Dr. Deepessh Divaakaran (Dr. DD)

Joseph Vijay became Chief Minister. The people celebrated democracy. But did they actually choose? Meet Santiago Martin. Lottery King. Political donor. Diplomat. And perhaps the most powerful man in South Indian politics. Net worth? More than ₹6,000 crore. The official story sounds beautiful. A poor child labourer. From Myanmar. He returns to Coimbatore with nothing. Starts small. Builds an empire. India loves these stories. But reality moved very fast. By 1987, Martin already operated five lottery shops simultaneously. Five. Not one struggling tea stall. Not one roadside counter. Five operational lottery businesses. A poor migrant becoming a king in a few years. Almost cinematic. Nobody asked where the capital came from. Then came the raids. Income Tax hit nearly 70 locations. ED uncovered shell companies. Benami properties. False liabilities. Unaccounted income. The numbers became absurd. ₹595 crore allegedly undisclosed. 350 shell entities. ₹3,000 crore properties under questionable structures. ₹15,000 crore annual turnover from linked illegal companies. Then came a death. His cashier Palanisamy was interrogated. Two days later, he was found dead in a pond. The story disappeared quietly. Tamil Nadu moved on. Martin did not. Instead, he funded everybody. DMK got the Highest. TMC. BJP. YSRCP. ₹1,368 crore in electoral bonds. Now pause there. Because his declared yearly profit was around ₹49 crore. Yet he donated multiple times that amount politically. So where does the real money come from? Myanmar appears. Bhutan appears. Nepal appears. Martin Myanmar. Lottery monopolies. Cross-border structures. Then another layer appears. Liberia. Martin served as Consul General for Liberia. That is not just a title. That means diplomatic access. Diplomatic insulation. Diplomatic corridors. And then Vatican appears. Pope Benedict XVI personally issued an Apostolic Blessing. It was given to Martin and his family. Most Catholics never even see the Pope closely. Martin received one of the Vatican’s highest symbolic recognitions. Then came the ecosystem around him. Foundations. Church-linked networks. Civil society connections. International coordination. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu’s anti-conversion law vanished. The same political ecosystem received massive funding. The same ecosystem also defended conversion activity. Connect the dots yourself. Now fast forward to 2026. Martin’s wife wins through AIADMK. Declared assets: ₹5,683 crore. His son wins through NDA-backed politics in Puducherry. His son-in-law Aadhav Arjuna rises through TVK. Now positioned No.2 in Joseph Vijya’s Cabinet. One family. Three rival camps. All victorious. That is not political luck. That is board control. Tamil Nadu thinks it elected leaders. Maybe it only selected players already placed on the board. And maybe the real question is not who Santiago Martin funds. But who Santiago Martin ultimately serves.

They called it a Krishna movement. Everywhere I looked, There was a Bhagavad Gita in someone’s hand. On roads. In malls. At railway stations. Even inside airports. Young devotees stopping strangers. Offering books. Sometimes selling them. Sometimes giving them away for free. Always the same claim: “This is the real Bhagavad Gita.” But something felt strange to me. How did ISKCON become the global face of Krishna? Who decided this version was the authentic one? That was when I started digging. Krishna was born in Mathura. ISKCON was born in New York. That was my first Shocker. Then I started digging. July 13, 1966. A 69 yr old Indian monk registers a society. In Manhattan. Under American law. His name: A.C. Bhaktivedanta. His mission seemed sincere. But what came later? That is where the story darkens. Prabhupada died in 1977. Within months, 11 Western disciples took control. They called themselves Zonal Acharyas. They sat on thrones. Demanded worship. Controlled the movement. The Governing Body Commission became the real power. Today the GBC has 48 members. Self-electing. Unaudited. Unapproved by any Indian religious authority. No Bharatiya Sect controls it. No sampradaya audits it. It answers to New York. Now comes the Gita. The Bhagavad Gita has 700 verses. Embedded inside Mahabharata. Protected through centuries by living traditions. Prabhupada released his version in 1972. Through Macmillan Publishers, New York. He called it: “Bhagavad-Gita As It Is.” The Current version is now distributed globally. 23 million copies sold. 56 languages. Millions believe they are reading the untouched original. Then came my biggest discomfort. Not historical. Psychological. By Chapter 3, something started feeling… off. Krishna no longer felt like consciousness. Or cosmic wisdom. Or the friend of Arjuna. He started sounding like a ruler. And the reader started sounding like a slave. Obey. Surrender. Follow. Or fall. The tone felt strangely familiar. Not Dharmic. But authoritarian. Almost Abrahamic in structure. A divine authority above. A guilty human below. Reward for obedience. Fear for deviation. That was the moment my questions became deeper. Because Sanatan Dharma traditionally questions. Debates. Explores. But this version often felt different. Less inner awakening. More institutional submission. But the deeper story is copyright. 1972. Prabhupada creates Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT). Separate from ISKCON. To protect his books. The Gita becomes corporate property. India’s sacred scripture. Legally reframed like company output. Owned by an American entity. An American-registered structure, now controls the world’s most distributed Gita. And hardly anyone asks questions. Can Krishna be reduced to one organisation? One commentary? One corporation? The Bhagavad Gita does not belong to any brand. It belongs to a civilisation. And maybe the real danger is how easily civilisations stop questioning.