The BJP debut in Karnataka is being treated as a ?gateway? to the south by both analysts and BJP supporters. Is this a valid description? The party?s growth in south India has been very interesting. Now that Yediyurappa, the first BJP CM in the south, has been sworn in at the beautiful Vidhan Sauda, with the former CM, HD Kumaraswamy, in tow as deputy CM, it is a good time to assess Karnataka politics as a case of similarity as much as exceptionalism in south India.
Karnataka has had many political and social firsts. Its Maharajas in Mysore, the Wodeyars, foresaw the growing impact of caste rivalries. In the early 20th century, well before the British departed, they proposed caste-based job reservations, though Tamil Nadu is still popularly seen as India?s leader in the empowerment of backward castes.
Karnataka is unlike its neighbours in several ways. While Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have their own peculiar forms of state politics, and are thus distinct from the northern states in their impulses, Karnataka has not really seen any regional political formation?with more or less the same parties vying for power here as in the north. Some analysts put this down to a lack of Kannadiga chauvinism. There are local outfits like the Kannada Cheluvi that insist that Kannada gets an unfair linguistic deal in its place of origin, but this has not become a political movement. Hindi/Urdu are still widely spoken in the state, and especially after the opening up of the economy, cities like Bangalore are famous for their cosmopolitan spirit.
The state has 28 Lok Sabha seats, but in New Delhi, these tend to represent parties like the Janata Dal, Congress and BJP. The Janata Dal, with its socialist origins, was instrumental in breaking the stranglehold of the Congress in the late 1980s, well before the BJP sprung on to the scene. It even had HD Deve Gowda as the United Front?s leader at the Centre in 1996, whose only claim to fame then was that he was the CM of Karnataka.
Yet, local politics has been described in terms of jockeying for power between two landed castes?the Vokkaligas (from the richer southern part of the state) and the Lingayats (from the water-scarce northern parts of the state). Even the recent dispute between the current power-sharing partners, Janata Dal (Secular) and BJP, found Vokkaliga versus Lingayat tensions making the deal all the more murky. Yediyurappa and Gowda are from the two traditionally rival castes.
The BJP has been winning votes largely in Karnataka?s Mangalore region. This coastal region tends to have relatively affluent voters, and it may appear natural for the BJP to gain attention there. Yet, syncretic impulses there remain strong and saffron activism low-key, and it is quite a remarkable achievement that the BJP has managed to piggyback a party led by the one-time head of an avowedly secular government in New Delhi into prominence.
Will the BJP use this as a staging ground to fan out? The party might be getting carried away with its own rhetoric about this being the beginning of bigger things for it in the south. What works for the BJP in Karnataka is what worked for it in the north in its Jan Sangh avatar which arguably had wider if not intensely rousing appeal. So, any attempt to turn a religious dispute around the Baba Budangiri shrine in north Karnataka into a vote catcher on the pattern of the Ayodhya model would be fraught with risk. Also, the state is not under the caste dynamics that UP was when the BJP arose in the north. There is still very little evidence on the ground that the BJP has discovered a new formula of penetrating southern states. Karnataka is the most ?northern? of all southern states, and success there does not dispel the BJP?s image of being a northern party of the urban rich and upper castes. Cracking Kozhikode, Chengalput or Srikakulam is another kettle of fish.