By Sagarika Ghosel

The beauty of coastal Karnataka is in sharp contrast to its politics. Sparkling backwaters and swaying palms were once witness to a land of religious co-existence. But over the last two decades, this picturesque region has been caught up in the politics of religious polarisation.

It was from here the sangh parivar first began its campaigns, starting with Hindu mobilisation against migrant Muslim workers from Kerala. In the 1983 Assembly elections, the BJP won 18 seats for the first time, mostly from the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Uttar Kannada.

In 2013 the Congress breached the saffron fortress and swept the region as the sangh parivar faced a revolt within. Out of 12 seats of Dakshin Kannada, Congress won 10, BJP 2. In Mangalore out of 8 seats, Congress won 7. A year later though in Lok Sabha polls it was business as usual as the BJP won all 3 MP seats of coastal Karnataka.

Mangalore comprises 18 percent Muslims, 13 percent Christians and 69 percent Hindus. “The mix of religions here makes Mangalore a communal tinder box,” says Suresh Bhat Bakrabail of the PUCL, ” but those fomenting communal troubles are only playing politics. It is not religious but purely political communalism.”

In 2014 Bhat himself was attacked and his face smeared with cow dung by suspected Bajrang Dal activists.

The city based Komu Sauharda Vedika or Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony has compiled a comprehensive report showing that from 73 communal incidents in Mangalore in 2010, the figure peaked to 228 in 2015 and remained high at 125 in 2017.

The report states communal incidents are becoming more diverse, from moral policing, to attacks on cattle traders, attacks against alleged conversions, hate speech and attacks and counter attacks by Hindu and Muslim vigilantes.

Social activist and Mangalore based Muslim education campaigner UH Umar says there’s unavoidable fear among minorities who prefer to keep a low profile. “We tell our people not to be scared, but many are fearful, among the Muslims too some amount of communal movements are growing as a reaction to this.”

Jagdish Shenava Mangalore president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad however asserts that it was not the Hindus who started the violence in Mangalore but it was the PFI or Popular Front of India or Islamist organization that started it and Hindus are only reacting.

Sitting in the VHP office in a narrow bylane of Mangalore Shenava is a rotund mustachioed figure in a saffron kurta. “We will unite the Hindus in this election and after the election will ensure a total ban on cattle slaughter and love jihad in Karnataka.” Shenava believes Siddaramaiah’s Congress government is anti Hindu which has completely failed to stop the killing of Hindu youth.

However others feel they are at the receiving end of right wing violence. In Mangalore’s Poor Clares Adoration Monastery cloistered nuns tell TOI about the terrible morning of September 14, 2008, when their monastery was attacked and the crucifix on the altar was badly damaged. At 10:30 am gangs armed with sticks came running into the church.

In eerie silence they went about smashing glass cases containing sacred icons, tearing down crucifixes and even thrashing those who were praying. The nuns have preserved the damaged altar crucifix in a glass case on which the date is marked: 14.09.2008, 10.20 am. They have also preserved the firewood sticks used to attack their church.

“At first we did not know what was happening” recalls Mother Stella Mary principal of the monastery, “then we heard them talking to each other about orders to strike the nuns, but they could not get to us because we are cloistered and stay behind closed doors.”

From behind barred windows, nuns hold up the blunt firewood sticks that the goons left behind. The attack was allegedly mounted by the Bajrang Dal on the pretext of forced conversions and sent shock waves through the Catholic community of Mangalore.

“We were shattered by this attack on completely defenceless nuns,” says former school teacher Patsy Lobo. Lobo believes the attack was designed to spread fear in the Christian community. “We had never closed the doors of our ancestral home in Mangalore but now we keep it bolted and my children are scared that somebody will come and destroy the Virgin Mary statue in my garden.”

Her husband, eminent Mangalore physician Derek Lobo points out that after the church attacks of in 2008, instead of the attackers being brought to justice, Christian boys who had protested the attacks were rounded up and harassed by the police. “Christian boys kept being asked to come to court which interfered with their lives and careers.”

UH Umar says miscarriage of justice of police and law courts lead to minority youths sometimes becoming aggressive but many NGOs among Muslims are counseling peace and positive thinking. “We ask Mangalore Muslims to think positive and not to stereotype Hindus as uniformly against Muslims,” says Umar. “We tell them there are many good Hindus.” He says many Muslims are now campaigning for greater participation in the democratic process such as making sure they are registered on electoral rolls.

Bhat believes the reason why the communal situation remains tense in Mangalore is because of attitudes of police and administration which often succumb to pressure from right wing sources. He points to the flimsy prosecution in the case involving Sri Ram Sene leader Pramod Muthalik and the Sene’s attack on Mangalore’s Amnesia Pub in 2009 when girls were pulled from the pub by their hair and slapped by Sene.

Muthalik was let off due to lack of evidence. When Jignesh Mewani and Prakash Raaj came to Mangalore for meetings the police at first denied them permission. “Unless police and courts are completely neutral, grievances will grow among all religious communities,” says Bhat.

Mangalore’s skyline is marked by a profusion of churches temples and mosques. However religious tensions simmer under the surface even as azaan, aarti and church bells ring out during daily life in this bustling coastal town. The battle of Karnataka 2018 is being pitched as hate vs harmony.

(Times of India)