KPCC president and Kanakapura constituency candidate D.Okay. Shivakumar, together with his supporters throughout a roadshow earlier than submitting the nomination papers for the upcoming meeting polls, in Kanakapura, on April 17, 2023. KPCC president D.Okay. Shivakumar appealed for an opportunity for a Vokkaliga Chief Minister.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
As the Karnataka Assembly election marketing campaign attracts to a detailed, it’s clear that caste narratives and calculations have overwhelmed the actual points confounding the individuals of the State for probably the most half.
While the Opposition Congress did speak of worth rise, the financial burden individuals face, and corruption, the caste plank — the BJP allegedly sidelining Lingayats and its counter to that, or the KPCC president D.Okay. Shivakumar interesting for an opportunity for a Vokkaliga Chief Minister, and so forth — has usually overtaken the previous set of narratives over the past two months.
Vinay Sreenivasa of Bahutva Karnataka, a coalition of progressive organisations, mentioned that even the Opposition events didn’t choose up on the sector-wise report playing cards on the efficiency of the federal government that they launched to place the incumbent on the mat. “For instance, the education sector has been hit severely under the BJP government in more ways than one. Not one leader spoke about it,” he mentioned. Farmer chief Badagalpura Nagendra had an identical criticism. “Farmers’ issues were never discussed during the campaign. The campaign was limited to mud-slinging and caste narratives,” he mentioned.
CM’s caste id
Importantly, the marketing campaign was dominated by claims to the Chief Ministership based mostly on caste identities. Janata Dal (Secular) chief H.D. Kumaraswamy set the cat amongst pigeons when he mentioned that the Peshwa Brahmins of north Karnataka have been sidelining Lingayats in the BJP, in the race to occupy the CM’s chair. This narrative gained additional foreign money, as Jagadish Shettar give up the BJP to affix the Congress, blaming B.L. Santosh, the BJP’s nationwide normal secretary for organisation. As the Congress attacked the BJP over its alleged sidelining of Lingayats — together with B.S. Yediyurappa — the BJP hit again by reminding individuals of the alleged ill-treatment of former Lingayat Chief Ministers S. Nijalingappa and Veerendra Patil by the Congress, and challenged the Congress to declare that it will make a “Lingayat CM” if it got here to energy.
Karnataka has seen 23 Chief Ministers since 1947. Of them, 9 have been Lingayats, seven have been Vokkaligas, two have been Brahmins, and 5 have been from Other Backward Class (OBC) communities. Karnataka has by no means seen a Dalit or a Muslim Chief Minister.
No political representatives
The Justice Bhaktavatsalam Committee, which seemed into OBC reservation in native our bodies, lately discovered that even among the many 802 OBC communities, solely 156 had achieved any political illustration, whereas 644 communities had no political representatives even on the panchayat ranges, not to mention in the Assembly. The dominance of some communities in the corridors of energy in Karnataka has drowned out the voices of smaller communities and people which can be decrease in the caste hierarchy.
Social activist Vivekananda H.Okay. mentioned that the choice on who’s to be Chief Minister seems to singularly revolve round caste calculations. “Why do we identify the Chief Minister with the community he was born into? Nobody who identifies themselves with their caste or community will be truly neutral to all the people of the State,” he mentioned. Though this will likely appear to be a “naive dream” in the current context, individuals shouldn’t lose sight of this spirit of democracy.
“The Vokkaligas and Lingayats seem to feel they, being the dominant land-owning communities of the State, have a legitimate claim to Chief Ministership,” mentioned political scientist Muzaffar Assadi.
Internal divisions
The Ahinda (minorities, OBCs and Dalits) have didn’t counter this dominance on account of divisions amongst themselves, mentioned one other political observer A. Narayana. “The problem is that Ahinda is not united and there is no collective political consciousness or ambition from this block to political power. This can be achieved either through a strong leader or through political consciousness, which has not happened in the State yet,” he mentioned. Even Siddaramaiah, seen as a tall OBC chief, labored to tweak public coverage to profit the unvoiced communities, however didn’t organise them politically, he argued. “Given this situation, the political parties argue that giving a ticket to a person from the land-owning feudal community was a better strategy, perpetuating their dominance even further.”
“In all the elections, the narrative is built around dominant castes. No party listens to smaller communities. Given this situation, numerically small castes cannot even dream of seeing one among them in the top post in the next 100 years,” mentioned Naganna G.Okay., president of the Kadugolla Asmithe Horata Samiti.
BJP’s experiment
This time round, there have been some makes an attempt at shifting the standard caste calculations in Karnataka by the BJP, utilizing the Hindutva plank. “The ongoing Hindutva experiment in the State by BJP wants to tame the claims of Vokkaligas and Lingayats to power, even as it wants them to subsume their caste identity and vote based on Hindutva. However, in my opinion, Karnataka is not a State where this will work. We will see how this may pan out in this election,” Professor Assadi mentioned.
