Until recently, saying “I am from Mangaluru” was enough – no other introduction was needed to enter the homes and hearts of strangers.
Published May 04, 2025 | 7:14 PM ⚊ Updated May 04, 2025 | 7:18 PM
Remove the lens of religion, and you will see a district built together by Bunts, Brahmins, Bearys, Billavas, Koragas, Mogaveeras, and Christians.
Synopsis: To say you were from Mangaluru once meant you were worldly, cultured, and trusted – a person of dignity, adventure, and unmatched hospitality. So many titles came with that name. But today, people from the erstwhile undivided Dakshina Kannada district find themselves having to say, ‘I am from Dakshina Kannada, and I am not a communalist.’
“People of the coastal districts should be left to themselves. These districts are black spots on the face of Karnataka. People from other regions should not go there, nor should they send their children there for education…”
These were the recent words of a thinker we all admire, Almeida Gladson, which have received a certain amount of support.
There is some truth in his anguished opinion.
“I am from Dakshina Kannada, but I am not a communalist.”
This is how people from the erstwhile undivided Dakshina Kannada district now find themselves having to introduce themselves.
But just because a venomous snake has entered the house, does one set the whole house on fire?
First, that venomous snake must be killed. Likewise, it is true that a dangerous communal snake has now entered our home. But does that mean we – our elders, and we who have grown up on this land – can simply abandon it and walk away?
Even now, I say with conviction: the majority of people in Dakshina Kannada are not communalists. They are peace-loving individuals who dislike riots and violence.
(Consider this: in the 2013 Assembly elections, Congress candidates won in seven of the eight constituencies in Dakshina Kannada. Of these, four were from minority communities – two Muslims, one Christian, and one Jain.)
But the majority of good people remain silent – and so, the voice of the wicked minority echoes across the land.
Until recently, saying “I am from Mangaluru” was enough – no other introduction was needed to enter the homes and hearts of strangers.
To say you were from Mangaluru meant you were someone who had travelled the world, read encyclopaedias, and was broad-minded, adventurous, dignified, honest, enterprising, progressive, cultured – and known for unmatched hospitality. So many titles came with that name!
It was because of these very qualities that the five banks founded here earned the trust of customers across the country.
And it is for the same reason that food lovers, from India and abroad, continue to seek out Udupi hotels and coastal non-vegetarian restaurants.
These reputations weren’t bought in the marketplace, nor were they earned through media advertisements.
Remove the lens of religion, and you will see a district built together by Bunts, Brahmins, Bearys, Billavas, Koragas, Mogaveeras, and Christians.
It was not built through conflict or bloodshed, but through hard work – wandering from town to town, sweating not just for income but to earn people’s trust.
(If my father hadn’t rushed to Mumbai to save a tiny plot of land and laboured there, sweating and bleeding, I might have ended up rowing boats in Mattu.)
Excluding Bengaluru, Dakshina Kannada contributes the highest tax revenue to the state’s coffers. Yet, the people here are not dependent on the government for their livelihood.
Most of them don’t pay much attention to government schemes, subsidies, or reservations. Their representation in government services is very low.
How many IAS, IPS, or KAS officers has this district of intelligent people produced?
What people here know is this: work hard, earn well, care for your family, and walk through your hometown with your head held high.
For that, they are ready to go anywhere – Mumbai, Dubai, Kuwait, the Andamans, Nicobar – with nothing more than the clothes on their back.
There are social, geographical, and natural reasons why the people of Dakshina Kannada have migrated.
The two primary occupations of the undivided district – agriculture and fishing – have never been profitable.
Both are filled with uncertainty and insecurity, constantly at the mercy of rain and sea.
Except for areca and coconut, none of the rain-fed crops here have ever been truly rewarding.
In such circumstances, people might have lost hope and jumped into the sea to end their lives. But they didn’t.
Instead, they crossed the sea – to Mumbai, Dubai, Kuwait – and built new lives.
Initially, most of those who left the village settled in Mumbai.
The first to go were the landowning Bunts and Brahmins, who began by starting hotels.
Following them were the landless Billavas, who left in search of relief from poverty and humiliation, and found work in those very hotels.
Together, they built and expanded the hotel industry.
Meanwhile, facing the unpredictability of fishing, Mogaveera youth also began moving to Mumbai.
Alongside them, Muslims – whose livelihoods depended on farming and fishing – began to migrate to the Gulf in search of better-paying jobs.
Christians were the earliest to cross the seas.
In recent times, Hindus too have migrated to the Gulf at a rate that now matches that of Muslims and Christians.
(When a flight returning from Dubai crashed at Bajpe Airport nine years ago, the majority of the victims were Hindus.)
It is through the earnings of those who left that the thatched huts of the village were transformed into homes with tiled and concrete roofs.
Brothers and sisters went to college. Parents received treatment in big hospitals.
Sisters’ weddings were celebrated with dowries running into lakhs.
The old daivastanas (spirit shrines) were restored and renovated.
From the beginning, certain unflattering labels have clung to Dakshina Kannadigas – “too calculating,” “showmen,” “bourgeois without social concern.”
But rarely have they been accused of being “narrow-minded frogs in a well,” or seen as opponents of modernity, uncultured, or dishonest.
I spent nearly 20 years of my student and professional life in Dakshina Kannada, living among Mogaveeras, Bearys, and Bunts.
Among all these communities, there was affection and friendship, trust and camaraderie – but also quarrels, anger, envy, and rivalry.
Hindu boys teased Muslim girls, and Muslim boys took Hindu girls to ice cream parlours.
Back then, school-going Muslim girls didn’t wear burqas, and Hindu boys didn’t wear saffron marks or shawls.
Love and friendship across religions were common. So were conflicts – but none of it was seen through the lens of religion.
After all, similar things happened even among Hindus themselves.
Thirty years ago, when a Muslim friend of mine fell in love with and married a girl from my village, the village didn’t erupt in anger.
Everyone accepted it as a matter between two families.
They are still living happily together today.
Now, look at the state of the district. Blood is being spilled in the streets.
In Mumbai, Dubai, and Kuwait, the jobs that once offered a way out no longer exist.
Those who once sought opportunity abroad now struggle to get visas.
The Hindu and Muslim youth who once queued outside passport offices now line up outside police stations.
With police cases pending, the doors to foreign opportunities have slammed shut.
And once you’re labeled a “criminal,” it’s almost impossible to shake it off.
Youth caught in this trap grow restless, more aggressive – some turning into murderers.
Those who once loved without reason now hate without reason.
Recently, I asked a simple question to a few elders and youngsters I know in the village:
“Why do you hate Muslims?”
No one answered.
I continued, “Even if you don’t truly hate them deep down, there’s at least some discomfort, isn’t there?”
A few nodded slightly – but still, no one spoke.
So I went on:
“You’ve lived in this village for years. You know Muslim families personally. Tell me – how many cases have there been where Muslim boys have harassed Hindu girls or brought dishonour?”
Some boys in the group slowly raised their heads. One of them snapped:
“They need the guts for that, right? Do you think we’re wearing bangles?”
“So you care that much about the honour of the village’s women?” I replied.
“Then let me list ten incidents, from this very village, where Hindu boys have harassed, stalked, or deceived Hindu girls. What will you do about those?”
At that, all of them lowered their heads.
By then, the discussion had started to make an impression on the elders.
They began to say things like:
“The Muslims of our village aren’t like that. Let it go. We’ve had friendships with them for years. But why talk just about here? What about UP and Bihar? Aren’t there Muslim terrorists in Kerala too? Look at Kashmir – they say you can’t even hoist the national flag there! Who helped Pulwama happen? Weren’t the terrorists all Muslims? Because of them, we’ve lost faith in the Muslims here too…”
One young man blurted all of this out in a single breath – like he was reciting something he’d memorised.
I asked him, “Where did you learn all this?”
He didn’t answer. He just had a mobile phone in his hand.
Where did this sudden surge of religion-centred anger, conflict, and hatred come from – when it never existed before?
What exactly has happened in the past 30 or 40 years in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district that would make Hindus and Muslims want to kill one another?
Can anyone point to a single incident?
Have Hindus seized Muslim property? Or have Muslims taken over Hindu land?
Have there been mass religious conversions? Has any temple or mosque been destroyed?
If conversions are the issue, Hindus should have been angry with Christians, not Muslims – because the majority of conversions that did happen here were to Christianity, not Islam. And those were the result of Christian missionaries arriving in the region.
So then – why this hatred between Hindus and Muslims?
The answer is simple.
But the intoxicant of religion has robbed us of the ability to think.
Religion has been turned into a political weapon.
And this change did not happen overnight.
Even before the communal flames that swept across the country following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the groundwork for a communal laboratory had already been laid in Dakshina Kannada.
Twenty-five years ago, my professional mentor, Vaddarse Raghurama Shetty, was troubled by this very question. In his editorial column With the Readers, he wrote:
“Among those whose hearts swelled with hope that Dakshina Kannada – advancing boldly in all fields – would become the pride of Kannada land, I too was one. We had all the qualities admired by people from other districts.
“Corruption in governance was almost nonexistent. Public leaders were known for their integrity. The student population brimmed with talent. There was a long list of exemplary teachers. Educated youth were lovers of books and nurtured critical thinking.
“Standing in queues outside cinemas was considered disgraceful by the youth of that time.
“A strong labour movement, unmatched elsewhere in Karnataka, had taken root here. Socialists were active in local politics.
“The belief that alcohol consumption was a grave sin was widespread.
“People who earned money through deceit or immoral practices were met with social rejection.”
When Vaddarse posed the question – “What happened to Dakshina Kannada, which was once like this?” – to Dr GR Krishna, a sociology professor at Roshni Nilaya, he received this reply:
“…The everyday life of the people of Dakshina Kannada district has now become entirely commercialised. It is here that the business of education, now considered a great affliction in this country, first began. Even politics has now been reduced to a matter of commerce. The human relationship between man and woman too has become a commercial commodity here. Yakshagana, the district’s great traditional art, is also caught in the marketplace and is being ruined. Therefore, the publication you are bringing out must also conform to this commercial formula.”
Vaddarse further wrote:
“…[Krishna] gave several examples of how the district’s public life has become commercial. In his view, this is also the reason why the communist labour movement did not take root here. He mentioned how it has now become a fashion to invite wealthy people or bank officials as chief guests for public functions or school annual days. He remarked that intelligence no longer seems to have any value nowadays…”
Dakshina Kannada has always been a land of commerce.
But over the past thirty years, it has taken a more dangerous turn – shifting from “commercial Dakshina Kannada” to “communal Dakshina Kannada.”
Communalism, which intensified after the Babri Masjid demolition, arrived hand in hand with the crony capitalism unleashed by the new economic policies.
Today, the country is suffering the bitter consequences of this combination.
Dakshina Kannada stands as a vivid example of what happens when communalism and crony capitalism merge.
It has become a miniature model of communal India.
In that light, Dakshina Kannada today is a functioning laboratory of communalism – a prototype for communalists across the nation.
If one wishes to rediscover the lost Dakshina Kannada, one must begin by identifying the lab animals in this so-called “communal laboratory.”
The test subjects in the Sangh Parivar’s experiment are the Billava, Bunt, and Mogaveera communities.
Together, these three castes account for nearly three-quarters of the district’s population. Nowhere else in the country will you find caste groups as organised and institutionally cohesive as these.
Across the 8,500 square kilometres of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, there are around 250 Billava Sanghas (community associations), many with their own buildings.
While Bunt Bhavans are fewer, each one stands as grand as a mini Vidhana Soudha (state legislature complex).
The Mogaveeras, though not as visible through formal institutions, have built a powerful network of local associations, held together by a tribal-like social cohesion.
Together, the Billava, Bunt, and Mogaveera communities – along with the Muslim and Christian populations – make up nearly 90 percent of Dakshina Kannada.
The Muslims here, known locally as Bearys (from the Tulu word byara, meaning trade), have traditionally been traders and agriculturists.
They’ve long been active in cattle trade, fish, meat, coconut, mango, tamarind – even waste and scrap – ranging from door-to-door vendors to wholesale market traders. These are the Bearys.
Over the past two or three decades, they have gradually shed the old label of “poor Muslims.”
With advances in education and economic opportunity, a strong middle and upper-middle class has emerged among them.
Yet, until recent years, these communities – Muslims, Christians, Billavas, Bunts, Mogaveeras – rarely clashed in the name of caste or religion.
In fact, one could argue that there were more reasons for them to fight back then than now.
At one time, the Bunts, Jains, and Brahmins were the landowners, while Billavas and other backward castes worked as tenant labourers.
Those years saw serious oppression, exploitation, and humiliation of the labouring classes.
Yet, when the Land Reforms Act was implemented, there was no large-scale conflict, protest, or bloodshed.
Dakshina Kannada became one of the districts where land reform was most effectively carried out.
It was a bloodless revolution. The majority of Bunt, Brahmin, and Jain landowners complied with the law and handed over land to the cultivators.
These upper-caste groups did not, on the whole, respond with hostility or hatred toward the labouring communities who received the land.
Still, the Land Reforms Act not only reshaped the district’s social and economic structures – it had deep political consequences too.
The Mangalore Lok Sabha seat, once represented by leaders like Shankar Alva, K.K. Shetty, and Achar, was, in 1977, won for the first time by B Janardhana Poojary – thanks to Devaraj Urs’s social engineering.
In the Udupi Lok Sabha constituency, established figures like Srinivas Mallya, Ranganatha Shenoy, and T.A. Pai stepped aside as Oscar Fernandes emerged on the scene.
It was during this time that the foundation was laid for the communal laboratory in the coastal region.
From the outset, the RSS had a limited but firm presence in this area.
The Konkanis (Goud Saraswat Brahmins), who had gained considerable economic power through trade and business, were generous donors to the RSS – giving it a strong base in Dakshina Kannada.
However, until the late 1980s, the RSS and its political arm, the Jan Sangh, were unable to expand their influence beyond the Konkani-Brahmin circles.
But the social and political developments of the late 1980s gave the RSS its first real opportunity to grow its base.
Many within the Bunt, Brahmin, Konkani, and Jain communities – disillusioned with the Congress after the Land Reforms Act and feeling politically marginalised – began to search for an alternative political path.
The broader political climate made that search easier.
After the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, a non-Congress government came to power at the Centre for the first time.
The Jan Sangh became part of the ruling coalition and began to expand its national influence.
Simultaneously, in Karnataka, D Devaraj Urs’s rebellion fractured the Congress Party and weakened its traditional base.
Naturally, the Bunts and Konkanis began gravitating toward the BJP.
Next, the RSS turned its attention to the Mogaveera community.
The adventurous, innocent, and somewhat naïve Mogaveeras became the next target in their efforts to expand.
For the first time in the coastal region, a deliberate Hindu–Muslim narrative was planted.
What was exploited was the longstanding business relationship between the Mogaveeras and the Bearys during the era of traditional coastal fishing.
The Mogaveeras were the fishermen. The Bearys were the wholesale fish traders. Mogaveera women would then buy fish in smaller quantities from the Bearys and sell them door to door. That was the ecosystem of the time.
Disputes in trade were common and expected – bickering, taunts, minor conflicts – especially between the Beary wholesalers and Mogaveera women.
Sometimes these quarrels escalated, but they were usually settled with the intervention of elders.
For the first time, however, Sangh Parivar leaders framed these day-to-day disputes as Hindu–Muslim conflicts and began inciting the Mogaveeras.
The existing resentment among Mogaveera men – that Beary traders were dishonest in their dealings – was now inflamed by this ideological provocation.
Muslims’ traditional support for the Congress, and the Congress’s reciprocal support for them, further alienated Mogaveeras from the party.
Adding to this, the Congress leadership among Mogaveeras had long been confined to the Madhwaraj family of Malpe. There were no strong grassroots Congress leaders in the community to counter this drift.
It was at this point that the BJP’s lotus began to bloom.
To such communities, the BJP naturally presented itself as a political alternative.
The result? In 1984, for the first time, the BJP won 18 seats in Dakshina Kannada.
The lotus did not bloom overnight.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) played a crucial role in this transformation.
Through this process, the Sangh Parivar steadily brought the Bunt, Brahmin, Konkani, and Mogaveera communities into its fold.
The only major group left to win over was the Billavas.
With about 35 percent of the total population, the Billavas hold enough demographic strength to decisively influence elections in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district.
Put simply, one in every three voters is a Billava. Muslims make up around 24 percent, and Christians about 8 percent.
At one time, these three communities together formed the Congress Party’s strongest vote bank.
It was this unity that allowed a Christian leader like Oscar Fernandes to win three consecutive elections from the Udupi Lok Sabha constituency.
In today’s political climate, such a victory seems almost unimaginable.
It is the splintering of the Billava vote that has weakened the Congress and enabled the BJP’s rise.
Janardhana Poojary, a Billava leader, won the Mangalore Lok Sabha seat four times in a row as a Congress candidate.
Today, out of twelve assembly constituencies in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district, there are only two Billava MLAs – both from the BJP.
The Congress has just one Rajya Sabha member from the Billava community.
After nearly three decades of the Sangh Parivar’s steady communal experiments, the BJP has triumphed – while the Billavas have lost.
The present condition of the Billavas is not one of pride.
What remains inspiring is only their glorious past.
Historically, the Billavas were farmers, warriors, and healers.
Though primarily agriculturists, their decline is believed to have begun when they were gradually confined to the occupation of toddy tapping – a task involving tying pots around their necks and climbing palm trees.
Over time, this profession came to symbolise their marginalisation.
In Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Edgar Thurston writes:
“The Billavas, the largest ethnic group in the district, were once warriors in the royal armies of Tulu Nadu. They fought using bows and arrows, which is why they came to be called ‘Billavas’ – people of the bow.”
Another historian, Dr Gururaj Bhat, not only supports this view but goes further – asserting that the Billavas and Mogaveeras are children of the same mother.
To support this, he cites Ashokan inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE.
Even the folk heroes of this community – Koti-Chennayya and Kanthabare-Budhabare – affirm this historical bond.
At one time, Billava landowners possessed hundreds of guttu and barke lands. A detailed study of this was conducted recently.
The transformation of the Billavas – from landowning farmers to labourers – was not merely economic. It also involved social deception.
In those times, administrative power – held by divans, shanbhogs, and patels – was concentrated among Brahmins, Jains, and Goud Saraswats, many of whom had migrated from Goa.
When the British began preparing land records in Tulu Nadu in the 18th century, many illiterate Billava landowners were falsely recorded as tenants or labourers (okkalu or genidaras).
The village shanbhogs and patels were responsible for this manipulation.
At that time, the Konkanis were the dominant trading community across Tulu Nadu.
Due to personal vices and financial mismanagement, many Billavas fell into debt with Konkani traders.
Unable to repay those loans, they eventually mortgaged or sold off their land – becoming tenants on the very land they once owned.
(In fact, my own family – once the landowners of the Aikala guttu near Kinnigoli in my great-grandfather’s time – was gradually reduced to tenant status, and we lost that land entirely just a few years before the Land Reforms Act came into force. I am a witness to this.)
For the Billavas, the Land Reforms Act brought a chance to recover economically, progress socially, and advance through education.
Dakshina Kannada was the district where this law was implemented most successfully.
According to a 1987 report by the Revenue Department, out of 4,85,419 tenant families who received land ownership across Karnataka, 1,36,880 were from Dakshina Kannada.
It’s likely that a majority of these were Billavas.
Yet, the Land Reforms Act did not significantly uplift the Billava community.
Naturally, one would expect that the Bunts and Brahmins, who lost land due to land reforms, would become poorer – and the Billavas, who gained land, would grow more prosperous.
But the opposite happened. Though legal disputes were settled and Billavas were officially elevated from tenants to landowners, their economic condition did not improve, nor did they gain social respect.
There were reasons for this.
First, the rain-fed lands of Dakshina Kannada were never profitable for paddy cultivation – not then, not now.
Most landholdings were small, and over time, divided further among family members, they became too fragmented to sustain farming.
Very few families in the district live solely off agriculture. In the past, while young men left for Mumbai to work in hotels, the women at home rolled beedis to supplement the household income.
This created a shortage of labour for farming, and as a result, land ownership did not translate into economic upliftment.
Second, bad habits.
The uncertainty brought on by land reforms pushed Bunts, Brahmins, and Konkanis to work harder and seek new livelihoods.
But for many Billavas, the sudden security of land ownership – achieved without struggle – should have inspired ambition and self-betterment. Instead, it led to complacency in some quarters.
With no huts left to maintain, many elder Billavas became passive landowners, falling into vice.
Alcohol, gambling, cockfights – many wasted their earnings and sank deeper into poverty.
While farming was the primary occupation of the Billavas, toddy tapping was their secondary trade.
Not all Billavas tapped toddy – but all toddy tappers were Billavas.
Most toddy shop contractors also came from the community. As farming couldn’t support families alone, many relied increasingly on this trade. But this association only reinforced their low social standing.
At a time when many educated Billava youth were beginning to raise their voices against caste discrimination, untouchability, and injustice, interest in Christianity began to grow within the community.
Around the same period, Christian missionaries had arrived in Dakshina Kannada, and during that era, thousands of Billavas converted to Christianity.
In response, Billava leaders established the Brahmo Samaj, aiming to stem further conversions.
As early as 1869, a major Billava conference was held in Mangaluru, attended by nearly 5,000 people. Representatives from the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj were present.
Inspired by that event, the very next year, in 1870, the Mangaluru branch of the Brahmo Samaj was founded by Billava leaders themselves.
This was more than just a reaction to religious conversion – it was the first organised protest by the Billavas against untouchability, casteism, and blind beliefs practiced in the name of Hinduism.
Meanwhile, a similar movement had taken root in Kerala under the leadership of Sri Narayana Guru.
A century ago, the Ezhavas of Kerala were in a worse condition than the Billavas of Dakshina Kannada – crushed by poverty, caste oppression, illiteracy, and superstition. They lived in conditions worse than animals.
But Sri Narayana Guru’s movement transformed their lives. For him, temple building was not a religious act alone – it was part of a broader social reform.
He not only built temples but also founded the Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) movement, under which hundreds of schools, hostels, and vocational training centres were established across Kerala.
Even during his lifetime, industrial exhibitions were held under his leadership.
He urged his followers not to drink, not to kill, and not to brew liquor.
He encouraged them to give up toddy tapping and turn to coir industries as an alternative.
He opposed superstition and blind faith – including spirit worship (bhootaradane) – and simplified rituals and marriage customs.
It was in this context that a Billava businessman from Mangaluru, Koragappa, travelled to Kannanoor in Kerala to meet Narayana Guru and invited him to Mangaluru.
In 1912, Guru came to Kudroli and established the Gokarnanatheshwara Temple.
The background of Koragappa himself is a striking example of the communal harmony of that time.
He had entered into a business partnership with a man named C. Abdul Rahiman, and together they founded the firm “C. Abdul Rahiman and Koragappa Company,” which exported dried fish.
Seen in this light, even Muslims and Mogaveeras played an indirect role in the establishment of the Gokarnanatheshwara Temple.
Thus, Sri Narayana Guru offered yet another opportunity for the upliftment of the Billava community.
His philosophy was a conscious counter to communalism.
But while he built the temple in Kudroli, his ideals never truly entered the lived consciousness of the Billava community – neither then, nor now.
Had the Billavas of Dakshina Kannada, like the Ezhavas of Kerala, shaped their political and social identity around the philosophy of Sri Narayana Guru, then Dakshina Kannada might never have become today’s laboratory of communalism.
If the Bunts, Brahmins, Konkanis, and Jains align themselves with the Sangh Parivar or the BJP today, they at least have reasons.
They were the ones who lost land due to the Land Reforms Act under Devaraj Urs’s government.
They were also the ones who lost political representation when Billava leaders began to rise. These are grounds for resenting the Congress Party.
But the Billavas have no such grievance.
They gained land ownership. They received reservations in education and employment – thanks to the Congress Party.
Every word of Sri Narayana Guru’s ideology, whom the Billavas revere as their spiritual guide, stands opposed to the Brahminical order and the communalism promoted by the Sangh Parivar.
Even so, how did the Billavas become foot soldiers of communalism?
The primary reason is the failure of Billava leadership.
Koragappa, a Billava leader, was a contemporary – and even senior – to A.B. Shetty, the Bunt leader.
The two were friends. Koragappa invited Sri Narayana Guru to establish the Kudroli Gokarnanatheshwara Temple, while A.B. Shetty founded the Bunts’ Hostel for students and later went on to establish Vijaya Bank.
A hundred years later, the priorities of Billava leadership have barely changed.
For over four decades, B Janardhana Poojary remained the undisputed leader of the Billava community.
Yet his focus was never on education or employment – the very ideals Sri Narayana Guru stood for.
At a time when what was needed was guidance to prevent innocent youth from straying, Billava leaders instead took pride in competing with temples like Dharmasthala and Kollur – renovating temples to prove themselves the “true Hindus.”
But in the temple founded by Narayana Guru, his message is missing.
And in the homes where his ideals should shine, there is only darkness.
Even today, the Billava community in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district does not have a single medical or engineering college for its students.
Not even one community-run hostel exists.
There is no shortage of wealthy and philanthropic Billavas – what is missing is leadership with the vision and will to mobilise them for the community’s welfare.
The Bunts didn’t build temples – they built rows of educational institutions, including medical and engineering colleges.
Christians and Muslims too have not lagged behind in setting up schools and hospitals.
In that sense, it is not the Billavas who have followed Sri Narayana Guru’s message:
“Liberate through education, strengthen through organisation.”
It is the Bunts, the Bearys, and the Christians who have embodied his teachings.
In today’s caste-driven politics, Janardhana Poojary had more opportunity than most to become a true people’s leader – because the Billava community, his own caste, holds decisive numbers at the ballot box.
Personally, he is known to be honest, simple, and hardworking – a politician of the old school, who kept both his hands and his heart clean.
But he failed to grasp the socio-political changes of the present era. Nor did he have the vision – or the humility – to step aside.
He lacked both the generosity to nurture new leaders and the foresight to build for the future.
Communalism is an ideology – and it must be countered by another ideology: secularism.
But Janardhana Poojary never saw politics as a battle of ideas.
To oppose communalism, for example, he chose to renovate the Kudroli Temple.
And for the inauguration of that very temple – established by Sri Narayana Guru, who fiercely opposed the varna-ashrama (caste hierarchy) system – he invited the seers of the Shringeri Peetha, staunch upholders of that very caste hierarchy, to preside over the ceremony.
The irony is hard to miss: the efforts of Billava leaders have, in practice, gone against the very ideals of Narayana Guru.
Guru prohibited toddy tapping – yet Billavas of Dakshina Kannada fought with the state government to lift the statewide ban on toddy tapping, and succeeded in having it relaxed in this district.
Guru simplified rituals and appointed Shudra priests in place of Brahmins – go to Shivagiri to see it.
But Janardhana Poojary, in renovating the simple Gokarnanatheshwara Temple founded by Guru, installed idols of every known deity and turned it into a grand spectacle of elaborate worship and pageantry.
Guru drafted a code for simple marriages – yet today, in Dakshina Kannada, parents of daughters are burdened by dowries and weddings they cannot afford.
A massive, high-rent marriage hall now stands inside the Kudroli Temple complex, practically enforcing such extravagance.
Across hundreds of Billava and Guru Bhavans in Dakshina Kannada, Sri Narayana Guru now exists only as a stone statue.
Fifty years after Sri Narayana Guru’s movement in Kerala, a survey was conducted to assess the socio-economic and educational progress of the Ezhava community.
The results spoke for themselves: the Ezhavas had made their mark in ten key professions – law, medicine, journalism, politics, government service, teaching, industry, business, banking, and the arts.
They had gained commanding presence across all these fields.
Most importantly, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, when the entire country was engulfed in communal flames, Kerala – with a 25 percent Muslim population – remained peaceful.
Even today, what keeps communal forces at bay in Kerala is the ideology of Sri Narayana Guru.
But what of the Billavas – who, like the Ezhavas, were guided by Guru’s teachings, and were beneficiaries of land reform and reservations?
Stand in the streets of Mangaluru and look up at the nameboards on buildings – you’ll see names like Shetty, Rai, Hegde, Shenoy, Rao… lawyers, doctors, engineers, businesspeople.
Yet although Billavas make up nearly one-third of the district’s population, you’ll scarcely find even one nameboard in a hundred bearing a Billava name.
How many actors, journalists, professors, government officers are there among Billavas?
If you truly want to know where the Billava youth are today, look into the police records of Dakshina Kannada.
Under the influence of ideological masterminds, Billava youths – intoxicated with religious hatred – have taken lives in the name of religion.
And in some cases, they have lost their own lives as victims of that same hatred.
Their poor parents now live as if already dead.
Meanwhile, the masterminds who moulded these young men have quietly raised their own children to become doctors, engineers, advocates, and entrepreneurs.
From time to time, they appear on stages with bodyguards, giving speeches about the “threats to Hinduism,” while preparing the next batch of scapegoats.
Amid all this, no one speaks of the real struggle facing the undivided Dakshina Kannada district.
The district – now carved into a separate administrative unit – is being rapidly turned into a sprawling industrial zone.
Industrialisation is progressing beyond the capacity of land, water, and life itself to sustain.
In the past 30 years, thousands of families have lost their land and been pushed onto the streets.
The air is thick with poison. Ash and soot drift in the wind.
Jobs in Mumbai and the Gulf are dwindling. Even in the banks founded in this very region, opportunities are shrinking. Outsiders from other states are taking over, and unemployment haunts nearly every home.
Yet no one speaks of this.
The enemies watch from the shadows with sly smiles, while those who should be allies fight in the streets.
If we try to explain how all of this happened, it will turn – once again – into a shouting match between the BJP and Congress.
But unless we pause to reflect – unless we ask who the true beneficiaries of this chaos are, and who the sacrificial victims are – we are headed toward complete ruin.
What was once built together has been torn apart.
Now, the work must begin to rebuild it.
Dinesh Amin is a senior journalist from Karnataka and has previously worked as advisor to Chief Minister of Karnataka between 2013 and 2018. Views are personal. This piece was originally written in Kannada and has been republished with permission.
(Translated and edited by Dese Gowda)
