The brazen communal attack by a Hindutva group that led to the death of a cattle trader in Karnataka’s Ramanagara district is the latest sign that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is keen to push hardline Hindutva politics in the Old Mysore region. This is a new kind of politics for a part of the state that has been largely impervious to the BJP’s hardline Hindutva push.
The attack took place on Friday, March 31, in Ramanagara, a district with a large Vokkaliga population, and which houses the constituencies of two of the BJP’s biggest rivals — HD Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular) and DK Shivakumar of the Congress. Residents say that it was one of the biggest communal incidents in the district in more than 30 years.
“You have to go back to the 1990 Channapatna riots for the last time there was a major communal riot,” says Rudreshwar S, a journalist based in Ramanagara. In 1990, riots in Ramanagara and Channapatna had killed at least 23 people and injured hundreds of others, as per a fact-finding report by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). The report stated that the clashes occurred during Ram Jyothi and Ganesh Chaturti celebrations in Ramanagara, in the backdrop of an allegation that a Muslim girl was teased by a Hindu boy.
In the recent communal attack in Ramanagara, the main accused is the Hindutva activist Puneeth Kerehalli, who has links to many BJP leaders, including CN Ashwath Narayan, the current Higher Education Minister in Karnataka and one of the party’s most recognisable leaders from the Vokkaliga caste group. Even though Puneeth was booked by the police, he is yet to be arrested more than three days after the attack. BJP leaders in the state have been inconspicuous in addressing the attack and the party’s links to Puneeth, who has been seen in photos with many BJP leaders in Bengaluru.
Puneeth, a former taxi driver, heads the Rashtra Rakshana Pade (National Defense Force), a fledgling Hindutva group from Bengaluru. The group shot to infamy in 2021 when its members unveiled a Shiva statue in the middle of Begur lake in Bengaluru despite a Karnataka High Court stay order prohibiting it. Puneeth had taken to social media to live stream his protest defying the High Court's orders.
Puneeth Kerehalli with BJP MP Tejasvi Surya
Puneeth Kerehalli with Chakravarthy Sulibele
He has since racked up thousands of followers on his Facebook page (which is now taken down) and a YouTube channel named ‘Adhva’. He has been posting videos of his campaigns, all of which align with the Sangh Parivar's Hindutva agenda. In videos posted on his social media, Puneeth is seen stopping Muslim traders from selling wares in temple fairs and campaigning for a ban on Halal meat. There are also several videos in which he is seen assaulting drivers of vehicles he has intercepted. In one of the videos, Puneeth can be seen using a taser to assault the driver, accusing him of being a 'cow smuggler'.
In August last year, Bengaluru’s Halasuru Gate police booked a case against Puneeth for vandalising an image of Tipu Sultan put up by the Congress. He was arrested in this case and got out on bail.
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Puneeth Kerehalli with BJP leader CT Ravi
The emergence of Puneeth in Ramanagara marks a shift in the BJP’s politics in the region. Ashwath Narayan, who was made the Ramanagara district minister-in-charge in July 2022, is now the BJP’s top Vokkaliga face in the Old Mysore region. He was earlier made the Deputy Chief Minister in the BS Yediyurappa government.
Since his elevation, Ashwath Narayan has been active in Ramanagara and keen to promote the construction of a Ram temple on the top of the Ramadevarabetta hill in the district, with the latest budget announced by the state government earmarking funds for it. He had earlier opposed the construction of a 114-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ on Kapali Betta in the district and the issue had pitted him as an opponent to DK Shivakumar, who had laid the foundation stone for the statue.
Ashwath Narayan’s rise to prominence in the BJP is widely seen as the party’s attempt to position him as a major Vokkaliga leader and a counter to the influence of R Ashoka, another Vokkaliga leader who is the current Revenue Minister in the state. In January this year, posters were put up in Mysuru asking Ashoka to ‘Go Back,’ with many believing that the posters were the result of a campaign within the BJP to dent his chances in the upcoming elections.
Posters reading 'Go Back Ashoka' in Mysuru
In contrast to Ashoka, who is widely seen as a leader with a likable public persona, Ashwath Narayan has been accused of making controversial statements and has not shied away from communal remarks. Speaking in a pre-poll rally in Mandya in February, he called for (former Chief Minister) Siddaramaiah to be ‘finished off’ and claimed that if the BJP loses the Karnataka Assembly elections, then Siddaramaiah, who admires 18th-century Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan, would come to power.
In the same speech, he was also accused of myth-making when he propagated the claim that Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of Mysore (now Mysuru), was killed by two Vokkaligas — Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda. This was despite colonial and Indian archival records from the 18th century stating that it was the British army that executed Tipu Sultan on 4 May, 1799, during the fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
The BJP honoured the fictional characters in an archway put up during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Mandya in March. The BJP leader and Horticulture Minister Munirathna had even planned to make a film on the two characters with the movie poster crediting the story of the movie to Ashwath Narayan.
BJP minister Munirathna with Nirmalanandanatha Swamiji
But the plans were shelved after Nirmalanandanatha Swamiji, the pontiff of the Adichunchanagiri Math, considered the main religious institution of the Vokkaligas in the state, released a video requesting all politicians “to stop meddling with history without any proper evidence.”
Now, the communal attack in Ramanagara appears to have given the BJP's supporters an issue to drum up support in the region. The police, frozen into inaction, are yet to apprehend Puneeth even though he has posted a video addressing the communal attack and targeting the main opposition leaders in the state.