The cycle of communal killings in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts of Karnataka appears to be unending. Sectarian fire has spread far in these two coastal districts, sometimes touching the neighbouring Uttara Kannada district as well. Even as the killings go on and provocative hate speeches keep the pot boiling, successive governments have done little to douse the fire. As a result, the region has become a communal laboratory where both Hindus and Muslims vie for each other’s blood.
The region, a Congress bastion earlier, has become a BJP stronghold in the last two to three decades. The BJP has not lost any of the last nine Lok Sabha elections from the Dakshina Kannada/Mangaluru seat since 1991, whereas it is a mixed bag in Udupi/ Chikkamagaluru districts. The BJP bagged 17 and 16 of the 19 assembly seats in the three coastal districts in 2018 and 2023, respectively.
Dakshina Kannada, with the prosperous Mangaluru as its headquarters, is second only to Bengaluru Urban in revenue generation and GST collection. The coastal region is a major educational centre where tens of thousands of students study in nine medical colleges, seven engineering colleges, and countless other institutions. It has the highest literacy rate in the state.
The district is also a significant financial centre, having seen the birth of several banks. It is home to several specialty hospitals, an international airport, a major port, several industries and many well-known temples. With high urbanisation, the region’s transport and communication networks are better than in all other districts except Bengaluru.
Still, there is unemployment and the rich-poor gap is widening, contributing to the divide on the basis of religion. Riots, which were once confined to urban areas, are now seen in rural pockets too.
The region had its first brush with communal tension way back in 1976, when a newspaper agent, Ismail, was murdered and violence broke out in its wake. Two years later, Raghavendra Nagori, the editor of a local daily, was killed in what was seen as a retaliation. So far, more than 50 communal murders have been reported over the last 30 years from the coastal districts, some of which have led to riots, forcing the shutdown of the region’s main cities.
While a couple of decades in the middle were relatively calm, rightwing trouble-makers had an eye on Bhatkal, a Muslim-majority town that gained infamy because of the terrorists Riaz and Yasin Bhatkal. The RSS sent to the town a full-time karyakarta, Dr U Chittaranjan. The doctor-turned MLA soon gained popularity among both the communities with his affable manners and ₹5 fee per patient. Bhatkal saw no violence after the Babri masjid demolition.
But turf war in this fishing town— where Muslims mainly belong to the Nawayat sect and speak Nawaity, which is close to Persian—was brewing between the RSS and Muslim organisations for control of the municipality. This led to riots in 1993, in which 19 people from both communities were killed. In 1996, Dr Chittaranjan was shot dead in his house. The probe was handed over to the CBI, which could not arrive at any conclusion over the killers.
Despite the murder, neither Bhatkal nor Uttara Kannada had witnessed any major communal incident till recent times. The BJP tried to paint with communal colours the death of one Paresh Mesta near Honnavar in 2017, and held massive protests across Karnataka. But the CBI, which probed the death, concluded it was an accidental death, not murder. However, the saffron outfit’s electoral gains were massive. It has won all Lok Sabha elections from 1996 till now, except once, from the Uttara Kannada seat (two assembly segments here belong to Belagavi district).
However, the Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts were different. The worst years of communal violence in these districts were 1998, 2003 and 2006. In each of these years, at least eight people were hacked to death, many of them in a cycle of retaliations. In 2022, three murders took place in a span of only eight days; in 2025, three deaths happened within 30 days.
Why these killings and riots? The reasons are many: vigilantism, moral policing, hate speeches, desecration of religious places, targeting of interfaith relationships, use of religion as a political tool, public and police complicity in terms of informing, inept handling of the incidents by the government of the day, selective law enforcement, withdrawal of cases against the accused, and fake news on social media.
Even minor incidents become huge communal flashpoints these days, thanks to viral posts on social media. The incidents are so politicised that it’s difficult to control the situation once the fire is lit. Political leaders from both sides of the divide often fan the flames.
Has this region reached a point of no return? Maybe not, if the government spares no effort taking tough steps to eradicate communal forces. It also needs to stay neutral, bring community leaders for regular peace meetings, cleanse the police of bias and nexus, and above all, unhesitatingly take action against anyone, including political leaders, involved in stoking communal tensions. But all this is easier said than done.
B S Arun | Senior journalist based in Bengaluru
(Views are personal)