Observers say the communal lines started growing sharper in the region after the Babri Masjid demolition. “While the identity markers for the indigenous Beary Muslims in the region were very different before the 90s, they changed in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. As the minority Muslim community started feeling threatened, they started using markers (like the burqa) to embrace an identity that would bring them together as a community and offer a sense of protection and solidarity,” says journalist Greeshma Kuthar, who has written extensively on the region’s communal divisions. The Hindutva brigade eventually started using these evolving markers to “otherise” the Beary Muslims, she adds.
“So even though these narratives around burqa and hijab have been propagated by organisations like Bajrang Dal, VHP and Ram Sene through public platforms over the past decades, they were not mainstream. It is the current political atmosphere and state endorsement which has fanned the flames and ensured that these conversations don’t die down,” says Kuthar.
Dinker also believes that the anti-Muslim sentiment has been fanned by the fact that there is no action against leaders who make inflammatory statements. “Political leaders in the state have regularly made uncontested patriarchal statements from all stages and press conferences and get away with it. And this has been normalised because members of the press would not even question them,” she says.
There have been allegations that Muslim students at the Udupi college are not allowed to communicate with each other in Urdu or Beary, the language spoken mostly by the Muslims in the region, and that they are being pressured to join activities of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. However, BehanBox could not independently verify these allegations.
Aslam believes that ever since the BJP came to power in Karnataka, polarisation around the issue of hijab has grown, especially in government colleges. “While the hijab ban had been in place in Christian colleges like St Agnes College, it is only under the BJP regime that the issue has started cropping up increasingly in government colleges as well,” she says.
The hijab ban can not be seen in isolation, says activist Aslam, because it is also an attempt to alienate Muslims, especially Muslim women. “They’re not only being told what they can and cannot wear, but also who they can be friends with. They (Hindutva outfits) want to prevent youngsters of different communities from mixing with each other,” she points out.
Several cases of moral policing from the Dakshin Kannada region have been reported in recent years. In November 2021, Mohammad Yasin (20), a student, was assaulted for dropping home his female friend and classmate who belongs to another religion. In another instance, Bajrang Dal members stopped a group of medical students on their home from Malpe beach and harassed the women for being in the company of Muslim men.
These incidents are detrimental for women’s rights, says Aslam. “These Hindutva organisations want women to know that they can not exercise their freedom. This vigilantism is their way of threatening women who do not follow their diktat,” she says.