Opinion | 'Rowdy Sheeter', 'Communal' Coast, And The Politics Of Negative Branding
To call Dakshina Kannada “barren” is not a critique. It is narrative punishment. For refusing victimhood. For rejecting political appeasement. For thriving without bending
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.
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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, not a victim. Its sons are aggressors, not mourned. Its cultural resilience is a threat, not a strength.
NARRATIVE AS A WEAPON, LABELLING AS DISARMAMENT
The phrase “rowdy sheeter" isn’t a neutral descriptor. It’s a weapon—a method to delegitimise grievance, discredit resistance, and dilute public sympathy. It tells society who can be mourned and who must be maligned.
Yet, despite this relentless gaslighting, the people of Dakshina Kannada have held firm. They understand that what’s being fought here isn’t just a turf war or a communal clash—it’s a battle over narrative. A struggle between those who wish to distort the region’s identity and those who aim to reclaim it with pride and clarity.
But the effort to reimpose the “communal" label never ceases. It surfaces in headlines, in panel discussions, and more dangerously, from political pulpits. Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar himself recently claimed that “Dakshina Kannada is becoming a barren land, with educational institutions no longer attracting students from outside due to communal tensions and other issues."
That wasn’t just far from the truth—it may well be the exact perception they want to seed and sustain.
This comes from the same leader who had earlier dismissed the region’s cultural identity by quipping that Dakshina Kannada offers little beyond bhajans, Yakshagana, and temple festivals after 7 pm—lacking “nightlife" or entertainment that retains its youth. But here’s the truth: just a day after Suhas Shetty’s murder, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi once again topped the SSLC results. The region’s youth remain among the brightest in the state. Its institutions continue to produce academic excellence.
From malls to pubs to any other ‘marker’ of progress, it has all that it takes—except government support, especially from Congress regimes that have ensured Mangaluru, by virtue of its potential, doesn’t turn into the political capital of the state.
To call Dakshina Kannada “barren" is not a critique. It is narrative punishment. For refusing victimhood. For rejecting political appeasement. For thriving without bending.
It is also punishment for never falling for freebies. For being a region the Congress has repeatedly failed to crack—not through appeasement, nor through fear, or engineered narratives. That is why leaders like DK Shivakumar aim below the belt. They attack what makes this land strong: its rootedness, its temple-centred social fabric, its unapologetic cultural life. Instead of seeing it as a civilisational strength, they frame it as an impediment to growth.
WHAT THEY FEAR IS A PRECEDENT, NOT A DISTRICT
For too long, Dakshina Kannada—a district that quietly embodies the spirit of Swachh Bharat, the ideal of Vikas meets Virasat, and the ethic of Atmanirbharata—has been reduced to a caricature. A coastline boxed in by one word: communal. And who ensured this branding stayed intact? The Congress.
It is not just political negligence, but political narrative management that has kept the Karnataka coast from rising to its rightful place in India’s developmental imagination. The label communal has been weaponised—deliberately and repeatedly—to stall the civilisational stature of a region that refuses to vote on appeasement, refuses to bow to political theatrics, and refuses to play victim.
Over the decades, Congress leaders have consistently cast Dakshina Kannada as a volatility zone—where nationalism is viewed with suspicion, temples with cynicism, and pride with provocation.
For three decades, Congress politicians have routinely blamed the coast for unrest, while never acknowledging the targeted killings, ideological attacks, and silent resilience shown by the very communities they caricature. The motive was simple: prevent this bastion of nationalism from becoming the centre of gravity in Karnataka’s politics. By keeping the coast branded as problematic, they ensured it was never seen as aspirational.
For decades, it has caricatured Dakshina Kannada as a Hindutva hotbed while doing little to develop its infrastructure or unleash its potential. Port development was shelved. Industrial corridors skipped the coast. Its temples, institutions, and educational models were never championed because the region did not bend. It did not beg. It did not play to the formula.
Time and again, the Congress has found it convenient to label the region communal when it asserted dharma, to frame it as volatile when it stood its ground, and to ignore its cultural genius because it could not be co-opted. The result has been decades of narrative erasure—where the achievements of Dakshina Kannada were quietly absorbed while its identity was loudly questioned.
This is a district that never bartered its dignity for doles. It didn’t queue up for appeasement schemes. It never romanticised victimhood. It didn’t wait for the state to uplift it—it went ahead and built its own institutions, networks, and identity. And for that, it has been called volatile. For resisting conversions and standing up for dharma, it has been branded provocative. For choosing bravery over blame-games, it has been reduced to a cautionary tale.
But Dakshina Kannada is not communal. It is conscious. It is conscious of history, of tradition, of self-respect. It remembers those who’ve died defending cultural sovereignty. It remembers how narratives are twisted. It remembers how standing tall without playing victim often earns you disdain instead of dignity.
This is not a piece about a region. It’s a reflection on the cost of clarity.
Before nationalised banks reached rural India, Dakshina Kannada had already built its own financial backbone. Institutions like Syndicate Bank, Corporation Bank, and Vijaya Bank emerged from this land, rooted in cooperative values and a deep sense of fiscal ethics. Here, money wasn’t earned through political proximity or government schemes. It was saved, lent, and reinvested through trust. A culture of accountability and repayment shaped an economy where loans were not crutches, but ladders.
It is no coincidence that Mangaluru has repeatedly featured among India’s cleanest cities. Cleanliness here isn’t campaign-driven. It’s cultural. Streets are orderly, temples are pristine, and the rituals around cleanliness are deeply embedded in both domestic and public life. It embodies the idea of a Swachh Bharat having long internalised its essence as Swacchatva—a reflection of inner order mirrored in outer discipline.
The soul of this region beats in Tulu—a language that doesn’t demand but preserves. Tulu boasts its own script, a rich oral tradition, and cultural forms like Bhoota Kola and Yakshagana. But unlike many linguistic movements that veer into provocation, the Tulu pride remains graceful, composed, and innately confident. It doesn’t assert through aggression. It speaks through continuity.
Even as the demand for constitutional recognition continues, the community upholds its identity not through street protests but through performance, storytelling, and sacred memory.
This is not just a land that kept up. It is a land that led. The port at Mangaluru was among the earliest in the region to facilitate global trade. Queen Abbakka of Ullal was India’s first recorded woman naval commander who resisted Portuguese colonisation with unmatched defiance. The temples here—Dharmasthala and Kukke—are not just architectural marvels, they are civilisational centres run on dharmic principles, commanding not just wealth but faith across castes and communities.
The region’s voting record is often read as rigid or reactionary. In truth, it is remarkably consistent. Dakshina Kannada votes not based on caste arithmetic or emotional volatility but on ideological clarity. It rewards those who stand for nationalism, governance, and civilisational pride. Its political choices are often mocked or maligned because they don’t waver. But this clarity is precisely what makes the region immune to populist blackmail.
The region’s caste matrix itself defies easy reading. Here, community is often defined not by dominance but by contribution. Traditions are not exclusionary but layered. Even those who converted during historical upheavals often carry ancestral memory. These shared memories persist across belief systems, speaking of a civilisational continuity that goes deeper than mere demographics.
Even in the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress tried hard to break this and insert the caste card—but failed miserably. Like it has for decades.
And that’s why it hurts them to brand Dakshina Kannada anything but ‘communal’. For this is a region that refuses to beg, bend, or break. It seeks to build. It is a microcosm of the Bharat being envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – in entirety.
And if this model of self-reliance succeeds, it will set a precedent—one that breaks the divisive narrative fortress the Congress has tried for decades to construct on the sands of the coast.
Only to be washed away. Again. And again.
Captain Brijesh Chowta is a former Army Captain and current Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency, Karnataka, representing BJP. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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