BJP ushers in caste politics in Karnataka

Mathihalli Madan Mohan

Senior Journalist and Columnist

HUBLI 580 032 ( Mobile-94480-74872)

            HUBLI, 27th  July 2012

           

            :“ Welcome to Vidhana Soudha.

             If you are a Lingayat Press 1,

             If your are a Gowda , press 2,

            if you are a  Kuruba Press 3,

            if, you are a Idiga, Press 4,

            if  you are  a Dalit , Press 5,

             if you are a muslim, Press 6.

            if you are a Christian, press 7.

            If you are none of this, better disconnect and join the queue for Dharma Darshana of the Chief Minister and take your chance.

             Thanks for calling”.

            Don’t be surprised if you hear this message from Vidhana Soudha exchange in the days to come, as the process of political churning of polarization of caste politics, set in motion by the present BJP dispensation in Karnataka is taken to logical conclusion.

            At the moment it   remains confined to the internal struggle for power within BJP. It will not be a matter of surprise if other parties follow suit, to make Karnataka join the ranks of the peers in this political craft like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

            What is however special to Karnataka is that the process gets initiated by a national party like the BJP, while it has been corner stone of the policy of political aggrandizement by the regional parties elsewhere overtaking the main stream political parties like the Congress and BJP.

            The author of the historical process in Karnataka is none other than the disgruntled   B S Yeddyurappa  who is desperate to regain the political primary in Karnataka ever since he was forced to quit office in the wake of his indictment by the Karnataka Lokayukta in illegal mining and other scams. It has got an indirect endorsement by the party bosses in Newdelhi, who have been singularly helpless in curbing the political intransigence of the former Chief Minister., for the imperative necessity of keeping the first saffron government south of Vindhyas in office by hook or by crook.

            It was Yeddyurappa who started overtly a playing a Lingayat card of all the lingayat politicians who had occupied the post of the Chief Minister in the state. It has been a mystery as to whatever prompted Yeddyurappa at the pinnacle of his popularity as an outstanding mass leader had to play a Lingayat card to reduce him from the high pedestal of a mass leader to that of a leader of one single caste. He has lost more than anything gained. With his political career in the dumps as a consequence of his indictment by Lokayukta in illegal mining and other scams and the plethora of the cases pending in the courts, and the CBI making the matters worse by starting investigation in the illegal mining activities, Yeddyurappa finds himself in deep legal mess and consequents has a long period of compulsory waiting before he can hope to return to the active politics.

            Yeddyurappa all of a sudden started playing a lingayat card after he took over as the Chief Minister in 2008. He started portraying himself as the unquestioned political leader of the lingayats, the prominent community in Karnataka, which has a pan Karnataka presence, with Northern half of Karnataka being the sheet anchor of the support. Yeddyurappa started courting the religious heads among the community and was liberal in doling grants to the institutions managed by them.

            If the move was aimed at providing himself with a shield to fight his political battle, it obviously failed. The swamijis were in the forefront whenever his throne was in trouble due to internal problems within the party on occasions. But it was hardly of avail, since he could not prevent his ouster eleven months ago despite the campaigning done by the lingayat swamijis. As a matter of fact, the swamijis got their  reputation tarnished by the  manner in which they winked at the corruption  and went in vain to save a government steeped in corruption and of bunch of ministers neck deep in it merely because they happened to be lingayats.

            .           The interplay of the competitive nature of the caste politics currently underway was in full play during the formation of the third BJP ministry headed by the new Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar so that the top post remains with lingayats. The vokkaligas suddenly discovered that Sadananda Gowda, who was facing the heat, was a fellow vokkaliga and rallied round to his effort in a futile bid to stave off his ouster. Though vokkaligas could not save the chair of Sadananda Gowda, they gave enough hints that they are also a force to be reckoned with in Karnataka politics. It was not without significant, that the Devegowda Kumarasway duo which was vocal in the criticism of the Yeddyurappa government had suddenly grown soft during the Sadananda Gowdas eleven month regime. The transformation was attributed widely to the vokkalinga connection.

            The post of the Chief Minister having gone to a lingayat, the vokkaligas and the Kurubas, the two other powerful castes, insisted and succeeded in creating specially two posts of the Deputy Chief Ministers for the first time in Karnataka politics and went to Eswarappa (Kuruba), and R Ashok, (Vokkalinga). It is expected that the post of the party president, which may be vacated by Eswarappa on his induction into the cabinet, is likely to go to “others” category.

              To make the power sharing arrangement more authentic, both Easwarappa and R Ashok (Vokkaliga) were specifically sworn as the Deputy Chief Ministers, even though the Constitution does not recognize the office which is   a political office and not Constitutional position. Normally aspirants are sworn in as minister and later get designated as the Deputy Chief Ministers by the Chief Minister. Will this be a precedent for all the ministry making exercises in future remains to be seen.        . The pattern of the distribution of the portfolios has been done according to the same formula, with the powerful caste denominations walking away with plum portfolios while the insignificant groups have been forced to accept the minor and less important ones.

            Though many lingayats had adorned the office of the Chief Minister in Karnataka, none had portrayed themselves as the champions of the caste till Yeddyurappa came on the scene. Initially Yeddyurappa was not so but came up the ladder through hard and sustained organizational work, and by brandishing the caste card. The lingayat fixation was an attribute he acquired later on.

            In Karnataka, the lingayats dominate the northern half of the state, while their presence in the southern half is not that prominent .in terms of numbers. In the lingayat dominated northern part of the state,   the BJP with a lingayat at the hem of affairs could hardly develop any political moorings.

            The lingayats of the region, came to the BJP fold more by accident than design as the development show. As a matter of fact, there was no lingayat politician who could command the allegiance of the lingayats and emerge as their political voice. It was not any lingayat politician but a bramhin, late Ramakrishna Hegde, who amongst all commanded the respect and trust of the lingayats as a whole in general and in northern half of the state in particular.

            Hegde chose to deny himself what would have been a fresh lease of life for his political career when he resisted the pressure by his followers in the new political outfit the United Janata Dal to take over as the Chief Minister in place of J H Patel, who was reigning then.  This he did so because he did not want to hurt the lingayat sentiments.

            The BJPs continued drought of political support came as a byproduct of the electoral tie-up between the BJP and the JDU to fight the Congress in the nineties. Ramakrishna Hedges demise created a political vacuum and the BJP  and Yeddyurappa moved in to fill the  bill. And this is what enabled Yeddyurappa to claim as a  lingayat leader.

            This lingayat fixation and   narcisst tendencies   have contributed substantially to the precipitous fall of Yeddyurappa from political grace.

            When the BJP high command forced Yeddyurappa to quit in the light of the Lokayukta report, Yeddyurappa ego was badly hurt. He could not countenance his exit from power. Since then he has been ranting and raving for the restoration of his own political hegemony and has been bemoaning the loss of political primacy for the lingayats.

            He has only a single point formula. He should have the political power either by dejure or defacto manner. If he cannot get power on his own directly, he must enjoy it through proxy. This was the rationale behind his move to get his own nominee Sadananda Gowda installed as his successor eleven month. Gowda a low profile political functionary was  happened to be one his confidants and a safe bet to be trusted  unlike his another confidant Jagadish Shettar, a fellow lingayat, who had strayed away from the  his path. This he achieved after virtually brow beating the high command for the selection of successor through voting.

            But he got wary of Gowda soon, as the latter showed signs of moving independent of the orbit of Yeddyurappa.  Yeddyurappa himself launched a virulent campaign to bring down the man he had put in office sometime ago. He blackmailed the high command to have his way again. And this time Yeddyurappa chose to bring back Shettar once estranged, back into the fold to act as his proxy. In his overt zeal to get back the power, Yeddyurappa has introduced in Karnataka politics, the canker of caste politics, which is expected to change the political scenario altogether in the days to come.]

Eom 0930hrs. 27,07.2012

             

           

             

           

             

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