Dakshina Kannada has long been a region of clarity—culturally assertive, economically self-reliant, and politically rooted. But that clarity has often unsettled those who seek control through confusion. Over time, an entire coastline has been reduced to a label. From ‘Hindutva lab’ to ‘communal hotbed’, the names change, but the intent remains the same: to caricature, to contain, to control.

And this branding hasn’t emerged from the people—it has been imposed upon them. It is a project pushed by the political class, amplified by the media, and sustained through silence. The region is not understood, only slotted. Not listened to, only labelled.

And a key effort of this semiotic sabotage is achieved through the way even the worst of crimes in the region are branded. A fresh instance still in public memory is how every ‘Hindu’ murdered is described as a rowdy sheeter in news headlines—with defenders scrambling to justify it by saying, “he was no saint."

This is not just lazy journalism—it is a deliberate act of narrative engineering. A strategy designed not to inform, but to pre-empt. Not to investigate, but to inoculate public discourse from inconvenient truths.

When a Hindu youth is murdered, the pattern is by now predictable. The headlines rush to neutralise emotion. The background is picked apart. The victim is scrutinised before the accused. And if the accused isn’t Hindu, the motive is quickly blurred—personal rivalry, gang clash, road rage—anything but ideological hate.

Even the police, often operating under political compulsions and media pressure, slap on labels rather than investigate links. Strange how conveniently a Hindu rowdy-sheeter is never seen on par with a Muslim misguided youth.

Take the recent murder of Suhas Shetty in Mangaluru. He was killed in broad daylight. But before the blood on the street had dried, the label had been applied. “Rowdy," they said. “History-sheeter." Not a victim. Not a man. Just a statistic dulled by suggestion. Only days later did names like Adil surface. Only then did links to previous communal flashpoints—like the murder of Praveen Nettaru—emerge. But by then, the narrative had already moved on. The script had served its purpose.

This template is not accidental. It is a tool of control.

And no political force has mastered this better than the Congress. From calling Dakshina Kannada “sensitive" to deploying “anti-communal task forces" with surgical selectivity, it has ensured that the region is forever seen through a lens of suspicion. In 2023, and again now in 2025, Home Minister G. Parameshwara revived these forces—projects less about preventing conflict, more about preserving a carefully constructed image: that the threat comes not from growing Islamist radicalisation, but from an assertive Hindu identity.

Never mind that the coast has repeatedly been at the receiving end of ideological killings. Never mind that youth like Sharath Madiwala, Deepak Rao, and Praveen Nettaru weren’t just killed—they were singled out. The Congress line remains unchanged: the coast is communal,........

© News18