We need Bandhutva (brotherhood), not Hindutva.” This slogan posted recently on social media by Sunil Bajilakeri, a former BJP supporter, went viral.
Bajilakeri is part of a small but vocal group of disaffected members of the Bajrang Dal and other right-wing Hindu organisations in Karnataka.
Having served time in prison, Bajilakeri’s stance against the BJP is grounded in practical reasons. “For Hindutva activists who get involved in these criminal cases, the reality hits home after they turn 30 and responsibilities pile up at home. Then they find there is nobody around to help them,” he says.
“People help just once. And once you have a criminal record, you do not get a job,” he adds.
“No karyakarta’s household has improved because of right-wing organisations. It is just the leaders’ houses that have done well,” Praveen Valke, a former Bajrang Dal and Sri Ram Sene volunteer says.
“The young men in the movement do not know anything about the dharma — the Ramayana, Mahabharat, Vedas or Upanishad. We have brought in these men and guided them to a path of fighting and violence,” he says.
Valke says the modus operandi of most right-wing groups under the banner of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad today is akin to “pinching children to make them cry and then consoling them.”
Having faithfully worked for these organisations for several years, these members are tired of seeing other outsiders reap the benefits.
One such rift came to the fore right before the Assembly elections in 2018, when Satyajith Surathkal, the state secretary of the BJP’s Backward Classes Morcha, openly revolted and blamed the current Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel over being denied a party ticket.
Surathkal, seen as instrumental in setting up the Hindutva base of the BJP in Dakshina Kannada, lost the Mangaluru North ticket to Dr Bharath Shetty Y, who is widely seen as an outsider in the district’s politics.
Uday Acharya grew up in an RSS household but is now associated with the Congress party in the Dakshina Kannada district. He says the region is now seeing some consolidation along the lines of caste and community.
One such indication is an “apolitical” gathering of the Billava community, cutting across party lines, planned for later this year.
“Now it feels like the people are tired,” Acharya says. “Nobody has a job. And when people are educated, they don’t want to associate with movements like this.”
More than anything, there is one indication that the tide is turning: “The number of threat calls I receive has reduced,” Acharya says.