase, he indicated that the moon mission will fail this time around as well. A team of ISRO scientists had offered prayers at the Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh with a miniature model of Chandrayaan 3 ahead of the launch on July 14.
The controversy snowballed after BJP leader and former education minister Suresh Kumar wrote to the current Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa, expressing concerns over the lecturer’s post.
Responding to the furore over his post, Murthy told TNM, “That the miniature model of Chandrayaan 3 was taken to a temple by ISRO scientists made me question the scientific temperament of the people behind the project. I metaphorically questioned what happens if the mission fails even this time, just like the last time.”
Following his post, the Karnataka Education Department sought a clarification from Murthy. The lecturer said that he is yet to file his response. “I will still continue to teach, cooperate with the department, and pursue my case legally,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Bengaluru police registered a case against seven individuals in connection with the slurs against Murthy based on a complaint filed by him. The FIR in the case detailed how Murthy’s wife Nanda was also dragged into the issue and that the accused called Murthy ‘a traitor pest’ and also threatened to kill his wife with ‘urine-coated slippers’. One post on social media also likened his wife to a sex worker. The police registered a case against Kalyan M, Sudharshan, Vikas Vickey, Mruntunjaya Hiremath, Basu Nayak, Tumkuru Kesri, and others, under vario,us sections of the Indian Penal Code and the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act).
The All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice (AILAJ), a lawyers collective, issued a statement expressing solidarity with Hulikunte Murthy over the harassment he faced. AILAJ in its statement said, “We stand in solidarity with Shri Hulikunte Murthy, poet, writer, teacher and activist in Bengaluru, Karnataka, who is facing targeted harassment for expressing his criticism regarding the lack of scientific temperament in the actions of the ISRO chairman visiting the Tirupati Temple with a miniature model of Chandrayaan-3 prior to its launch.”
The statement pointed out that cultivating a scientific temper is a part of the Indian Constitution. “The Constitution of India, under Article 51A(h), enshrines a fundamental duty for every citizen to cultivate scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry and reform. This duty is particularly vital in institutions of science, where the pursuit of knowledge and rational thinking are of utmost importance. However, Shri Murthy is facing targeted backlash for advocating this fundamental duty,” the statement said.
Murthy is an influential Dalit activist hailing from Hulikunte village in Doddaballapura. He has been working as a Kannada lecturer for the last 15 years and was the recipient of the Basavaraj Kattimani Prashasthi in 2013 for a poetry collection titled Neeligyana. He is credited with playing a part in bringing together the different factions of the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti (DSS) in Karnataka.