VZCZCXRO9186
RR RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHLH RUEHNEH RUEHPW
DE RUEHCG #0025/01 0300835
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 300835Z JAN 09
FM AMCONSUL CHENNAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2059
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 3474
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

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). 
 
 
CHENNAI 00000025  002 OF 002 
 
 
¶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