AIDS: A campaign with a difference
Asodu is a village in Kundapur taluka of Udupi
district. On March 30, 2002 an annual fair was held on the occasion of ‘Gende
Seve’ (ritual fire walking) at the village’s Nandikeshwar temple. As
per tradition this went on through the night and continued the next day,
amidst hundreds of people who had gathered here from neighbouring
villages. During this time a rumour was circulated that a Muslim
stallholder was spreading AIDS by pricking young girls with an infected
needle. Jamedar Altaf, who ran the stall along with two other youth, Abdul
Sattar and Tahir, and an old man, Karim saheb, were beaten up and
then handed over to the police present there. All materials from the
stall, including the suspect needles, were seized. People who had
allegedly been pricked by the youth stated in their complaint that "they
were pricked by a poisonous needle in an attempt to kill". So the police
charged the men under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) with
attempt to murder.
Later, blood tests of both the complainants and the
accused as well as tests of the so-called infected needles were conducted
at the Kundapur government hospital, KMC hospital in Manipal and the
National AIDS Research Institute in Pune. All the test results came back
negative. According to the wound certificate issued by the Kundapur
government hospital, of the six people who had been pricked by the needle,
two had no wounds at all, two had faint scabs of dried blood and two
persons had very slight swellings or lumps. Following this verification,
the accused were then booked under Section 324 of the IPC (attempt to harm
using a sharp weapon) and were released after the court granted them bail.
The old man, Karim saheb, was admitted to hospital; he took ill
while under custody thanks to the trauma he had suffered.
Although the due course of law had been promptly followed
in the needle pricking incident, 25 houses belonging to Muslims were
attacked in Kundapur at around 8 p.m. on the night of March 31. On a
fact-finding visit to Kundapur two days later, we saw that apart from the
walls and the roofs everything in the houses had been burnt and destroyed.
The little money or jewellery they had in their homes had all been looted.
A young girl was wailing frantically that she could not attend her Class X
board examinations the next day because all her books had been destroyed
in the attack. The residents had lost every item of their belongings and
were suddenly faced with impending destitution. Worse still, they were
wounded by the fact that the people who attacked them had been neighbours
and old acquaintances.
As the AIDS rumour spread throughout Kundapur taluka,
Muslim houses in Kundapur town and neighbouring villages were also
attacked. Even a week after the incident communal tension still simmered
in the area. According to victims, the mobs that attacked them shouted
slogans like "Bolo Bharat Mata ki Jai (Say Long Live India)"and "Jai
Bajrangbali (Long Live Hanuman)". It was evident that these people
belonged to the sangh parivar; the BJP had a strong base in the
constituency and had won the local Assembly seat in the last two
elections.
Local newspapers played a major role in keeping the flare
of violence burning. The leading Kannada daily, Udayavani, reported
that the attacks were a result of people’s fear and their anger against
Muslims. It did not even attempt or think it necessary to tell readers
that AIDS cannot be spread in the manner the rumour suggested. And this is
a paper that brings out a weekly supplement on health! These are
newspapers that bank on communal hatred in their keen support of Hindutva
ideology. A few months later, after people had forgotten about the
incident and there was now enough data to question the veracity of the
rumour, an utterly dishonest report in Udayavani’s local edition
said: "People still live in the grip of fear following the needle pricking
incident. The number of people attending temple fairs has reduced
considerably." This is a newspaper that reports each and every event
organised by the sangh parivar with grandiose and activist zeal. Almost
every day a report in the newspaper will tell of how Muslims are involved
in illegal cattle slaughter, the circulation of counterfeit currency or
assaulting ‘Hindu’ women sexually. For Udayavani, Hindutva’s storm
troopers are moral brigades that protect this society. It would not
attempt to consider, even briefly, that the violence perpetrated by the
sangh parivar was a gross violation of the rule of law and a wonton
flouting of democratic norms.
The disregard shown by most people in Kundapur, their
indifference to the attacks, only demonstrates how deeply rooted the
Hindutva ideology is. Most of those whom we spoke to did not regret the
attacks on Muslims. We met two girls who were among the six people who had
filed the initial complaint in the so-called AIDS case. Mamta and Lata
were both Class IX students. Mamta’s father is a small-scale farmer in
Asodu, their house is very near the Nandikeshwar temple. We visited them a
year after the incident took place. Mamta was in good health. We asked her
mother, Lalita Shedti, if it wasn’t wrong to attack Muslims and loot their
houses. She had no such misgivings, "Only then will they learn." But what
had the Muslims in Kundapur done to provoke this, how were they connected
to the people who had used the needle? "When anything happens to one of
them, they get together."
Elsewhere, when we asked the same questions of a tea
vendor in Koteshwara, near Kundapur, he said, "What are Muslim terrorists
doing in Kashmir?" When we asked him how that had any bearing on the
people of Kundapur he replied, "If we hit here, it will hurt them there."
And it was not just Mamta’s mother or the man in the tea stall, most
people whom we talked to seemed to be of the same opinion. When we posed
similar questions to others they countered, "What do you have to say about
the attack on Akshardham temple, what about Godhra, the attack on
Parliament, Kashmir…" These were questions repeatedly put back to us.
We also visited Lata’s house. Lata’s parents, both daily
wage labourers, had a more humane response to events and even condemned
the violence. As Lata’s mother said, "There are good people and bad people
in all castes. Innocent people should not be targeted because of somebody
else’s mistake." An upper caste villager, well respected in Asodu, one who
had even contributed for the refurbishment of Nandikeshwar temple,
concurred. "All Muslims are not bad; not all Hindus are good. If people
were aware of this, such an incident would not have occurred."
A year after the Asodu incident, although the due process
of law had been promptly followed and the accused had faced a court trial
according to the law of the land, the BJP organised a rally in Kundapur to
‘protest the inaction against the accused in the Asodu incident and the
harassment caused to Hindus by arrests of innocents’. Yediyurappa,
Ramchandregowda, VS Acharya and other top leaders of the BJP state unit
addressed the gathering. They openly targeted the Muslim community and
also condemned the police for arresting a few people involved in the
violence. Not a word was said about the attacks on Muslims that followed
the needle pricking incident.
We met Altaf, the stallholder and prime accused in the
needle pricking case. We were naturally curious to find out whether he had
really pricked people with a needle and if so, why. Altaf freely admitted
that he had done so saying, "I did not target anybody. I had a stall
there. I never went and pricked anybody outside my stall. Some people who
visit the stalls just keep looking at the items on display, obstructing
business. Some of them even steal things from the stalls. At every fair we
lose about Rs 200-300 worth of goods this way. To prevent this and drive
people out of the stall we use the needle to prick them. Other
stallholders also do the same thing. In fact, some vendors even use big
sticks to ward off obstructing crowds." We believe he was telling the
truth. Two college girls from Kundapur later told us that this was not a
new phenomenon. "To keep harassing guys away, girls also use the same
technique in theatres and buses."
Altaf is still very young. Terrified to leave his house
now, he has stopped putting up his stall at the fairs. He says he is not
alone, Muslims stallholders don’t put up their stalls at fairs in and
around the Kundapur taluka any more, they are too afraid. Some
months after the Asodu incident, terrorists attacked the Akshardham temple
in Gujarat. Bajrang Dal activists then spread the rumour that terrorists
would attack the Sringeri Sharadamba temple during its annual
celebrations. Muslim vendors who have been putting up stalls on such
occasions for years were forcibly prevented by the Bajrang Dal to do
business that year.
In another incident, two Dalit girls who worked at a small
Muslim owned factory happened to fall ill. The factory owner served his
workers snacks supplied by a hotel belonging to a Hindu Brahmin. Bajrang
Dal activists circulated the rumour that the Muslim owner had attempted to
kill his Hindu employees by poisoning them. On this occasion it was the
fortunate and timely intervention by local Dalit activists that prevented
another cycle of violence against Muslims.
A petty shop located on the Kundapur-Udupi national
highway was burnt down overnight in the aftermath of the so-called AIDS
incident. The owner, a Muslim, was clueless about the reason behind the
attack or its perpetrators. When we asked him why his shop might have been
attacked he said, "It is a bad time for Muslims." Muslims have long been
silent spectators to the growing incidence of violence against their
community.
"Heart of a heartless world": the sangh parivar’s myth of
‘conversion’
In addition to their vicious campaigns and violence
against Muslims, the BJP and the sangh parivar have also made Christians a
target of their hate campaign in Karnataka. According to the sangh
parivar’s ‘nationalist’ ideology, like Muslims, the Christians are also
‘aliens’ to this land, for their ‘religious origins’ and their ‘holy
centres’ lie outside India. Hence India is neither their ‘sacred place’
nor their ‘fatherland’. This, as we know, is the fascist concept of
‘nationality’ that is the ideological soul of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ as
propagated by the works of Savarkar, Hedgewar and Gowalkar – the founders
of the RSS.
Muslims constitute about 15 per cent of India’s population
and they are a visible community. Through their persistent propaganda
about Muslims in India having a higher growth rate, the sangh parivar has
been somewhat successful in fostering a growing insecurity in the minds of
Hindus. But the same tactics prove futile against Christians, as they
constitute a mere two per cent of the population. The sangh parivar has
thus been using the weapon of ‘conversion’ against Christians, accusing
them of converting Hindus to Christianity by force and allurement. The BJP
has through concerted campaigns been trying to legitimise its pernicious
idea that the very act of conversion is a heinous matter. But a little
probing into our own history reveals otherwise. Dr Ambedkar himself
converted to Buddhism, taking thousands of Harijan Hindus along with him.
He did this to overcome the disparity and injustice in the Hindu religion
towards the Panchamas. Can such conversion be a heinous act?
By the same coin, belief in Buddhism and Jainism can also
be viewed as an act of conversion from Hinduism by Harijans. The sangh
parivar adopts tactful strategies to counter this by saying that since
both Buddha and Mahavir were Hindus, this conversion was harmless. On the
other hand, conversion to Islam or Christianity is intolerable. The BJP
ideal of equating a nationality with a single religious affiliation in
fact denies a primary truth: that the entire world consists of more than
200 countries most of whose people follow one of four major religions viz.
Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Udupi is an important pilgrimage centre for a particular
sect of Hindu Brahmins. Apart from a famous Krishna temple, the district
also houses ancient mosques and churches. Topographically, these religious
centres are located very close to one another yet the area witnessed
little communal tension in either the pre- or post-independence eras. The
region’s Christians participated actively in the struggle against British
rule. But now the BJP has started fomenting communal tension by alleging
that Christians are involved in the forcible conversion of Hindus. They
argue that since these people were Hindus generations ago (i.e. before
their conversion) they must convert back to Hinduism and purify themselves
in order to serve the nation.
On September 12, 2004, a Sunday prayer was in progress at
the congregation of a Protestant sect called ‘New Life’ in Udupi. Being a
Protestant meeting there was no idol worship, nor any such ritual
ceremonies. Unlike Catholic churches, these centres do not display
pictures or statues of Christ; the church is thus a mere auditorium or a
hall for worship. That Sunday mass there were about 100 people present,
including women and children, when a group of people from the Hindu Yuva
Sena (as reported by the media), around 15 to 20 in number, barged into
the meeting and proceeded to destroy the sound system and chairs. They
left after the meeting had dispersed.
An evening newspaper published from Mangalore, Karavali
Ale, described the incident as an "attack on a conversion centre" in
banner headlines on the front page. Other newspapers carried similar
reports stating that conversion activities by Christians had come to light
in Udupi and such acts must be stopped immediately to maintain peace and
tranquillity. The reports flaunted copies of the Bible in Kannada as
evidence! Is it a crime to have Kannada Bibles? The Kannada Bible is
centuries old. Its appearance marked the beginning of the spread of
literacy and the era of modern publishing. The first Kannada-English
dictionary, the first Kannada newspaper, the establishment of modern
schools and allopathic hospitals, were all pioneering works by Christian
missionaries in this region. The social beneficiaries of these
philanthropic activities by Christian missionaries are, to a large extent,
the Hindu upper castes. Now the ancient Bible has become a symbol of
conversion in the region. And thus the sangh parivar manipulates a
situation to its advantage to marginalise other religions.
Incidents of this kind have occurred in several places
across the Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts. At some places huts
belonging to Dalits have been destroyed, photographs of Christ have been
burnt and Hindutva activists have attacked prayer meetings, all on the
pretext of stopping forcible conversions.
In 2003, a New Life prayer meeting at Alangaru near
Karkala in Dakshina Kannada was attacked by a group of 50 Bajrang Dal
workers who alleged that two girls from nearby Ajjekaru village had been
lured to the meeting for conversion. We met the pastor of the congregation
and asked him whether the girls had attended prayers there. He readily
acknowledged this, adding that if anyone came to the prayer meetings
voluntarily seeking peace of mind he could not turn them away. A
mischievous curiosity prompted us to press on, would he convert them if
they volunteered? He said there was no such thing as a conversion ritual
in his sect. As they believe solely in the Old Testament, they don’t
worship the holy cross or statues of Jesus, Mary and so on, no holy water
nor baptism. No one who comes to prayer is asked to forego the religious
customs or practices they follow. What then constitutes the identity of
your sect, we persisted. His answer was simple: congregating at a location
and praying together, reciting verses of the Old Testament or New Songs in
praise of the lord. It is a comradeship rooted in abstract devotion.
We also met Pankaj Kumar Takoor, additional superintendent
of police of the jurisdiction at the time, to ask whether any complaints
of coercive conversion had been registered in police stations of the area
over the past two or three years. He not only confirmed that no such cases
had been registered but also added that if conversion is willingly
effected by an individual it is not an offence under the existing law. He
told us he had said the same thing to BJP leaders who had come to him
urging preventive action against Protestant prayer meetings.
It was now more than apparent that the Hindutva brigade
had been adopting terror tactics to prevent Hindus from attending such
prayer meetings even when they did so of their own free will. We wanted to
find out why these Hindus had chosen to attend a Protestant prayer
meeting. At Ajjekaru village we met the two girls (young women, actually,
for they were both over 18) who were the focus of the Alangaru incident.
We spoke to the younger of the two, Sandhya, and her mother Sumati.
Both young women had passed their SSLC (secondary school
leaving certificate) examinations after which they dropped out of school
to help support the family. Both are daily wagers at a local cashew nut
factory. They belong to the Billava caste, which is at the bottom of the
caste ladder. Their father has abandoned his financial responsibilities to
the family and the two girls and their mother now struggle to make ends
meet. Yes, they go to Alangaru prayer meetings by choice. But why?
Sumati had three daughters. The eldest, Vidya, a business
management graduate, was diagnosed with cancer. They tried modern medicine
for as long as they could afford it but Vidya’s condition worsened.
Somebody then advised them to undertake a pilgrimage to Potta, a famous
‘faith healing centre’ in Kerala. The visit to Potta seemed to lift
Vidya’s spirits although her condition did not really improve. She died
about six months before the Alangaru incident took place.
Somehow the pilgrimage to Potta and the peace of mind that
Vidya attained had a lasting impression on the mother and her two girls
even as their financial and emotional ordeals continued. A family
acquaintance mentioned the prayer meetings at Alangaru. They went to a
meeting and found some mental solace there. The women then continued to
attend prayers at Alangaru for the next few weeks when the Bajrang Dal
incident occurred. We asked Sandhya whether they would still go to prayer
after everything that had happened recently. Her response was unequivocal.
"Yes, we will. We had problems and we are finding peace of mind through
prayer. It is our own business. I said the same thing quite sternly to a
Bajrang Dal activist who had come to threaten us." She was furious with
press reports that said girls have shed Hindu customs and are brainwashed
into getting converted. "No, nobody is forcing us to convert and no such
thing goes on at prayer. We practice our customs and pray there for
peace," she said as she showed us a copy of the Kannada Bible she kept at
home.
People at prayer meetings in Udupi told us the same thing.
Their ordeals seemed similar. And in India people often approach centres
of different faiths seeking solace for problems in their daily lives
without giving up the faith to which they were born. Many Sufi shrines and
churches across the country have attracted people from varied faiths for
centuries. To them, they embody the "heart of a heartless world". Now
Hindutva wants to shatter that heart as well.
Punish the law-abiding, reward the lawbreakers: Travails
of a meat vendor
Another major campaign on the BJP’s agenda is the one
against cow slaughter. Contrary to what they aim to project, beef is
consumed by not only Muslims and Christians but also by Adivasis and
Dalits. Yet the BJP holds only Christians and Muslims responsible for
gravely offending Hindu religious sentiments through cow slaughter. In
adopting such agendas the BJP has been grossly violating constitutionally
guaranteed laws and fundamental rights so as to pursue its designs to
ignite Hindu sentiments against fellow beings.
Kasim saheb is a 55-year-old man from Nejaru
village in Udupi district. The only profession he knows is the meat trade
and his earnings from that feed his large family. Meat trading is a family
legacy, being the sole source of livelihood for his father and his
grandfather before him. Along with mutton and chicken, Kasim saheb
also sells beef. He had a gram panchayat licence permitting this and was
careful to adhere to the rules under the Prevention of Cow Slaughter and
Cattle Preservation Act 1964. Such legalities were of course immaterial to
the local unit of the Hindu Yuva Sena who launched a campaign against
Kasim saheb, registering a complaint against him with the gram
panchayat.
We now know how these outfits register their complaints:
Organise a fierce, slogan shouting mob and then threaten people to sign on
the dotted line or face the consequences. The gram panchayat yielded to
these terror tactics and cancelled the licence issued to Kasim saheb
in 1988. When Kasim saheb petitioned the higher authorities, the
health department made an inspection of his premises and reissued
permission. But the gram panchayat refused to budge. So Kasim saheb
lodged a complaint with the superintendent of police and district
administration who promised to look into the matter. And yet the gram
panchayat continued to refuse him permission on the grounds that his
profession was "harming people’s sentiments".
Unwilling to be browbeaten by this injustice, Kasim
saheb then organised a village petition, which about 550 villagers
signed. The petitioners said they were all beef-eaters and they relied on
Kasim saheb’s business, they had no complaints against him, and
demanded that his business must immediately be given a licence. Most of
the petition’s signatories were Hindus and many were Harijans who had no
taboos about beef-eating. Who then were the few whose ‘sentiments were
harmed’? The Brahmins in Kalyanapura panchayat are very small in number
and such inequity could not be allowed for their sake alone.
The slaughter of cows for meat and the sale of such meat
is not in itself a crime in many states of India, including Karnataka. The
BJP campaign against it is neither in the interest of cows nor Hindu
religious sentiments. Their sole motive is to generate communal unrest
from time to time and keep the tension alive. The BJP even tried to
persuade the former NDA government to enact a law against cow slaughter.
The move failed following resistance from several quarters – its own
allies, opposition parties and various state governments.
Under Karnataka’s Cow Slaughter Act, any cow that is 12
years and older, does not yield milk or is infertile can be slaughtered
with due permission from the gram panchayat or the city municipality.
These cows must be otherwise healthy and the slaughter must take place in
sanitary conditions. The sangh parivar uses the loopholes in the law not
for the cows’ well-being but mainly to jeopardise the livelihoods and
lives of people like Kasim saheb.
Notwithstanding the public support he received and in
spite of a zilla parishad ruling in his favour, Kasim saheb is yet
to get his licence back. This apart, he has also been forced to deal with
the police since the sangh parivar frequently lodges complaints against
him. On one such occasion when Hindutva outfits complained that he was
slaughtering cows illegally the police asked him to go to the Udupi police
station, about 10 km from his home, in the morning. He was made to sit at
the police station and repeatedly asked just one question – Confess the
truth. Each time he denied their accusations he was told to wait a few
more hours until finally they let him go at around 10 p.m., long after the
last bus to Nejaru had left. Kasim saheb has blood pressure and
blood sugar problems, he had had nothing to eat since early that morning,
yet he had no option but to walk the 10 km to his home.
On another occasion, the Udupi circle inspector (CI)
raided his house one night only to find nothing out of the ordinary. Not
satisfied, the CI told Kasim saheb, "Stop doing this business.
Otherwise these outfits will lock you up in your house, blast a (gas)
cylinder and burn the whole place down as they did in Gujarat."
Kasim saheb looks older than his years. He now
makes his living selling chicken but he is still looking for a favourable
order from the panchayat. Against this backdrop, his petition to the
district collector tells a pitiful story " ...The people (of my village)
have neither any objection to nor any intention to obstruct my business.
But, sir, to carry out the profession lawfully I need a licence…"
The Hindu Yuva Sena, Bajrang Dal and other Hindutva
organisations have been on a continuing rampage across Udupi and Dakshina
Kannada. They now threaten and assault people involved in the cow trade.
They stop vans that carry cows and manhandle the people in them, assault
them physically and force them to flee. Although several people did come
together to protest against this goondagiri (thuggery) at a rally
in Mangalore, Hindutva’s siege continues unchecked.
Murder of a Hindu priest: A new episode in ‘cow
protection’ politics
"Let the government issue an order that the Bajrang Dal is
the sole law enforcing power in the country and that everybody should obey
its commands! Then we’ll shut up and obey them! Who are these people to
punish anyone?"
We met Ramesh Rao in his home three days after his father,
Patali Krishnayya, was killed in a murderous assault by a mob of Bajrang
Dal activists.
We have heard words like these before – words of anguish
from a helpless soul – they are an all too familiar refrain from minority
victims of Hindutva violence. But this time they came from a Hindu
Brahmin. What did 70-year-old Krishnayya do to attract punishment by death
from Hindutva’s storm troopers?
Krishnayya lived an honourable life, respected not only by
people in his village, Kavadi, but also by people from Kavadi’s 10
neighbouring villages. Krishnayya was a traditional ‘Patali’ at the
village Mahalingeshwara temple. (A Patali is a person designated to chant
swasti – a special incantation in praise of god to be rhythmically
chanted at definite stages of mantra recitation.) He was also a prosperous
agriculturist, chairman of the local cooperative bank and chairman of the
school committee at Kavadi Higher Primary School which was built under his
leadership. But more than this, Krishnayya was a paternal figure whom
people always went to when they were in difficulty, for Krishnayya would
go the extra mile to lend a helping hand. He was at one with his
surroundings and his community.
At around 10 p.m. on May 24, 2006, Krishnayya was attacked
and then killed by a group of 10 Bajrang Dal activists – led by Kumara
Swamy, head of Bajrang Dal’s Udupi district unit, and Krishna Shanbag, the
head of Bajrang Dal’s local area committee – for pursuing an activity that
is integral to social life in the coastal region: mediating in the sale of
cows. This is such a common practice in coastal society that mediators in
the sale of cows even have a traditional name – ‘Pairinavaru’. People who
can no longer bear the financial burden of maintaining unproductive
cattle, those who need money for weddings and other ceremonies, are often
keen to sell off productive cattle for a good price. They approach the
mediators who then help them to strike a good deal. In fact, cattle sale
mediation is not just a profession; it shows shades of social service.
Krishnayya was only pursuing what he and society around
him considered a helpful activity during hard times. But Hindutva politics
does not respect such community moorings or practices that are quite at
odds with their idea of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. Bajrang Dalis, Kumara Swamy and
Krishna Shanbag, whose attack would lead to Krishnayya’s death, were no
strangers to him. In fact, they were among his caste brethren and family
associates. They visited him regularly and attended religious ceremonies
at his home. Krishnayya even helped them out with day-to-day problems. But
their ideology left no room for community relations. Kumara Swamy and
Krishna Shanbag were arrested for murder under Section 302 of the IPC but
having managed to secure bail, they now roam free. Free to continue their
earlier activities.
At Krishnayya’s house, we were shown the family album
filled with pictures of Krishnayya striking poses with his cattle. (He was
a champion ‘Kambla’ racer – a local sport in which the competitors drive
their cattle in tracks through muddy fields). Pictures of Krishnayya,
sporting his big moustache, next to his winning pair, holding the trophy
he had won; Krishnayya feeding or petting his cattle. His family members
hurried us through the album until we came to one picture in particular.
Krishnayya’s grandson dressed as ‘Balagopala’ (baby Krishna) stood beside
a calf in a scene, we were told, his grandfather had meticulously
scripted.
In that house of mourning, the Kambla trophy occupied
pride of place beside a garlanded portrait of Krishnayya. Just as we were
about to leave, the telephone rang. Unaware of recent events, the caller
wanted to know if Krishnayya could help them sell a cow, as they needed
money urgently for a ceremony. The entire tableau seemed incredibly
absurd. This is the absurdity of a society in the grip of full-scale
Hindutva violence. n
(With translation assistance
from Uvaraj and Sushmita.)
(G. Rajashekar is a well-known
literary and cultural critic, and a social thinker. K. Phaniraj teaches
civil engineering and is a cultural critic. Both work as coordinators of
Souharda Vedike, a communal harmony and human rights forum based in Udupi.
They have co-authored two books in Kannada on the growth of communalism
and write regularly for the Kannada weekly,
Lankesh
.