Karnataka’s Honeytrap Scandal: Women’s Organizations, Your Silence Is Complicity!
The Karnataka honeytrap scandal exposes the exploitation of women, often depicted as culprits or victims. Despite serious allegations involving 48 politicians, women's rights organizations have remained notably silent, prompting criticism of their inaction amid these systemic issues.
FollowThe Karnataka Assembly’s honeytrap controversy has ignited a firestorm, shoving women into a glaring, unjust spotlight. Politicians bicker, brandishing CDs and crying for probes, while women tied to these scandals—be it the Assembly mess, Prajwal Revanna’s pendrive horror, or MLA Muniratna’s murky case—are labeled as schemers or prey.
Who’s really spinning this web, and why are women always the ones ensnared? More galling still: why are bodies like the Karnataka State Commission for Women and the National Commission for Women twiddling their thumbs as this unfolds?
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The Assembly uproar hit fever pitch when Cooperation Minister K.N. Rajanna claimed 48 politicians, including himself, were honeytrapped over decades. The BJP stormed in, waving CDs and alleging blackmail, with two women arrested in Tumakuru for supposedly snaring a leader. Then there’s Prajwal Revanna, the ex-MP whose 2024 pendrive scandal—thousands of explicit videos allegedly showing him abusing women—triggered an SIT probe that’s still crawling along in March 2025. MLA Muniratna’s case adds more fuel, with blackmail whispers and bizarre AIDS-related claims dragging women into the fray again. Truth’s still a ghost here, but women? They’re slammed fast—tagged as temptresses—while the real schemers slink away.
Who’s shoving these women into this muck? Are they willing players or pawns strong-armed by power and cash? We’re short on answers, but it’s obvious women are soft targets in a lopsided society. Poverty, weak education, and slim opportunities box them into traps set by others. Quit dumping on them—ask why they’re there. Where’s the help, the jobs, the shield to stop this?
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And what about the Karnataka State Commission for Women and the National Commission for Women? With the Assembly chaos, Revanna’s victims, and Muniratna’s mess piling up, these groups should be charging in—probing, shouting, backing the women stuck in this nightmare. Instead, they’re silent as stones, letting women shoulder the blame in a tale that’s all judgment, no mercy. This isn’t just a slip-up; it’s a gut-punch to their supposed purpose.
Blaming women here is like blaming a hammer for the nail. Some might sign up, sure, but the real crooks are the power-wielders—politicians, fixers, the shadowy lot running this circus. Women are the face of a uglier machine. Obsessing over them lets the masterminds off the hook. Why aren’t we chasing who gains from these traps? Why not pin the big shots?
This isn’t just political mudslinging; it’s a neon sign of our society’s breakdowns. Women shouldn’t be the punching bags—they’re already ground down by a system that chews them up. The Karnataka crises—Assembly, Revanna, Muniratna—should jolt us awake, not fuel a lynching. Stop trashing women and smash the setups caging them. They deserve justice, aid, dignity—not dirt. And the Karnataka State Commission for Women, the National Commission for Women, all those rights champions? Quit snoozing and start swinging. Anything less is a slap in the face to every woman they’re meant to protect.
(The author Girish Linganna is an award-winning Science Writer and a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. You can reach him at: girishlinganna@gmail.com)
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