In 1999, a very important baithak was organised and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh appointed me as the person in-charge. It was as if being given the responsibility to organise a baithak meant that heaven was just three steps away.
I made sure that there were no shortcomings in the organisation of the event. I arranged for the meals and accommodation for state and national RSS leaders participating in the baithak, and also for all the meetings that would take place during the event.
The Bajrang Dal’s founder-president Vinay Katiyar, pracharak Pramod Muthalik, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s then state secretary Keshav Hegde, RSS Prantha Sanchalaka Dr Sriram Joshi, Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, and Sunil Kumar attended the event. What was significant about that gathering was that with the exception of Vinay Katiyar and me, most of the other leaders present were Brahmins. The Bajrang Dal’s founding president Vinay Katiyar belonged to the backward Kurmi caste and I am a Vokkaliga. Most of the rest of the leaders – including Keshava Hegde, Rama Joshi, Pramod Muthalik, Prabhakar Bhat – were Brahmins. But why such a large number of leaders at that gathering were Brahmins, I failed to understand. Perhaps it was because I was not old enough to understand it, or maybe I was just not intellectually equipped to do so.
At the baithak, Prabhakar Bhat spoke about the manner in which the Dattapeetha agitation had been carried out so far, how the Bajrang Dal was built, the lathi charges during the shobha yatre, and carrying out the agitation even while numerous cases were filed against us.
The rest of the proceedings during that baithak were discharged by the RSS’ prantha sanchalaka Dr Shriram Joshi. He said, “We have to take the Dattapeetha agitation to another level. No matter what we do, Dattapeetha is still in the hands of Muslims. It is not possible for us to take control of it in one shot, and it is not necessary to do it all of a sudden either. We should make it ours step by step.”
Dr Shriram Joshi continued, and said: “Look, right now, you’re saying that there are no signs to suggest that Datta even existed there. Since Muslim moulvis are currently carrying out rituals at Dattapeetha, we must launch an agitation to demand that a Brahmin priest too must be appointed to perform puje there.”
Shriram Joshi’s idea appeared logical to those of us at the baithak. After all, if we wanted to make Dattapeetha ours, then the first step would be to ensure that a Brahmin priest carries out puje there. Let Muslims offer worship at Baba Budan Darga, let Brahmin priests offer puje to Datta, we thought.
But back then, the thought that, “Hold on… Why should only a Brahmin priest be appointed? It was not as if Dattapeetha had a tradition of a hereditary priest. So, even a Shudra or a Dalit person could be appointed as priest,” never occurred to us.
When the baithak ended, I took up the agitation to demand the appointment of a Brahmin priest at Dattapeetha. The agitation ran for months. We were lathicharged several times. Avalli Girish, who agitated along with me, was stabbed. It spurred us on even more because a Muslim had done the stabbing. It became a routine; police would arrest us, we would get bail in two days and be out agitating on the streets again. For months on end, we would get lathicharged and we would agitate.
But one day, the agitation was more serious than on other days. Our Bajrang Dal boys set fire to every petty shop they could. It was like the whole of Chikkamaglur was aflame. Our agitation took on such a violent character that it rattled the secular government. I kept the senior leaders of the Sangh informed of our every move.
The Bajrang Dal’s boys assaulted Muslim street vendors and set fire to their pushcarts. For some reason, this did not sit right with me. I told the boys, “Don’t give any trouble to poor Muslims. Poor things… don’t target people who earn maybe Rs 50 a day and take that home. You know those Muslims who give funds to stab us…? Target those Muslims.” That was all I said for the protection of poor Muslims, and the Bajrang Dal boys turned their attention to rich Muslims. Sawmills and timber trade businesses owned by Muslims were set ablaze. Columns of fire from large burning logs touched the sky and fear engulfed Chikkamagluru.
After that, the police arrested hundreds of people, including me, and unlike in the past, we did not get out as quickly. Back then, it was as if the BJP did not exist. The police tortured me and many others. They made us lie face up and beat us… still, it was not possible for them to put us all in one jail. They sent 20 of us, including Bajrang Dal boys from Tarikere (in Chikkamagalur district), to Bengaluru’s Central Jail in Parappana Agrahara.
Several months went by and we experienced life in Parappana Agrahara. The situation was ironic: We were in jail for demanding the appointment of a Brahmin priest at Dattapeetha, but there wasn’t a single Brahmin in our agitation. Not a single Brahmin went to jail, nor was any Brahmin implicated in a police case.
It was Brahmin leaders who decided that a Brahmin priest should be appointed at Dattapeetha to perform puje but to bring this about, it was the Shudra boys of the Bajrang Dal who set fire to Chikkmaglur and organised communal riots. At the very least, the Brahmin leaders of the RSS did not even make any attempt to get us out of jail when we had been there for months. In the end, Bojaraj (an RSS man and one of those who built the Bajrang Dal) who for some reason was not part of the communal riots, pawned off his rings and the jewellery of the women in his house to raise the money for a lawyer’s fees and pay our bail.
Even after all this, we were still drunk on Hindutva. Once we were out of jail, we resumed our agitation demanding that a priest be appointed to offer puje at Dattapeetha.
(The above piece is a chapter titled Brahmanaru maththu Bajrangi from journalist Naveen Soorinje’s forthcoming book Nanna Dhwani: Nanna Dhwani: Mahendra Kumar Badukina Putagalu. Mahendra Kumar was the convenor of the Bajrang Dal in Karnataka and carried out the 2008 Mangalore church attacks. He eventually distanced himself from the Sangh’s ideology. To be published by Aharnishi Prakashana, the book is written in the style of an autobiography based on a series of interviews and conversations that Soorinje had with Mahendra Kumar since the church attacks until his death in 2020.)
(Translated by Anisha Sheth.)