Bengaluru: In the early hours of Monday, a group of police officers barged into the office of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Pandavapura in Karnataka’s Mandya district, about 100 km from Bengaluru, with the intention to arrest a pracharak named Prashanth.
According to those in the know, this was meant to be a preventive detention of anyone perceived as a threat to the “fragile” peace in the sugarcane-growing district.
The raid, which occurred a little after midnight, was met with stiff resistance by the RSS members, and the police eventually left without making any arrests. A few hours later, a barrage of messages on various WhatsApp groups urged people from across the town to rush to the spot to protest against the actions of the Siddaramaiah-led government.
Around 300 km away, in Dakshina Kannada, Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel were deployed around the B.C. Road locality on the outskirts of the coastal city of Mangaluru after Hindu and Muslim groups almost clashed with each other. Some Muslim youngsters had allegedly disrupted the peace by riding their bikes around the area and waving Islamic flags after Eid-e-Milad celebrations.
The two incidents are not related—at least not entirely—but Mandya, the Vokkaliga-dominated farmer heartland of Karnataka, is fast turning into a mirror image of Dakshina Kannada as a communal hotbed, experts say.
“This is not happening out of the blue. It is part of the design of Right-wing groups. This is their (Bharatiya Janata Party) action plan to exploit one seismic (communally sensitive) region after another. They have publicly stated that after Dakshina Kannada, Shivamogga, they will target Mandya,” developmental analyst Suresh Kanjarpane told ThePrint.
Although the BJP has tried to push the Hindutva agenda as a poll plank in other parts of the country, caste is the bigger dividing factor in Karnataka, with the exception of the coastal districts. Political observers say that the BJP is now trying to make inroads into southern Karnataka by taking up issues that can consolidate people into a Hindu vote bank, rather than manipulating the caste factor.
Just last week, Hindu and Muslim groups clashed and threw stones at each other in Nagamangala during Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, fuelling tensions in Mandya.
In January this year, the village of Keragodu in the same district had turned into a fortress over Hindutva groups protesting against the state government’s decision to deny permission to hoist a saffron or religious flag near the bus stand.
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‘Appeasement politics by Congress’
On Monday, a three-member fact-finding committee of the BJP—led by MLA Dr C.N. Ashwath Narayan—made its way to Mandya to probe the Nagamangala riots.
After speaking to local Hindu shopkeepers and others who had been victims of arson and losses, Narayan trained his guns on the Congress government, accusing it of “raiding patriots” and letting troublemakers go scot free in Pandavapura.
“They (Karnataka government) are not raiding those who should be raided, but are instead going after patriots, people who safeguard the country and innocents. What do they think of themselves and what are they trying to achieve? This is the kind of appeasement politics that the Congress is doing for political benefit,” Narayan told reporters in Mandya.
The district, otherwise known for agitations related to farmers’ issues and the Cauvery water protests, is fast turning into another “laboratory” for the BJP, according to political analysts.
Srirangapatna, which falls in Mandya district, was the capital of 18th-century ruler Tipu Sultan. His legacy has often become a flashpoint in political tussles between the BJP and the Congress.
In the run up to the 2023 assembly elections, the Karnataka BJP had propped up two characters dismissed by historians as fictional—Vokkaliga chieftains Uri Gowda & Nanje Gowda—who the party insisted had killed Tipu Sultan over two centuries ago. The theory was dismissed by the head of the Adichunchungiri Matha, the spiritual headquarters of the Vokkaliga community, based in Mandya.
This was seen by experts and political observers as an attempt by the BJP to get the Vokkaliga community to focus on their Hindu identity rather than caste.
Political watchers say that this is because the Vokkaligas are often viewed as supporters of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda. But the land-owning agrarian community is also seen to be backing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and by extension, Hindutva.
Electorally, the BJP has minimal presence in these parts, but attracts sizeable support for pro-Hindutva rallies, anti-hijab campaigns and other events.
Although Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) has positioned itself as a secular party, these credentials came under scrutiny when it allied with the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
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‘Communal clashes rising in Mandya’
Union minister and former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said last week that communal clashes in these parts of the state were negligible until recently.
“The Congress and the JD(S) have done politics in this region and post-Independence, there was an environment in which Muslims used to vote for the JD(S). In recent political developments, the Congress has started experimenting with appeasement politics and we will not give them this opportunity,” Kumaraswamy told mediapersons Friday.
The JD(S) and Congress are the main rivals in the region, and the former has also partnered with the BJP informally in the past to take on the latter, whom both consider a common enemy, according to political analysts.
Kumaraswamy, who represents the BJP-JD(S) alliance, won the Mandya Lok Sabha seat with a margin of over 2.5 lakh votes, despite the Congress winning a higher number of seats in last year’s assembly polls.
The Congress has accused the BJP of trying to “saffronise” Mandya.
In June 2022, several Hindutva groups, including the Vishva Hindu Parishad and its affiliate Bajrang Dal, sought permission from the authorities to conduct a session in and around the town to gather and chant the Hanuman Chalisa. The venue picked for this event was outside Srirangapatna’s Jumma Masjid (Masjid-E-Ala), which Hindutva groups claim was a temple that was forcibly converted into a mosque by Tipu Sultan.
The call for the event was along the lines of other such calls across the country to “reclaim” temples, which were allegedly “forcefully” converted into mosques during the reigns of Muslim rulers.
In Mandya, the Jumma Masjid issue was first voiced by the Narendra Modi Vichar Manch, an organisation that claims to be working for the progressive development of the country.
Communal incidents are becoming a common affair in Mandya, and experts say that there is a complacency among parties, such as the Congress and the JD(S), which is enabling this.
“Leaders believe that Mandya’s DNA is not communal in nature and that such kind of politics will not take root in a place that is known for its strong farmer movements. The JD(S) is taking a huge gamble by allying with the BJP for short-term gains and the Congress is not thinking about anything beyond elections,” said analyst Kanjarpane.
All it takes is one incident of communal violence and it takes decades to reverse it, he said.
It is being feared that the communal politics may spill over to the neighbouring Channapatna assembly constituency, where bypolls are due after the former MLA, Kumaraswamy, was elected to the Lok Sabha.
“For the next five years, the BJP may not capture much in these parts electorally, but will destroy the entire edifice of the Old Mysuru region irreparably. It will take decades to recover. The next targets are Channapatna and Ramanagara, which have sizeable Muslim populations. It is diabolical and the Congress has no strategy to counter this,” Kanjarpane added.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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