Makes an attempt by Karnataka Congress to imitate Hindutva strategies are morally doubtful

The final meeting elections in Karnataka have been held in Could 2023. For a number of months previous to the polls, the headlines within the native newspapers have been dominated by 4 matters. The primary was the scarf worn by many Muslim ladies searching for a contemporary school schooling. The second was a type of killing an animal earlier than consuming it practised by many Muslims. The third was the very occasional incidence of an grownup Muslim male and an grownup Hindu lady falling in love with each other and wishing to get married. The fourth was the place in historical past and legend of a king who as soon as dominated half of what’s now the state of Karnataka, and who was killed whereas battling British imperialists greater than 200 years in the past.

Hijab, halal, ‘love jihad’’, and Tipu Sultan – these then have been the themes being stoked up for the edification of Karnataka’s voters. Not, thoughts you, jobs, costs, the state of colleges and hospitals, the state of air and water, the state of the roads, or different such points one may assume ought to matter extra for the 60 million residents of the state the place I reside.

The rationale for this was totally political. The Bharatiya Janata Occasion authorities in energy was not significantly common; and its chief minister was not significantly efficient both. Sensing the temper of anti-incumbency, the celebration bosses in Delhi determined to make the Karnataka meeting elections totally a Hindu versus Muslim difficulty. By the problems of hijab, halal, and inter-faith marriages, the BJP sought to painting Indian Muslims as completely different and unreliable, hoping thereby to consolidate the bulk Hindu inhabitants behind it. In pursuit of this malevolent agenda, the ruling celebration’s WhatsApp manufacturing facility manufactured some spectacular falsehoods, essentially the most extraordinary of which was the declare that it was two Vokkaliga warriors, and never the troopers of the East India Firm, who killed Tipu Sultan.

These techniques failed. The Congress gained a reasonably snug majority within the Karnataka elections, its victory propelled by two elements: first, that not like the states of the Hindi heartland, the celebration nonetheless has a fairly intact base throughout Karnataka; second, that the primary leaders of the state unit, Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar, kind of labored in tandem (once more not like northern states equivalent to Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in every of which the 2 high Congressmen have been fiercely rivalrous with one another).

Within the headlines

The Congress, with Siddaramaiah as chief minister and Shivakumar as his deputy, accomplished six months in workplace final November. On this time, the newspaper headlines had moved away from hijab, halal, Tipu Sultan and the like towards extra substantive, in addition to much less sectarian, points such because the impression on agriculture of a poor monsoon; the pathetic state of the roads and of public transport in Bengaluru; prices of nepotism and corruption within the transfers of officers ordered by ministers and so forth.

I seen this transformation with a way of reduction. Clearly, earlier than the elections, the media in Karnataka had performed up the Hindu-Muslim query largely due to the stress, delicate in addition to oblique, from the celebration then in energy. Now they have been now not obliged to take action. Within the final weeks of 2023, I commented on the seen change in newspaper reportage to some mates who concurred with my evaluation (and my sentiments).

My sense of reduction was quickly to be disturbed. For questions of faith now as soon as extra function within the headlines. With the Lok Sabha elections due in a couple of months, and Karnataka accounting for the not insignificant variety of 28 seats, the BJP’s state unit has chosen to focus afresh on consolidating the Hindu vote. It was emboldened to take action by the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya via which it hopes to trip a wave of majoritarian assertion.

In pursuit of this programme, the Karnataka BJP stirred up an issue in a village in Mandya district, a few pole and what kind of flag ought to fly on it. Hindutva activists insisted that due to the proximity to the location of an outdated Hanuman temple, a saffron flag ought to fly on the pole. The state administration believed that as a result of the pole was planted on authorities land, solely the nationwide flag might fly on it, maybe with the red-and-yellow Karnataka flag alongside it.

What ought to have been a trivial, native difficulty was blown up right into a a lot bigger affair by the BJP. The chief of the Opposition within the Karnataka meeting, R Ashoka, rushed to the village, insisting that the Congress authorities’s refusal to permit a saffron flag on a public pole was an insult to the Hindu group. A big rally was carried out, with Ashoka standing side-by-side with the Janata Dal (Secular) chief, HD Kumaraswamy, whose capability for party-hopping in pursuit of private achieve matches that of Nitish Kumar. In a visual show of his opportunism, Kumaraswamy was sporting a saffron scarf, although the “S” in his celebration’s title technically stands for “Secular”.

The flag difficulty in Mandya dominated the information headlines in Karnataka via the final week of January. There have been plans to erect saffron flags in different public locations within the state, together with within the communally delicate coastal area. In the meantime, the polarising agenda could be pursued by different means too. On February 2, the Deccan Herald carried a report on a speech made to celebration employees by the senior BJP chief, CT Ravi. Right here, Ravi claimed {that a} dargah of a Muslim saint in Bidar district was initially a mantapa erected by the Twelfth-century Hindu reformer, Basavanna. It “must be restored to its former glory,” stated Ravi, and promised that the BJP would do that if it was returned to energy within the state.

Ravi then turned to the forthcoming basic election. Listed here are a few of his remarks, rendered by the Deccan Herald in English translation: “This election is between Kashi Vishwanath and Aurangzeb, Somnath and Ghazni and Hanuman and Tipu. Modi ought to return to energy to construct grand temples at Kashi and Mathura.” An election within the twenty-first century was to be fought on the premise of medievalist hatreds and animosities.

Such statements by Karnataka’s BJP leaders are totally in character. Nonetheless, what’s extra noteworthy, in addition to extra disappointing, are the makes an attempt by Congress leaders within the state to hunt to appease these Hindus who consider that politics and Statecraft ought to be performed in a majoritarian idiom. Contemplate the case of Ramalinga Reddy, a senior minister within the Karnataka cupboard, whose division administers the state’s shrines. Reddy issued an order to all temples to carry out pujas on January 22, the day of the BJP-sponsored ceremonies in distant Ayodhya.

When requested about this on a go to to Kerala, Karnataka’s deputy chief minister, DK Shivakumar, responded by saying, “See, finally all of us are Hindus.” In additional pursuit of this agenda of Hindu appeasement, two weeks after the Ayodhya occasion, Ramalinga Reddy informed the press that he was asking the chief minister, Siddaramaiah, to allocate funds for the renovation of 100 Ram temples throughout the state.

Wavering conviction

As far as I do know, the chief minister has not made public his response to his minister’s request. Previously, Siddaramaiah had spoken out strongly towards majoritarian tendencies in politics and society. Nonetheless, his current statements betray a way of uncertainty. His response to the occasions in Ayodhya was to flaunt his personal Hindu devotionalism a couple of days later by praying at a Ram temple in his village and going to date to say “Jai Shri Ram”. Now this can be a rallying cry of aggressive Hindutva that was not often used even in northern India earlier than the Eighties the place the customary salutations in reward of Ram was both “Ram, Ram” or “Jai Siya Ram”, the previous distinctly softer in tone and the latter extra capacious in addition to much less masculine.

Siddaramaiah’s willingness to make use of the slogan could also be an indication of wavering conviction and doubtless knowledgeable by the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections the place the Congress hopes to enhance considerably on its 2019 file when it gained merely one out of 28 seats.

These makes an attempt by the Karnataka Congress to imitate the strategies of Hindutva are morally doubtful. They’re additionally unlikely to be politically rewarding. Recall that of their respective campaigns for the meeting elections in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Bhupesh Baghel and Kamal Nath repeatedly showcased their “Hindu” credentials, their devotion to Ram and Hanuman. That isn’t a recreation at which one can beat the BJP, because the outcomes of these meeting elections demonstrated.

This text first appeared in The Telegraph.

Ramachandra Guha’s newest work, The Cooking of Books: A Literary Memoir, has simply been launched. His e-mail deal with is [email protected].