For decades now, the undivided Dakshina Kannada district, including its neighbour Udupi, along the Karnataka coast has been the centre of communal tensions in the state. Sunday’s clashes during Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Maddur, however, were another proof that the violence is slowly shifting inwards – to Mandya district in Old Mysuru region.
Data by the Karnataka Home Department reflects this trend, with the Mandya district reporting the highest number of communal incidents in the state in 2024, at 23. In contrast, six communal incidents were reported in Dakshina Kannada – all of them from Mangaluru. None was reported from Udupi district.
The first signs of aggressive Hindutva mobilisation in the Old Mysuru region appeared with a spurt in the activities of the VHP and Bajrang Dal in June 2022.
With a year to go for the Assembly elections in Karnataka, and the BJP government facing huge anti-incumbency, the RSS-affiliated outfits launched a ‘Srirangapatna Chalo’ campaign, demanding a survey of the Srirangapatna Jamia Masjid or Masjid-E-Ala, built in the late 17th century. Their contention was that the mosque, classified as a protected monument by the Archaeological Survey of India, was built on a demolished Hanuman temple during the rule of Tipu Sultan, an emperor who has been in the cross-hairs of Hindu outfits for some time.
Multiple protests were held and petitions filed in the High Court, urging the state government to allow Hindus to perform puja at the mosque. While the BJP stayed in the background as a tacit supporter, its former deputy chief minister K S Eshwarappa called Masjid-E-Ala one of the alleged “36,000 temples destroyed by the Mughals”.
At the time, Old Mysuru, a bastion of the JD(S) and Congress, was a difficult area for the BJP to penetrate. This was also because of the lack of a credible Vokkaliga face in the BJP, unlike in the other two parties, in the agrarian district dominated by Vokkaligas.
Communal tensions next flared up in November the same year, when right-wing groups claimed that Tipu Sultan’s assassination was carried out by two revered Vokkaliga figures, Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda. History records Tipu Sultan as having been killed in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war by the British in 1799.
Though the BJP version was amplified by leaders such as Union minister Shobha Karandlaje and MLC C T Ravi, it didn’t generate much traction among the public.
In the 2023 Assembly polls, which the Congress won by a huge majority, the BJP lost even the one seat in Mandya it held.
After a lull, tensions reared up in Mandya again on January 22, 2024, ahead of Republic Day, over the hoisting of a saffron flag with Hanuman’s image in Keregodu village near Mandya. This coincided with the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the ceremony.
When the Congress administration removed the flag, on the grounds that the flagpole it was hoisted on was meant only for the national or state flag, BJP leaders staged a protest, leading to the detention of Leader of the Opposition R Ashok and BJP leader C N Ashwath Narayan.
In September 2024, Nagamangala, 55 km from Maddur, was witness to communal clashes when a Ganesh Chaturthi procession was passing by in front of a mosque. According to police, an argument broke out between two groups, prompting authorities to resort to mild caning. Subsequently, several shops and vehicles were set on fire. Police arrested more than 50 people in connection with the incident.
Sunday’s violence during Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Maddur was almost a repeat, with clashes erupting as the procession was crossing before a mosque. Police have arrested more than 50 people in cases related to the clashes.
Both the ruling Congress and the BJP and JD(S) – which are now allies – have blamed each other for the incident. R Ashok, who was part of a BJP delegation that visited the town as part of its ‘Maddur Chalo’ campaign, said the party will make sure that no “Hindu activists are touched in the region ever again”.
He added that since the “anti-Hindu” Congress assumed power in the state, “Mullahs are running the government”. He accused the government of minority appeasement, and blamed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and “the Tipu gang”.
Siddaramaiah has promised action against the perpetrators, whoever they may be. “BJP (leaders) are experts in provoking and disrupting peace,” he has said. Deputy CM D K Shivakumar has accused the BJP of only politicising such clashes.
On Thursday, a case was registered against BJP leader Ravi on charges of “making inflammatory comments” during a Ganesha idol immersion event held by the party in Maddur town. The event was a show of strength by the BJP, in response to the September 7 Ganesh Chaturthi violence.
Another sign of the changing times is the stand taken by the JD(S), which has in the past been uncomfortable with ally BJP’s aggressive Hindutva. The ‘S’ in its name stands for ‘Secular’, and party supremo H D Deve Gowda has a following among Muslims.
After the recent violence, however, Nikhil Kumaraswamy, a member of the Deve Gowda family, put the blame squarely on the restrictions put on the Ganesh Chaturthi procession by the Congress administration. “We are all Hindus, who live by culture and traditions. When we are hurt, we have to stand together,” Kumaraswamy said, offering the JD(S)’s support to a bandh called by Hindu groups.
On Tuesday, Kumaraswamy participated in a protest along with BJP leaders.