Opinion The Karnataka CM is walking on a razor’s edge

The “K” in Karnataka brings to my mind two other “K”s. One is Joseph “K”, the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s enigmatic novel The Trial, the other “K” is the psychologist Melanie Klein. Klein had shown that between the fourth and the sixth month of infancy, a child learns to prefer one of its mother’s breasts and starts despising the other one. She proposed this widely-accepted “object relations” theory in 1921. A century later, Basavaraj Bommai, who replaced B S Yediyurappa as Karnataka chief minister in July 2021, classically fits into the “K” theory. During the last eight months, he has put his energy into things he likes with an infant-like attachment. What he likes to ignore is the fact that a month before his induction, the Karnataka State Contractors Association had written to the PMO, protesting the steep rise in government corruption. They claimed in writing that 40 per cent was the going rate for bribes that the people’s representatives and bureaucrats had been demanding. This was a stated case; there were and are more such unstated cases marking corruption as the most urgent challenge. Bommai succeeded H D Kumaraswamy of the JDS and Yediyurappa of the BJP in a context where the BJP could form the government through engineering a large-scale defection in other parties. The results in recent bypolls and panchayat elections have not been too dazzling for the party and the industrial outlook of Karnataka has been unenviable. The river water disputes have not been settled. The drinking water problem, which was identified by social scientists as the most crucial factor in the previous election, has not been addressed. Bommai has turned a blind eye to these issues.

On the other hand, the CM has lavished all his attention and energy on minority-bashing. He has been in the news for passing an anti-conversion act, turning the hijab into an issue, reviving an absurd law banning Muslim shopkeepers around temple premises, inducing a boycott of halal meat, bringing minority institutions under a scanner and getting ready to introduce the Bhagavad Gita in schools. The Christian community made attempts to tell the government that the anti-conversion act would not be consistent with the Constitution, which guarantees the fundamental right to profess and preach any faith. Did the government of Karnataka engage with it in a conversation? The rules related to school uniforms were framed at the beginning of the year, but the hijab issue was raked up later. Did the government consider how it would impact the right to education? The relationship between Hindu temples and Muslim vendors is centuries old. Did the government consider how the ban would disturb the social fabric? No, again. And, posing jhatka meat as “nationalist” and “halal meat” as not fully so is as absurd a binary. The lack of response from the government to the questions raised by Christians and Muslims has been reminiscent of Kafka’s The Trial. Go around as much as you like, from bureaucracy to police, from politicians to courts, there is only a deferment of justice and dialogue. The Bommai government has enacted the Hindutva blueprint with the rapidity of a “drut khayal” in music, an art in which Karnataka excels.

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In sync with the humiliation of religious minorities is the proposed introduction of the Bhagavad Gita in schools. Contrary to the assumption about its impact, the move is hardly likely to be appreciated by the “majority” in Karnataka. The “rationalised” census data of 2011 may show the population of Hindus in Karnataka at 84 per cent, against that of Muslims at 12 per cent, Christians at 1.87 per cent and Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs and others at 1.2 per cent. However, the “Hindu” category in Karnataka is no monolith. It is presented as being inclusive of the heterodox schools and anti-Brahmin groups such as the Scheduled Castes (19.5 per cent), Lingayats (14 per cent), Vokkaligas, (11 per cent) and Kurubas (7 per cent). How can they emotionally or spiritually relate to the Gita? The closing section of the Gita, the 18th adhyaya, justifies the varna hierarchy. Do we expect 21st century SC children to accept the justification? Lingayat children may prefer to read the vachana poems of Allama Prabhu (12th century Lingayat saint) and the Kuruba children would want poems of Kanaka (6th century Kuruba poet). Besides, the rich philosophical tradition of Gita Bhashya in Karnataka over the last thousand years likes to depict the Gita as the “possibility of worshipping many godheads”, a theological federalism rather than a unitary vision of an avatar. That tradition has seeped deep into Kannada literature, culture and philosophy, best exemplified in recent times by the poet K V Puttappa (1904-1994), who is seen as a “national poet”. Finally, if the Gita is introduced, the Devanagari script used is bound to be seen as an irritant by students and teachers.

Given these demographic, cultural and historical challenges in a state where Shiva, Mahavira and the Mother Goddess are far more popular than Krishna or Rama, why has CM Bommai taken the path of introducing the Gita in schools? On the face of it, it is a path of self-destruction for the BJP. Yet, the electoral math shows that he does not want to face the emergence of the AHINDA coalition in the assembly election next year. The term, first coined by Devaraj Urs, is a Kannada acronym for minorities, Dalits and backward castes. Siddaramaiah, a Kuruba leader, is actively promoting the idea. The disaffection of the Lingayats towards the BJP is growing. If a new coalition emerges with even a marginal support from the Lingayats, the BJP may once again be placed in its 2018 position or worse. Thus, the only foothold of the BJP in the South could be considerably weakened. Demonisation of religious minorities appears to be a desperate attempt to keep the BJP’s own flock together and to hold back the Lingayats in its camp. On the other hand, the success of this variety of politics can leave the Constitution considerably dented. The Karnataka CM’s path ahead is precarious, or as an Upanishad says, kshurasya dhara nisihta duratyaya, like walking on a razor’s edge.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 2, 2022 under the title ‘Joseph K in Karnataka’. Devy is an author and a cultural activist