HINDU EXTREMISTS ATTACK WOMEN IN MANGALORE PUB

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CHENNAI 000025

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KIRF IN
SUBJECT: HINDU EXTREMISTS ATTACK WOMEN IN MANGALORE PUB

REF: CHENNAI 350


1. (U) Summary: Approximately 40 male Hindu extremists on January 24
forced their way into a pub in Mangalore, Karnataka (300 km west of
Bangalore) and attacked several women customers for "drinking in
public and acting in an obscene manner." Local police took action
only two days later, arresting the president of the Sri Ram Sena,
who at first condoned the attack in a television interview, then
later apologized for it.


2. (SBU) Summary, continued: Karnataka's BJP government gave no
public explanation for the delay in taking action for the attack.
Privately, an aide to the Chief Minister told us that the lack of a
formal complaint caused the delay, an explanation that a local
criminal lawyer told us was not credible. Nationally, the BJP
leadership condemned the attack and distanced itself from the
perpetrators. Some BJP supporters see the attack as part of a
conspiracy to defame the party's first government in South India.
Critics frame the incident as part of a larger drive to push a
conservative interpretation of Hinduism on the state's citizens.
End Summary.

An attack at Amnesia
--------------


3. (U) Approximately 40 men stormed into the "Amnesia Lounge" (a
pub/nightclub) on January 24 in the coastal city of Mangalore,
attacking several women and some men who tried to defend them.
Videos of the assault, which showed the attackers slapping, pushing
to the ground, and kicking several women as they chased them out of
the pub, appeared on national television and can be viewed on the
Internet. (The group apparently invited journalists to cover their
rampage.) Pramod Muthalik, president of the Sri Ram Sena
organization, admitted the group's role in the attacks in a January
26 television interview, though he was not in Mangalore during the
incident. (Note: The Sri Ram Sena is a little known local group in
Karnataka.). He said that the women's presence in the pub "violated
Indian culture." He later reportedly admitted that the attack was
"wrong" while insisting that it was necessary "to save our mothers
and daughters."

Police intervene . . . but only after two days
-------------- -


4. (U) Police took no observable action to either stop the violence
or arrest its perpetrators for at least 48 hours. (Note: Indian
police frequently do not take steps to intervene or prevent violence
when faced by mobs.) By January 29, however, the police reportedly
had arrested 31 men in connection with the attacks. Police also
arrested Muthalik on January 27 in Belgaum (350 km north of
Mangalore),but for "distributing inflammatory pamphlets" on January
11 in west-central Karnataka.


5. (SBU) An aide to Chief Minister Yeddiyurappa told us that the
delay in arresting the culprits was due to the lack of a formal
complaint. He said the police took action "within an hour" after a
formal complaint was filed. (We have not yet seen a public
statement from Karnataka's government explaining the delay in police
action.)


6. (SBU) A Chennai-based criminal lawyer told us, however, that a
formal complaint should not have been necessary for the police to
act. He explained that the attacks constituted a "cognizable
offense" (akin to the concept of prima facie evidence of a crime in
American jurisprudence),which allows the police to take immediate
action, even if there is no formal complaint.

The BJP's opponents pile it on . . .
--------------


7. (U) India's chattering classes, at both the local and national
levels, have commented rather predictably on the incident and its
aftermath. Renuka Chowdhury, Union Minister for Women and Child
Development (and member of the Congress Party) publicly decried the
assault as an "attempt to Talibanize India," admonished Karnataka's
state government to "wake up," and demanded that it provide a
detailed explanation of the event. She also expressed her "shock at
the insensitivity" of such an act on the eve of India's Republic
Day," and declared that "in a democracy such acts are not
acceptable."


8. (SBU) Karnataka's state-level Congress Party president told us
that the attack demonstrated the political tactics fostered by the
BJP in the state. He explained that the police were unable to act
in the absence of orders from the political executive. He also said
that Hindu extremists in the state are emboldened by the relative
lack of government action following the attacks on churches in
Mangalore and elsewhere in Karnataka in September 2008 (ref A).


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9. (U) H.D. Deve Gowda, former Prime Minister and head of the Janata
Dal-Secular (JDS, a Karnataka-based political party currently in the
opposition),used the opportunity to excoriate Chief Minister
Yeddiyurappa and his government. Deve Gowda told the press that
Yeddiyurappa had "Talibanized" Karnataka, bringing in levels of
intolerance hitherto unknown in the state. He also sarcastically
noted that Yeddiyurappa had succeeded in bringing the "Gujarat
Model" to Karnataka in only 200 days. (One of the campaign pledges
of the BJP was to bring the economic and administrative success of
the BJP-led state of Gujarat to Karnataka, ergo the "Gujarat Model."
Deve Gowda and other political opponents of the BJP, however, use
the term to refer to a model of political and cultural intolerance
that includes violence, like Gujarat's anti-Muslim riots of 2002.)

. . . While the BJP distances itself --------------


10. (U) At the local level, the BJP's initial response was muted.
An op-ed in The Hindu, one of India's most respected dailies, noted
"it is impossible to ignore the total absence of shock and outrage
in the remarks of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and Home Minister
V.S. Acharya while reacting to the incidents." (The same op-ed also
alleges that a group of Sri Ram Sena members also attacked a private
party the same day, seriously injuring two people, and noted that at
least 14 attacks by "Hindu vigilantes" have taken place in Karnataka
since mid-July.)


11. (U) Yeddiyurappa at first dismissed the attack as "not worthy of
his reaction," then called it "an unfortunate incident" and
emphasized that the police had a "free hand" to respond to the
incident. He also stressed that the Sri Ram Sena was not a member
of the Sangh Parivar, the umbrella organization of conservative
Hindu groups that includes the BJP. As national criticism mounted,
the state government declared the attack "an unacceptable act of
hooliganism." BJP party president, Rajnath Singh, condemned the
attack and stated those who were responsible need to be booked. The
BJP also distanced itself from the attackers, denying that any of
them belonged to the BJP or the Sangh Parivar.


12. (SBU) A state BJP spokesman told us that attack was an attempt
to defame the BJP's first government in South India and sully the
image of Yeddiyurappa. He pointed out that the invitation extended
to journalists to cover the attack "clearly pointed in that
direction."

What is the Sri Ram Sena?
--------------


13. (SBU) The executive director of the South India Center for Human
Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) told us that Sri Rama Sena
members have been accused of occasional attacks on couples in parks
and on beaches. He also said that Sena activists had gained some
local legitimacy by hindering the transportation of cattle to
Kerala, a practice generally carried out by Muslims to avoid
violating Karnataka's ban on cattle slaughter. (Note: There is no
known connection between the Sri Rama Sena and the BJP or the Hindu
Nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.)

Comment
--------------


14. (SBU) Mangalore is a university town with a beach-like, casual
atmosphere. It is not the sort of place where one would necessarily
expect to find conservative vigilantism. Between the these attacks
and the assaults on Christian churches in September, the town is
becoming famous for all the wrong reasons as even international
media has picked up on the story. However, it is not surprising
these types of incidents occasionally flare up in a nation that has
experienced recent rapid economic and social changes. As India
starts to take off economically, clashes between
modernity/globalization and tradition will occur. The attack has
stirred a debate throughout India on whether "pub culture" is
consistent with Indian values. The fact that India faces national
elections this spring adds further complications. We can expect
political parties of all stripes to seek electoral advantage from
such tensions.
When these types of incidents occur, however, Indians ought to be
able to expect that their state governments -- responsible for
providing security -- will react with more vigor than demonstrated
in this incident.

SIMKIN