Why Karavali is South India’s Sanghi Bastion?
Important Note:This is a write-up on Greeshma Kuthar’s magnanimous work in 18 parts on “How coastal Karnataka was saffronised’’.
Click here to read the series.
The history of ideologies taking root in a place is dependant on the social and political agencies operating in the region,Sangh’s Hindu identity is also forged with the supremacist tendencies of Brahmins without being questioned,it is this Brahmin sway in the region historically that is responsible for the rise of sangh factions in Tulunad.Infact,the coastal region was already Golvalkar’s favourite hub,the virus of hate had already entered this region even before independence,Mangaluru boasts of being a laboratory of the sangh,cow-vigilantism and Love-jihad was made a national sensation starting from here.The Chitpavan Brahmins,Deshastha Brahmins,Gouda-Saraswat Brahmins form the early initiators of the Sangh who hold strong allegiance to the Mathas or Religious establishments like Asta-Mutt of Udupi,Ramachandrapura and Sringeri,in a way these Brahmanical establishments helped in forging alliances to form the Sangh,almost all Brahmin seers of the region are staunch sangh adherents,the seer of Pejawar Mutt,the head of Dharmasthala Veerendra hegde were early proponents of VHP,Pejavara sree was also personally present in Ayodhya when thousands of kar-sevaks brought down the historical Babri Masjid is to be remembered and incidentally it is in these parts that supremacist Brahmin rituals like Pankti-Bheda,serving food to Brahmin priests in exclusive areas in temples and obnoxious practise of Made-Snana,where people,usually of lower caste roll over the left-overs of brahmin priests are practised without questions.
‘Hindu’ identity in Tulunadu started formenting in the 1800s when Basel Mission started their activities in Mangaluru of establishing a Kannada-medium school and ,few Brahmins organised themselves under a Hindu label as a reactionary attempt,the christian missionary challenged the very supremacy of Brahmins which is stronger than in any other part of Karnataka,Basel mission school was established in Mangaluru in 1836 and started giving education to everyone irrespective of caste,in fact the motto of basel mission was,
“Let the image or the shadow of caste never be seen in the Christian church..”
In less than two decades,Billavas who are numerically largest Tulu-speaking lower caste community were educated and were inducted into the service of East India Company as Bureaucrats,this angered the Brahmins of the region who had to obey a lower-caste’s orders in offices,this hate of Brahmins to their educated-enabled success propelled the Billavas to accept Christianity,this had less impact on the Brahmins and a strong blow came in 1862 when a Goud-Saraswat Brahmin Ganesh Rao converted to the protestant faith and this is when they started organising themselves and urged the colonial administration to put an end to the interference of missionaries in their faith and started lobbying for the establishment of a Government school and during the same time invitations were sent to Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj to hold lectures and discussions in the region.The Brahmo Samaj was the first to enter the region of Goud-Saraswat Brahmins and started organising local Brahmin groups against Christian missionaries but it was not longlived when Goud-saraswat Brahmins refused to accept the leadership of a Billava leader whereas Arya samaj-coalition of Brahmin castes such as Kotas, Havyaks and Shivalli Madhwas didn’t make the same mistake and made a formidable alliance with an influential Moghaveera-a fishermen caste leader who led Jnanodaya Sabha with it’s main objective of propagation of abstinence from alcohol,this alliance proved very useful to the subsequent activities of Hindu -Brahmin organisations.
With the Minto-Morley reforms of 1909,demand for Pakistan,seperate Muslim electorate,hate progressed between the ruling Brahmin and Ashraf elite who rarely represented the aspirations of either communities with this propelling in the environment ‘The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha’ was born,the Kadala teera and ghatta pradesha of Karnataka has produced notorious sanghi hate fuels,to name some would be Nalin Kumar Kateel,Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat,C.T.Ravi,Anant Kumar Hegde,Pramod Muthalik and many others from the Chaddi gang,A precursor to all these hate-mongers was R.G.Bhide,the chief editor of Kesari the RSS mouthpiece) and the general secretary of the Akhila Bharatha Hindu Mahasabha delivered an incendiary speech at Mundajje village.
Here are some excerpts from Bhide’s speech,
Hindu Mahasabha will answer this. We don’t say that the Muslims should be paid in the same coin. Once Hindus become strong, become the people of valour, no other person will have the courage to look at the face of a Hindu. Only when Hindus match the strength of Muslims, the unity of Hindus and Muslims is possible. Now, the concept of unity by Muslims is strange — if all the Hindus convert to Islam, total unity is achieved. This, too, is unity.
Because of this understanding, Muslims, who were 1,900 out of 10,000 in the year 1881, became 22,000 in 1931 and reduced Hindus from 71,000 to 6,824 with the help of Christians. If this continues, after three generations Hindu community could be found only in graveyards. And what is the point in living as a Hindu if the abla naris are insulted through kidnapping?
It is evident from this speech that the Sanghi discourse has always driven population-statistics fuelled hate.
The RSS entered the coast around 1941,its organisation being dominated by Goud-Saraswat Brahmins,with meetings being regularly held in Canara high school,which was also established by Ammembal Subba Rao Pai,narratives in these discourse shifted between anti-muslim and anti-christian.MS Golwalkar’s hopes from the unit started in South Kanara can be gauged from his regular visits to Mangalore after the organisation was formed in 1941. All his visits started with a visit to the Venkatramana Temple on Car Street, the main centre of the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin community’s faith. During this period, non-Brahmins weren’t allowed into the temple. This, however, changed a few decades ago.
In the political foreground,Mangalore was still a congress stronghold ,Communists were also quite strong till the early 1970s in Mangalore with BV Kakkilaya,Karnataka’s foremost Communist leader,a Rajyasaba MP and a two-time MLA was also active in the coast but all these leaders coming from either the Bunts,a landed shudra caste community or the Brahmin community,all of them were quite instrumental in reducing it to a Hindu-Muslim narrative and completely turning a blind eye to the Brahmin supremacist intentions of the sangh.
In coastal Karnataka, Golwalkar recruited Vishvesha Teertha, a powerful young man who started an expansive program aimed at gaining support from the lowered castes.Though he didn’t have much takers in the Brahmin circles for his intermingling,it was utterly necessary to garner lower caste support,with the Brahmin being the saviour at the fore-front fighting for antyaja’s lives.
After the assassination of M.K.Gandhi in 1948 by Nathuram godse,protests were organised against the RSS ban,around 45 RSS workers were arrested from across Dakshin Kannada during the RSS ban. When the ban was lifted in July 1949, despite huge resistance Golwalker came back to Mangalore and hoisted the National Flag at ‘Sanghniketan’, the RSS headquarters at Pentlendpet. Stones were thrown and numerous attempts were made to disrupt the gathering,ironically it was the same place that hosted several congress leaders including M.K.Gandhi during their visit to Mangaluru.
Gaumata
Though Gau-raksha was a popular Brahmin concept in Mangaluru since the 60s,it had no populist support until very recently,with the BJP ruling Karnataka passing the anti cow-slaughter bill in 2020 providing legal cover to these vigilante groups,communalism in the state is bound to increase.
The 17th clause-Protection of people acting in good faith of the anti-cow slaughter bill states,
No suit,prosecution or other legal proceedings shall be instituted against the competent authority or any person exercising any powers under this act for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be under this act or the rules made thereunder.
State-wide attention was drawn to the issue of cow vigilantism when two Muslim men — father and son — were paraded naked and assaulted for about three hours at Adiudupi on 13 March 2005 by a group which alleged that they were transporting a “calf” in their Maruti van. The two persons, identified as Hajabba and his son Hasanabba,were caught by activists of Hindu Yuva Sena, Bajrang Dal and VHP as they were transporting a calf in a Maruti Omni car from Moodbettu,huge protests were followed demanding the ban of the organisation responsible for such heinous crimes.
However,this is one of the many incidents in Mangaluru,with 4G speed data at cheap prices,unemployed youth are inducted into watsapp groups,these groups are alerted of a local cattle transaction,upon which PETA volunteers from the Sangh assume their roles,it is an open secret that all of these deals are pre-mediated involving the seller who informs one of the sangh’s organisations about a transaction.
Cow-vigilantism,the prime occupant of the Sanghi manifesto had it’s primary interface in the coastal region, with the Jan sangh picking up Gourakshan as its primary action points,National Cow Weekly was organised by the RSS in Udupi under the leadership Vishveshvara Teertha of Pejavar Mutt in October-November 1952. It saw the participation of national leaders such as Prabhavathi Raje who was the President of the All India Ramarajya council and Swamy Adidevananda, President of the Ramakrishna Mission,through the 1950s and 1960s sangh parivar also mobilised many protests against cow slaughter which culminated into 1966 anti-cow slaughter agitation,which led to the subsequent arrests of several leaders from the sangh including Vajpayee.
In 1967, Vishveshwara Teertha called for a law banning cow slaughter in the country, failing which he threatened that a big clash will ensue and all-India marches will be organised,these protests were still limited to Brahmin circles and didn’t attract masses as in the present,all these mobilisations by Brahmin Seers of Udupi,Ramachandrapura and others have led to the violence that is unleashed against Muslims and Dalits in today’s Mangaluru.
The Sangh Parivar also expanded their base by Bhajana mandirs,through the coast,almost every village will have a Bhajana Mandir,many of them having the name of Narayana Guru,who led a fierce anti-Brahmin struggle in neighbouring Kerala,which was also called as the ‘madhouse of caste’ by Sanghi youth icon Vivekananda himself.
Hate sifts through Kaapi-pudi in Chikkamagaluru
Dada Hayath dargah in the popular hill station Bababudhangiri has been time and again being proclaimed by many Sangh leaders as ‘South India’s Ayodhya’.The dargah since ancient times has been a symbol of syncretism,frequented by Non-Brahmins and Muslims alike,mainly revered by the Qalandari sect of sufism,they are the most heterodox schools of sufism.In Consequent upon the Indian Government ’s Central Waqf Act in 1954, the Waqf Board, in charge of Muslim endowed properties, came into existence for maintaining the Waqfs. In 1975, the District Commissioner of Chikmagalur consulted the government for guidance with regard to classifying the Bababudhan shrine. The dargah, which had so far been under the administration of sajjadah nashin and the Muzrai department, was transferred to the Waqf Board in 1975 In effect, the shrine was unilaterally declared an Islamic institution.When the dargah was transferred to the Waqf Board in 1975, case was registered at the district court that such a transfer would hinder the Hindus from expressing their devotion and pursuing their ritual practices. An examination of the appeal shows that the petitioners did not have any problem with the forms of worship or the administrative arrangements existing then.In response the Chikmagalur civil district court ruled that the syncretic character of the shrine be maintained, and, that religious rituals and practices prevailing before 1975 maintained, with the sajjadah nashin continuing as the custodian of administrative and religious rights, and also that the shrine be not included under the jurisdiction of the Waqf Board.“The institution is a religious institution being holy place of worship belonging to the Hindus and Mohammaedans alike where they worship.”
The waqf board also appealed to the high court who upheld the judgement of District Court,parallelly the Sangh parivar pounced upon this opputunity and created Datta Peetha Samvardhana Samiti (Committee for the Development of Datta Peetha Temple, hereafter Samiti), an outfit floated by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), In 1985 they threatened to launch an agitation demanding an end to the sajjadah nashin’s administration,filed cases in the district alleging embezzelment of funds this led to the Deputy Commissioner directing the Assistant Commissioner to collect the rent of the urs stalls by the Tehsildar which led to the Sajada Nashin filing a case in High court who again upheld the previous judgement.
The Board of Waqf, ever since, has been questioning the order of the Chikmagalur court. The High Court of Karnataka in 1991 dismissed the appeal of Karnataka Waqf Board for inclusion of the shrine in Waqf property and upheld the decision of the District Judge. Further, even the Supreme Court of India order also dismissed the appeal of Waqf Board and upheld the orders of the High Court and the District Judge.
Back to the Sangh,the samiti in 1987 requested the district administration for the celebration of Datta jayanti,inspite of the court order of the previous years,negating this judgement,the district administration allowed the celebrations and a demand was made to put a saffron flag instead of a green one,In 1990 as hate started to take a violent form in the country,green flag atop the cave-shrine was tore by the chaddis without any action being by the district administration passed it off with a warning,In 1995,Chaddis began with hate speech against Muslims with Datta Jayanti in the foreground.
In 1997,Brahmanisation of the place became more intense,Samiti claimed that below the seat (chillah) of Dada Hayat Qalandar was buried the idol of Lord Dattatreya. Subsequently, it demanded that the chillah be demolished, with the slogan “Bababudhan after Babri Masjid”. Further, it was demanded that agamic (Brahmin) forms of worship be introduced in the place of those in practice, and that a Hindu archaka (priest) be appointed in the place of mujawar.Having made inroads into the administration, the Samiti has been able to bring about changes in the prevailing practices by way of introducing new ones in the shrine, with the full support of the district administration. Initially , it was the demand for hoisting a saffron flag beside the green one, to be followed by objections to cook/eat and serve non-vegetarian food in the hill and a refusal to allow the mazars to be covered by chadar; it also objected to an increase in the number of mazars, and refused to permit the burial of the thirteenth sajjadah nashin in the shrine who died in 1999.
Countering the claims of Datta Peetha Samvardhana Samiti,the Waqf Board, and the State, nearly 132 organisations came together to form the Komu Souharda Vedike (Forum for Communal Harmony, hereafter Souharda Vedike) in 1998,this is also the same time when Journalist Gauri Lankesh became an Activist,mobilising people against the Chaddi gang and was martyred by the Chaddis in 2017,because their power is threatened when there is no violence,click here to read her article on Bababudangiri.The 2000s saw the rise of C.T.Ravi,Ananth Kumar Hegde and several others actively rallying in this region for hate.The sangh has made it an annual event to disrupt harmony by organising Datta Mala Abhiyana (for a day in the month of October) Shobha Yatre (procession) and Anasuya Yatre (a day commemorating Dattatreya’s mother) as part of Datta Jayanthi celebrations,in the name of hinduism,it is only Brahminism that is coerced unto shudra minds,which is evident only in the names of these celebrations.
In Febraury 2007,A single judge bench of Karnataka high court quashed the 1989 order of the Commissioner for Religious and Charitable Endowments who were responsible to the management of the shrine due to a petition by the Sajjada Nashin and also the from Guru Dattatreya Peetha Samvardhana Samiti,a fresh inquiry was ordered by the court.The supreme court in december,2015 passed a judgement for status Quo as granted by the court on 1st December 2008 as per the Endowment Commissioner’s order of 1989 to be maintained.
In recent developments of 2017,Sanghis had alleged that they had revenue documents to prove that Datta peetha was an exclusively Hindu shrine,no such evidence was disclosed before the court and C.T.Ravi in 2019 offered for an out of court settlement for these tensions,but in no way are any settlements going to reverse the cultural damage that was done during these three decades,of hate against the ‘other’ for their power strife,Brahmins sowed the seeds of communal hatred in the Ghatta,the shrine which was an epitome of indigenous culture and muslim faith slowly transformed into a hate-haven.
On December 16, 2019,school children of of Sri Rama Vidya Kendra at Kalladka,30km from Mangaluru, run by a chaddi member Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat,re-enacted the demolition of Babri Masjid where children enthusiastically pulled down a poster of Babri Masjid with the narrator in the background chanting ‘Jai Bharat Mata’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’ of which the video went,this celebration of violence and hatred owes it’s origin in the same,the demolition of Babri Masjid by chaddis also saw violence in Mangaluru Bunder(port),convinced that the Bearys were a cause for their woes, Moghaveeras took to Hindutva in a big way in the decades following independence. Indeed, when the time came, they were ready to assume the mantle of warriors of the faith,following the demolition of the Babri Masjid and once again in 1998, it was Moghaveera men who were arrested by the dozens,after which community organisations instructed their children not to participate in such incidents,their long association with uplifting Hindutva,the major chunk of the Moghaveera community is economically and socially backward,their vacancy was filled by another backward community,the Billavas.
The Hindu Samajotsav is an annual event in Mangaluru,usually which ends with attacks and violence ,started in 1981 by Lakshmi Narayan Alva,district president of VHP,the motive according to him was to unite all hindus irrespective of caste,to prove this the Brahmin seer of Udupi Vishveshwara Teertha commenced the programme by visiting a dalit colony,to show that Brahmins are the only true saviours of them.Alva coming from the Bunt caste,a landed shudra community also attracted many of his caste members to be inducted into the Sangh.It also helped mobilise many people for the advancing Ram-Janmbhoomi movement,under the same banner door to door bricks were collected for Ram Mandir after breaking the Masjid.Hindu Samajotsava it also became a premium platform for hate speeches in Mangaluru.
Tulunad Sīmeḍ Deiva
Cultural appropriation is not just a sangh phenomenon,it is inherently a Brahmin phenomenon,this cultural identity is what sangh attempted to invoke among the tulu people despite their attempts to invoke a political hindu identity post babri-masjid.Tulunad is a place with a vibrant indigenous culture,Bhuta Aradhane or Deiva Aradhane is a practise of ancestral worship,hundreds of Deivas are worshipped who have varied cultural background,be it Koti-Chennaya who belonged to the Billava community,Babbarya belonging to the Moghaveers community and so on.These rituals had no Brahmin takers as it had offerings of meat to the deiva in worship,which is considered as defiling by the Brahmins,However the demographics slowly started changing with the sangh,the Bhutas from spirits became Shiva’s Ganas and many deivas started assuming the incarnations of Shiva and Vishnu.Koragajja or Koraga Thaniya,who was killed for entering into a temple as those belonging to the Koraga community were considered as untouchable was deified and worshipped by Tulu speaking communities, either out of fear or out of repentance,now there are Bhajans eliciting him instead of Paddanas-folk narrative stories of deivas and has assumed the incarnation of shiva.Bobbariya,another deified ancestor of the Tulu people was born to a Muslim Beary and Jain woman which is narrated in the Paddanas.In 2014, a book was written by Sadananda Uchila titled ‘Mogaveera Samaja-Ondu Adhyayna’ (Study of Mogaveera Community) where the author wrote that Bobbariya was the incarnation of Babruvahana. They changed his father to Arjuna and mother to a Kerala queen Prameela. This is similar to the tale of Chitrangada, the Princess of Manipur in Mahabharat.”This starking appropriations were also instrumental in giving a political hindu stance to these cultural traditions,as the politics become Brahmin-centric,so does the culture,a saffron flag adorns every Deivasthana,an offering of chicken has been replaced with pumpkin, tiny shrines have now turned to temples, Brahmin priests have started officiating at these spaces.
Love Jihad
The Manu smriti(Chap.IX,Verse 3) says that,
Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control.
Love Jihad is more or less inclusive under the same narrative that woman should be controlled at all costs,she is not to be given any independent choice,if so that is when Dharma fails.
In 1968,a series of communal fires erupted in different parts of Mangaluru,The event which led to this was an alleged love story between Mutton Khader,a meat dealer and a Moghaveera fisherwoman,however locals concur that these events were common in the coast,fisherwomen who had daily transactions with the beary’s,some blossomed into love,riots ensued muslim shops were ransacked,trucks belonging to Muslims put on fire,attacks spread to Kudroli and Jeppu.
A 1979 Kannada film titled Karavalli was based on a similar plot, a love story between a Beary fisherman and a moghaveera woman. The film was banned in South Kanara and the filmmaker couldn’t return to Mangaluru after that.
This was probably the first incident that was a precursor to today’s Kannada media’s sensational ‘Love Jihad’,the narrative remained the same,of Muslim men wooing ‘their’ women.Sangh utilised any story and turned people against one another.
On the morning of June 17, 2009, Anitha Mulya, a 22-year-old who rolled beedis for a living at her home in Barimar village in Bantwal taluk, went missing,a police complaint was registered but only to be discarded as another case of ‘Love Jihad’,chaddis also took this oppurtunity to communally charge the incident,organising protests,the local police realising the possible riots in the coming days assured immediate investigation,a brutal crime was unearthed,Mohan Kumar,a serial killer and a rapist had murdered Anita after raping her,he had lured many such women coming from lower middle class backgrounds and killed them.
Bajrang dal has been establishing itself as the de jure Police department in Karavali,Moral policing,harassment of girls and couples on the beaches has gone before blind eyes without any legal proceedings against these goons.
In the first four months of 2021, the region recorded 37 communal incidents, including 13 incidents of “moral policing” by right-wing Hindu groups and 3 incidents of cattle vigilantism, according to data compiled by Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, an activist with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and the Karnataka Komu Sauharda Vedike (Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony).
Though there are instances of Moral policing even by muslim fundamentalist organisations,the cases of chaddis far exceeds than that of muslim fundamentalists,both these people however have a commonground-control ‘your’ women.
Hate thy Neighbour-Sanghew 4:20
The skirmishes with christians has been a long association with the Brahmin population who saw a threat to their hegemony when German missionaries started educating the lower caste communities such as Billavas,however in the national scene as well as in Karnataka,people recharge their political Hindu identity when there is a confrontation with the Muslim and there is passive response to Christian hate,however this hate has been revived in the last years,the narrative being the same-hindu in threat,forced conversion,ricebag converts etc..
In Mangaluru,christian organisations have minimal interference when there are Hindu-Muslim attacks and they have also been passive supporters of the sangh,on a related note,we had Telugu christian neighbours who were active supporters of Modi.
In the backdrop of ongoing Christian riots in Odisha alleging forced conversion of tribals,chaddis had organised rioting groups,burning tribal hamlets killing hundreds and further injuring thousands,Mangaluru also saw such mobilisations,an important observation is that many of these groups will have no brahmin kids,mainly they come from lower-caste backgrounds who are offered some money for the day’s job,though at the helm of such affairs will be a brahmin,Mahendra Kumar,then convenor of Bajrang Dal had publicly accepted the Sangh’s involvement in the riots,upon realisation that he was just a pawn in a Brahmin’s game,he left Bajrangdal and joined JDS,his Janadhawani social media channel had quite a large following in Karnataka with content starkingly anti-Brahmin and anti-sangh.
In August 2008,with recently elected BJP government at the helm in karnataka with Yediyurappa as the CM,skirmishes started off in Davanagere church was set on fire at Bada village in Davangere district due to alleged conversions of 300 hindus,However, Pastor E Lucas denied the allegation saying that those who wanted peace of mind voluntarily visited church and offered prayers.It soon spread unto Mangalore,more than 28 churches were vandalised,terrorising the local catholic communities,even in Mangaluru,conversion and a pamphlet ridiculing Hindu gods was cited as the reason by Chaddi mobs,however no such pamplets or forced conversions were ever reported and the police arrested several members from the christian community.
Christian community came in large numbers throughout the state in protest against the violence,upon which a commission was set up to investigate and pass the judgement called the Somashekhara report.
The salient features of this report included:
Not inquiring a single member of RSS,only Bajrangdal was called upon.
Viewed these incidents as independent(sui generis) without reference to their ideology,structure,past events of the RSS,Sangh Parivar.
No BJP leader was summonned.
Commission recommended proceedings against civil organisation leaders of the protests on Goonda’s act,none was registered on Mahendra Kumar with Goonda’s act.
The red herring of conversion,the questioning of the source of the finances of the priests,the denigration of Hindu gods,formed the staple of the commission hearings for over two years,pastors and priests questioned repeatedly on these,almost making it seem that the attacks were justified.
Sanghis pick the hip
Social media frenzy has sparked open new avenues for chaddi parivar to spread more hatred in the region,many of BJPs propaganda machines have it’s origins in Mangaluru-like everyone’s favourite troll Chakravarthi Sulibele of Yuvabrigade fame-sangh propaganda,Namobrigade-Modi Propaganda,Postcard-an infamous communalist page on facebook of which it’s founder Mahesh Vikram Hegde was arrested for spreading fake news,there are literally hundreds of pages on social media ready to pounce on any incident,type up fast-hindu in threat,beef,Pakistani,hit on that freaking send button and behold…,your Patriotism quotient just increased.
Congrats…..!
Conclusion
So most probably you’ve not reached till here,if you have,then it’s nothing short of miracle and after reading this if you still are a sanghi..,
I’m sorry for you because you don’t have a brain.
