Exactly a week after 21-year-old Paresh Mesta's mysterious death following a communal clash in Honnavar in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka's coastal belt continues to burn.
Paresh's body was found floating in a lake near the Shani temple on December 8, triggering unrest in the region. The post-mortem report and a police questionnaire (to the doctors) to ascertain the exact cause of death have remained inconclusive. Worse, the political blame game has offered little respite to the grieving family, which suspects it was a cold-blooded murder.
Kamalakar Mesta, father of the deceased, insists that his son was kidnapped on the fateful day when the communal clashes broke out. He also rubbishes the government claims that rule out foul play. “My son's body was mutilated, the colour of his face had turned black and he bore injuries on his body,” claimed Kamalakar, quickly adding that his son was not a political activist as claimed by the BJP.
Even as the BJP is holding protest rallies despite prohibitory orders, Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy has announced that Mesta case would be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Is the Congress government's move to hand over the Paresh Mesta case to the CBI a political gimmick or a clever move? For a government that is known to have delayed handing over crucial cases to the CBI in the past despite public outrage (e.g., IAS officer D.K. Ravi's death and the Nanditha case), it sure seems a tough call. But the latest move seems to be a well-calculated move to counter the BJP's Hindutva wave ahead of crucial Assembly polls next year.
Reddy says the decision was taken following repeated pleas from the aggrieved family. The fact that the victim belongs to a backward community (fishermen) cannot be discounted, especially by a party that is fuelled by Ahinda (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and dalits) politics.
With the elections just round the corner, the Congress is shifting to a 'soft Hindutva' mode. And the newly elected AICC president Rahul Gandhi's temple visits in Gujarat ahead of the polls has proven to be a primer for Karnataka. Congress leaders are going into a huddle to woo the majority community and the dominant communities, without whom winning a poll would be impossible.
The Congress suspects a BJP ploy to consolidate the Hindu votes by fanning Hindutva sentiment. The BJP on the other hand is crying hoarse about the Congress government's 'discriminatory policy of minority appeasement.'
“The Siddaramaiah government is anti-Hindu. This government is not worried that Hindu activists are being murdered by people linked to jihadi elements like ISIS. We want these cases to be handed over to the NIA immediately,” said BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje, who was leading a protest march.
When the home minister asserts his Hindu identity and dares the BJP and right-wing activists to limit themselves to identifying with their organisations (Sri Rama Sene, Bajrang Dal or BJP) instead of calling themselves 'Hindu activists', it speaks volumes of the discomfort being faced by the Congress, which has openly endorsed the Ahinda agenda. It is no secret that the party can ill afford to antagonise the majority community ahead of the polls.
The sudden lull in the Lingayat movement too (spearheaded by Congress ministers) is also an indication of the changing political climate. The Congress is adopting an aggressive pitch to arrest the free run of the BJP as the saffron party has already embarked on a statewide 'Parivarthana Rally' to consolidate Hindu votes.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is currently on a state tour on his own (following a tiff with KPCC chief G. Parameshwara), has launched a vitriolic attack against BJP's national president Amit Shah and state president B.S. Yeddyurappa, reminding them of their jail stint. Siddaramaiah accused the BJP of practising “politics of hatred.”
The BJP alleged that the Siddaramaiah government had 'let off' PFI and SDPI activists involved in violence and showed little keenness to bring to book the killers of RSS and BJP workers in the state owing to its minority appeasement strategy.
Meanwhile, Reddy, who released a report on the communal disturbances in the state over the last seven years (including the BJP's tenure), maintained that the clashes were never one way and his government was 'ably handling' it as a law and order problem rather than as a communal situation.
In the last seven years, there have been 120 incidents of communal disturbances and a total of 553 cases have been registered in the state. The total number of deaths is 19 (12 Hindu and 7 Muslims), while one policeman also lost his life in 2012.
In Hindu-Muslim incidents, 381 people were injured (214 Hindu and 167 Muslims) and the total number of people booked was 1,461 (636 Hindus and 825 Muslims).
“BJP's claims of 20 right-wing workers having been been murdered in the state is false. In all, 19 persons had died in communal incidents in the state and that includes seven Muslims too. The BJP is playing the communal card to polarise the votes,” said Reddy.
