BJP VICTORY IN KARNATAKA

The most important point to note in the victory of BJP in Karnataka is this: It is Mr. Yeddyurappa's personal victory and not an ideological victory of Hindutva of the kind one finds in Gujarat. I have consistently been critical of the Hindutva ideology of the Sangh Parivar but when the Chief Minister ship was not transferred to Mr. Yeddyurappa as promised after 20 months, I too felt like any ordinary citizen of Karnataka that it was unethical. I felt sympathy for Mr.Yeddyurappa for it was pathetic to see him abandon a rally in Tumkur and rush back to Bangalore to reopen negotiations with Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy for the CM post. The whole episode was bathetic.

I must enter a caveat here. The BJP’s successful campaign about betrayal by the JD(S) was justified, but its campaign about being denied power by JD(S) was not. It was not as if the BJP was not in power for 20 months during Mr. Kumaraswamy's Chief Minister Ship. Under the Indian Constitution, the Chief Minister in only the first among equals in the Cabinet and all decisions are taken by the Cabinet collectively. But both the BJP and JDS acted out the theatre of the absurd as if only Yeddyurappa and Kumaraswamy mattered and as if they were heroes. I remember that a few years ago when Sri Ramakrishna Hegde was CM, the real hero for the masses was Minister Abdul Nazir Sab. He transformed the rural scene providing drinking water and empowering the women and backward classes by reviving the panchayatraj system.

Mr. Yeddyurappa victory was also a victory of the Lingayat community. Lingayats, regardless of their sub-caste denominations rallied behind him because they felt that one of them had been humiliated. When we feel proud of the diversity of cultures in India we should remember one of the platforms for this diversity is provided by the castes in India. Caste-system makes us unfair and inhuman, but when it is not politicized and all the castes get a fair deal, then it becomes almost invisible in public sphere. Our country is learning slowly to go beyond hegemonic power relations among castes, but our political parties for creating vote banks misuses them. The Lingayats saw in the denial of Chief Minister Ship to Mr. Yeddyurappa a grave injustice that the entire community was subjected. The Lingayats are a proud and strongly clannish community which is the most numerous in Karnataka., well organized by mutts, the religious institutions that the community has created. After Christians, it is the Lingayat community, partly influenced by one of the greatest poet saints of India, Basava that created educational institutions for the social upliftment of the lowest of the low in their community. (And they help the Poor in all communities, unlike Brahmin institutions) Once the solid base of the Congress, Lingayats had turned against the Congress after the split in the Congress and what they perceived to be humiliation that Indira Gandhi subjected S Nijalingappa to. They provided solid support to the Congress (O), but in the post-Emergency period, they threw their weight behind the Janatha Party which incorporated the Congress (O).

Now there seems to be not much idealism left in the community. Mr. Deve Gowda's crooked politics has alienated them. This is truly sad. For the sane among the Lingayats - there are many of them in all important spheres of life - have temporarily lost their liberal-humanist voice.

What I have written so far is apparent to many. But there is a great danger lurking in the politics of today. The mining lobby in Karnataka today is the most depraved, immoral and corrupt lobby.It is also most powerful with immense resources with which it can corrupt and derail democracy. All the major political parties have patronized this dangerous lobby, but the biggest beneficiary from this lobby during the just-concluded election is the BJP. The money power of the mining lobby (which has gained its windfall billions by exporting valuable ore and not setting up our own industries) and the Lingayat sympathy factor set up Mr. Yeddyurappa’s victory.

The Congress has to learn a lesson now. When many lone and sane voices saw the danger from the mining lobby to democracy (and of course to environment), the Congress did not heed them, but instead actively patronized the mining barons. (Some influential leaders in Congress to are a part of the Real Estate Lobby)

Yet, for many people like me, the only alternative in the political situation of the whole country is the Congress. But the BJP has more new faces than Congress. And, to add to this, both parties talk about ‘development’. This is a magic word that has depoliticized the whole society.

Although the Congress has fresh faces like Mr. Siddaramaiah, they are not popular with the Old Guard. The establishment in the Congress is like a family obsessed with ancestral worship. Having forgotten what made it the most powerful political force in the country, the Congress too has begun to worship money, and in Karnataka only money has mattered in the recent past and the present.

There is every likelihood that the Karnataka BJP which is beholden to Mr. Narendra Modi of Gujarat and for bankrolling it and spending some quality time campaigning in Karnataka, will start taking dictation from him. If they implement the Moditva lessons, Karnataka will be further communalized and polarized. Given the liberal tradition of the people of Karnataka I hope this will be a temporary phase and the wisdom of the Congress will assert again. There are some good young faces in Karnataka Congress and I hope they will take an interest in new ideas for the welfare of the people.