Mangaluru to Test Development Versus Hindutva Split: India Votes

Each day, Bloomberg journalists take you across a selection of towns and cities as they gear up for the big vote.

Hello, I’m Jeanette Rodrigues, and I oversee Bloomberg News in South Asia. My family hails from Mangaluru in Karnataka, home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the country and a hotbed of Hindutva, the strident strain of Hinduism espoused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Modern economic rivalries have fueled Hindutva and a parallel Muslim communalism in the region, even though the Dakshina Kannada constituency carries none of the bloody footprints of invasions by Muslim rulers from Central Asia or Partition that feed the narrative in northern India. Much of the strife in Mangaluru stems from land reforms in the 1970s — which saw feudal communities lose their relevance to capitalists — and nurtured forces that will come into play when the area votes this week. These strains have so far sided with the BJP, helping it register three straight wins since the constituency was formed in 2008.