We examine the competing processes of ethnicization taking place among Hindu and Muslim religious communities in the coastal region of Karnataka state in South India in the broader context of hegemonic ascendancy of Hindu nationalism in the country. We describe how an array of militant Hindutva organizations use an institutionalized system of religious vigilantism and violence against minorities to construct an ethnicized, exclusivist moral community of Hindus in the region. This construction of an ethno-Hinduism by a clever depoliticizing of caste inequalities and violence seeks to produce and naturalize religious difference into an incorrigible and exclusivist ethnic identity that thrives on a continuous process of enemy-making. Responding to this predatory ethnicization executed by militant Hindutva organizations, and capitalizing on the pervasive sense of alienation and anxiety of the Muslims in the region, radical Islamic organizations engage in a counter-predatory ethnicization of Muslim communities in the region. These organizations, while officially articulating secular positions, use the language of self-defence and securitization, coupled with radical Islamic identity for mass mobilization, to create an exclusive Islamic moral community, often mirroring the tactics of Hindutva vigilante organizations. We conclude that these competing processes of ethnicization of religious identities and the emergence of a ‘vigilante public’ will have far-reaching consequences for the central facets of democracy such as citizenship and secularism while leaving the socio-cultural spaces in coastal Karnataka highly polarized on religious lines and peaceful co-existence of religious communities challenging and undesirable.

我们在印度教民族主义在印度的霸权统治下，考察了印度南部卡纳塔克邦沿海地区的印度教和穆斯林宗教社区之间发生的种族化竞争过程。我们描述了一系列好战的印度教组织如何利用制度化的宗教警戒和针对少数群体的暴力行为，在该地区建立一个民族化，排他主义的印度教徒道德社区。通过对种姓不平等和暴力进行巧妙的政治化来构建民族印度教，目的是将宗教差异产生并自然化为一种不可磨灭和排他的族裔身份，这种身份在不断的敌人制造过程中壮成长。针对好战的Hindutva组织实施的掠夺性种族化，激进的伊斯兰组织利用该地区穆斯林普遍的疏远感和焦虑感，参与了该地区穆斯林社区的反掠夺族裔化活动。这些组织在正式阐明世俗立场的同时，使用自卫和证券化的语言，再加上激进的伊斯兰身份进行大规模动员，以建立一个专属的伊斯兰道德社区，这通常反映了印度教民警组织的战术。