Congress promises law against moral policing

Present in the Congress manifesto is a promise that for many has come five years too late.

In the recently released manifesto, the Congress has promised to enact a law “to prevent and deal with those who are accused of vigilantism, cultural policing and communal instigation”.

However, a look at the track record shows that the Congress rule has not been much different in terms of curbing vigilantism than the previous BJP rule, during which incidents such as the “pub attack” (in 2009, when a group of Sri Rama Sene members assaulted those in a pub) or the “home stay attack” (the assault in 2012 on youth celebrating a party) brought Mangaluru to notoriety.

While such high-profile, headline-grabbing attacks have not happened now, smaller incidents targeting inter-religious friends and couples as well as attacks on cattle transporters continue. For many victims, justice has eluded in the past — as seen by the acquittal of those accused in the pub attack case which was widely captured on camera.

“There is no change in the way the BJP and the Congress have dealt with these issues,” says Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, an activist who has been maintaining a record of communal incidents in the district. There have been 223 incidents, classified by him as immoral policing or cattle vigilantism, between 2014 and 2017, while it was 163 in the four years before that.

Though there is a mention of special laws in the manifesto, he believes that these incidents will not be featured as debate in the elections — instead, more hard-line Hindutva issues will be propagated to galvanise support.

Mangalore University Political Science professor P.L. Dharma says that while communally-sensitive issues are being raised with some effectiveness, a significant section of voters believe that these divert from the main development issues.

A recent survey by him and four research scholars in Dakshina Kannada revealed that many prefer None of The Above option.