Kasaragod: For the past three days, Hindutva groups have turned Jodukallu, a sleepy border village near Karnataka, into a centre of religious and political activity. Swamis from Mangaluru, Sangh Parivar leaders and local BJP workers have converged on the village, while women sit in protest and sing bhajans throughout the day.

They demand that a shed erected overnight on Public Works Department (PWD) land be spared from demolition, despite three orders from the Kerala High Court.

They have vowed to protect the structure, an open-sided shed with metal sheet roofs supported by a steel framework. "We have had this place for 58 years. There's no turning back. We will sit here singing bhajans till the government gives up its demolition plan," said BJP district secretary Lokesh Nonda S, who is from Paivalike panchayat.​

The mobilisation comes months after the BJP's representation in Paivalike panchayat fell from eight members to four in the December 2025 local body election, in which the Congress and IUML edged out both the LDF and BJP. Though the disputed site falls in Mangalpady panchayat's Bekur ward, Jodukallu is socially and politically closer to Paivalike. The IUML dominates Mangalpady, where Hindutva groups have little foothold.

Congress leaders allege the BJP has now manufactured a dispute and is turning it into a question of religious rights, bringing in religious leaders from neighbouring Karnataka and accusing the Muslim League of targeting Hindu worship. They see the agitation as an attempt to revive the BJP's political fortunes by giving a land encroachment dispute a communal and religious colour.

“The shed will go,” District Collector Sreedhanya Suresh told Onmanorama. "It is PWD land, and if the High Court has directed the PWD to take it back, the PWD is bound to obey the court order," she said, adding that several organisations were behind the agitation. She had asked the group concerned to meet her at 2.30 pm on Wednesday, but no one turned up. Some other leaders, including from BJP, met her, but she said she did not commit anything to them.​

Nonda said the present structure replaced a smaller shed that had collapsed during the rainy season. The earlier structure had been used by children to play, and for Ganesh Utsav and cultural programmes, he said.​

The dispute, however, is over a permanent structure on the PWD land, not the social or religious celebrations.

According to Abdul Majeed M, general secretary of the Muslim Youth League in the Manjeshwar constituency, the controversy began in July, when a few people associated with the BJP started the groundwork to set up a permanent structure on the open ground near Keshava Sishu Mandiram, a pre-school with 40 students.

Ganesh Utsav and Sree Krishna Janmashtami programmes had been held there for years. A temporary shed would usually be erected for the celebrations and dismantled afterwards, said Majeed, who moved the PIL against the structure in the High Court. The change came after Sree Krishna Jayanthi celebrations on September 4. Workers brought steel material and roofing sheets and assembled a much larger structure, reportedly completing it overnight.

Golden Abdul Rahman, president of Mangalpady panchayat, complained to the PWD. The department issued a notice to RSS-affiliated Seva Bharathi Club, which allegedly erected the shed. The panchayat issued a stop memo as well. “The PWD officials kept saying that the work would not be allowed to continue, that it would be stopped, without actually ensuring that it happened,” Majeed said. "So the party decided to approach the court," he added.

The Kerala High Court, in its September 16 order, directed the removal of unauthorised constructions in accordance with law after notice to the party concerned.

But Dr Hedgewar Janma Shatabdhi Seva Samithi, a trust based in Mangaluru's Pratap Nagar, appealed against the order. On October 7, the division bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar V M upheld the single bench order and directed the PWD to take possession of the land.

The Seva Samithi filed a review petition before the same bench, which on October 14 directed the government to remove the structure after serving notice to Seva Bharati Club.

Hindutva campaign on
The court proceedings have not ended the confrontation. Instead, the shed has become the focus of a campaign involving the BJP and other Sangh Parivar organisations. At a protest meeting on Sunday, Sri Rajashekharananda Swami, head of Gurupura Sri Vajradehi Mutt in Dakshina Kannada, said: "Why should secularism and the rule of law apply only to the majority community? Demolishing a structure built for religious celebrations was unacceptable when other organisations had encroached on government land elsewhere."

Every day, protesters perform Shri Rama Nama Taraka yagna before beginning continuous bhajan recitals. The programme continued through the day. The action committee has said the religious activities will continue until a decision is taken to spare the shed. Paivalike panchayat vice-president Raghavendra Bhat of the Congress said the agitation was politically motivated, pointing to the BJP's reduced representation in the panchayat. “Their intention might not even be to use the shed. This was created to galvanise their support base,” he said.

“If this exact situation happened in Uttar Pradesh, the government might have brought a JCB and taken it down immediately. But here, we are approaching it with the mindset of avoiding conflict,” he said.

Majeed said that the issue was straightforward: the land belonged to the PWD, and the structure had been built overnight despite official objections.

The police are taking a wait-and-watch approach, with a jeep-load of personnel deployed at the protest site. “If you ask me, even the jeep should be withdrawn. This protest will die on its own,” said Bhat.