Dakshina Kannada (DK) has been seeing violent attacks by Hindutva groups for many years now. It is evident that these attacks are not random but a concerted campaign of communal policing to make women and minorities feel unsafe not only in Dakshina Kannada, but in the rest of the state as well.

This is all part of an ideological programme engineered by the RSS, which has deep roots in DK and is very powerful in the entire region, having spawned a number of Hindutva groups like Sri Ram Sene and Hindu Jagarana Vedike that have been involved in these attacks. Groups like Bajrang Dal, Hindu Jagran Vedike, Sri Ram Sene and others — all of them controlled or encouraged by RSS — also share some common membership. Many Muslim cattle traders have been attacked by the same groups that carried out the pub attacks in Mangalore.

Attacks on women and minorities are part of the RSS strategy to build a Hindu Rashtra, where Muslims and Christians would be second class citizens.Women play an important role as they are seen as the gatekeepers of the purity of Hindu caste society. For this project, it becomes crucial for the Hindutva groups to ensure that Hindu women, as ‘the gatekeepers’, do not interact with other communities.

Lately, young women and men in Mangalore have been coming out of the family fold in large numbers and interacting with other communities. Spurred by their education and exposure to the world, they are making their own choices about whom to meet, what entertainment they want, what they choose to wear and so on. This is not to the liking of the Hindutva groups.

These attacks are an effort to police the borders of Hindu caste society and make it narrow, self- enclosed and monolithic. It is an attempt to keep women within the frameworks of the Hindu community and make them follow its conventional norms.They are also a brazen attack on the Constitution of India as cultural policing undermines the basic ideals of secularism and multicultural society enshrined in it.

Due to the influence of RSS, the entire campaign has enjoyed the tacit support of the state government. The ministers may fret and fume but it is evident that they have no intention of taking any action. In fact, the DK police force patronises the RSS. There is strong evidence that the local police has chosen to look the other way in many cases of attacks and refused to take any action against the attackers who have acted in open defiance of the law. Moreover, following an incident, the police harasses the victims and warns them to follow the vigilante’s ‘advice’.

Considering the state’s policy of calculated inaction, the judiciary seems to be the only hope. We, as human rights groups, are contemplating approaching the High Court on this issue. An individual has already filed a PIL seeking immediate action against those involved in the latest attack at Padil.

— The writer is member of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Bengaluru and was part of a fact finding team that put together a report on Cultural Policing in Dakshina Kannada- Vigilante Attacks on Women and Minorities in 2008-09