South halts Hindutva march

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

A determined bid by the Bharatiya Janata Party to seize power in Karnataka was blocked by the opposition last week, aided by judicial intervention, putting paid to Hindutva’s plan to extend its foothold to the South, at least for the time being.

Although the BJP has outgrown its northern base and spread across the country, the South remains inhospitable to it. The party views Karnataka, where it came to power once before, as its gateway to the South.

The Congress was in power in the state during the last five years, and since every election in the state in the recent past has led to change of government, the BJP believed it could take the state.

BJP President Amit Shah, who is reputedly a master strategist, began working on plans to storm Karnataka six months ago. Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the party’s campaign. It drafted also the services of a host of Central ministers and state chief ministers. Its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, deployed its cadres for booth-level activity.

With an eye on the powerful Lingayat community, the BJP projected BS Yeddyurappa as its chief ministerial candidate even though he had attracted corruption charges when he held the post last time. 

The Congress party’s campaign was led by its president, Rahul Gandhi, who, as is his wont, incorporated temple visits in his tour. Hoping to wean away a section of the Lingayats from the BJP, the outgoing Congress government endorsed the demand for recognition of the community as a separate religious group. The tactic did not hurt Yeddyurappa, who had personally backed that demand at one time.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s strategy probably harmed the Congress further by precipitating consolidation of the Vokkaliga community, the Lingayats’ traditional rivals in caste politics, behind the Janata Dal (Secular), led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and his son and former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy. 

When counting of votes began last Tuesday, the BJP established an early lead and appeared well set to win a majority in the new Assembly. But it ended up with only 103 seats, nine short of an absolute majority.

However, the BJP was the only party to increase its strength. It now had 63 seats more than in the last Assembly. The Congress won 78 seats, 44 less than last time, and the JD(S) 37, three less than last time.

When it became clear that the BJP will fall short of a majority, the Congress offered unconditional support to a government headed by Kumaraswamy of the JD(S). The two parties conveyed to Governor Vaijubhai Vala their decision to work together. The BJP, as the largest single party, also staked a claim to form the government.

With a combined strength of 115, the JD(S)-Congress alliance had a clear majority. Yet Vala, an old RSS hand who was Modi’s Cabinet colleague in Gujarat, rejected their claim and appointed Yeddyurappa as the Chief Minister. He gave him a fortnight to prove majority in the house.

Since there were not enough small parties and independents with whose support the BJP could cobble up a majority, Vala’s action amounted to giving the party an opportunity to poach members from the Congress and the JD(S). 

The two parties jointly approached the Supreme Court against Vala’s partisan decision. At an urgent hearing, the court sidestepped the legal and constitutional issues raised by the petitioners and ordered that the majority be tested on the floor of the house the very next day.

The Governor’s choice of a former BJP Speaker with an unsavoury record to conduct the assembly proceedings raised fears of possible mischief. However, the court’s directives to hold a secret ballot and telecast the proceedings live limited the scope for motivated manoeuvres. 

Even as the MLAs gathered for the session, the Congress released five tapes of conversations in which BJP leaders offered inducements to its members.

Realising that the game was up, Yeddyurappa resigned without facing the floor test. The Governor later invited Kumaraswamy to form the government.

Making sense of a fractured electoral verdict is not easy. There is merit in the BJP’s argument that the electoral verdict was against the Congress. But its own claim of a mandate is questionable. The Election Commission’s figures show that the Congress (38.0%) got more votes than the BJP (36.2%).

With a combined vote share of 56.4% the Congress-JD(S) alliance can legitimately claim popular support. But these parties have a history of rivalry and it remains to be seen if they can pull together for long. 

The most important lesson of the Karnataka experience is that secular parties can halt Hindutva advance if they combine forces. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 22, 2018

Modi’s record is good in parts

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes one year in office, opinion on his performance is sharply divided. Fans affirm he has redeemed India but opponents say he is ruining the country. Then there are observers who wonder whether there has been a change of administration at all.

Modi, like Muhammad Ali, believes he is the greatest. So do his loyal followers. According to BS Yeddyurappa, Vice-President of his Bharatiya Janata Party, Modi is running a clean, efficient pro-people government. For the first time in many years there is a government that is scam-free, he says.

Yeddyurappa ran a corrupt administration in Karnataka and does not have the right credentials to issue a certificate of integrity. There are other reasons too for not taking his statement at face value.

Scams generally surface years late, when reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General become available. The cases instituted against some members of Manmohan Singh’s second government were based on what they did as members of his first government. Modi’s acceptance of a custom-made suit, reportedly worth Rs1 million, from a businessman and the windfall gains his corporate financiers are making cast doubts on Yeddyurappa’s claim.

Political opponents who were alarmed by Modi’s emergence on the national scene in view of the Hindutva-engineered riots in Gujarat under his watch cite the rabid outbursts of some BJP MPs and the attacks on churches and reconversion campaigns in some states as evidence of the regime’s communal agenda. However, there is reason to believe he is trying to restrain the hotheads, though belatedly, since their activities are giving his government a bad name at home and abroad.

Modi is on the verge of setting a globe-trotting record with visits to 18 countries in 12 months. The travels were planned with the twin objectives of improving bilateral and multilateral relations and securing investments to make India a manufacturing hub. They have provoked the good-humoured comment that he is the first Non-Resident Indian prime minister.

The Make-in-India programme is Modi’s main employment generation scheme. Several countries, including China and the United States, have evinced interest in it. Since big projects necessarily take time to materialise, it is too early to decide how successful the programme is.

Meanwhile, Modi has some hurdles to cross at home. Several measures he has initiated to ease the way for domestic and foreign investors – these include relaxation in laws relating to land acquisition and employment of children – have met with opposition.

In his election speeches, Modi had accused the previous governments of wasting nearly six decades. He is now reassessing the past more realistically. Last week, at Shanghai, he spoke of a backlog of only three decades when he took over. That means he has exonerated all prime ministers up to PV Narasimha Rao, including his bete noire, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Manmohan Singh, who headed the two United Progressive Alliance governments, is still on Modi’s list of defaulters, but observers are finding it difficult to differentiate between the economic policies of the two. Much of the economic legislation Modi has pushed through Parliament so far, such as the insurance, coal and general sales tax bills, are measures initiated by Manmohan Singh. As one scribe puts it, “Modi has achieved the impossible: he has given us another year of UPA.”

However, Modi has reason to be happy. The global downturn had slowed down economic growth during Manmohan Singh’s second term. With the US and other major countries on the path of recovery, the pace is picking up again, and the International Monetary Fund has forecast that India will register an expansion of 7.2 per cent, outstripping China’s 6.8 per cent.

Indian and foreign business interests are hopeful that Modi will be able to keep his promise and make changes of the kind they wish to see. The Associated Chamber of Commerce gives him only seven marks out of 10. But the global consultancy firm PwC’s 2015 survey says Indian CEOs are the most optimistic in the world.

Modi has not been able to infuse the same degree of optimism in the poor who constitute one-fourth of India’s population. Economic distress continues to drive peasants to suicide. Sensing trouble on this front, the BJP has drawn up a campaign plan designed to give him a pro-poor image.

Modi’s progress card for the year, like the curate’s egg, is good in parts. Opinion polls indicate that his personal popularity is still high. He will face a field test when some states go to the polls later this year. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 19, 2015.