The emphatic victory of the Congress party in elections for the Karnataka assembly by winning 135 seats out of 224 with a staggering vote share of 43.88% and the crushing defeat of the BJP in spite of the spectacular campaign of Prime Minster Narendra Modi is being studied and explained in a variety of ways. The BJP lost badly despite Modi reciting the religious slogan ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ while campaigning and asking people to vote for his party by raising the same slogan. It was clearly in violation of the model code of conduct and the Representation of People’s Act which prohibits political parties and their leaders from asking for votes in the name of religion.
The significant electoral outcome in Karnataka can be understood by employing the perspectives of M.K. Gandhi on the shared culture of the Kannadigas professing diverse faiths, celebrating communal harmony and also upholding their commonalities in spite of getting defined by several other identities including caste identity. Gandhi’s perspectives flow from his numerous writings and articulations spelled out in his speeches delivered during his visits to Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Mysore, Tumkur, Belgam and Hassan when he was spearheading the struggle for independence.
Gandhi predicted in 1924 that Karnataka will show the way to India
A hundred years ago in 1924, Gandhi extended unequivocal support for the creation of a separate Karnataka province based on the Kannada language and nourished the fond hope that it would uphold the age-old values of communal amity, provide remedies to deal with Brahmin/non-Brahmin friction, and show the way forward for India as a whole.
The spirit of what he said in 1924, when Karnataka as a separate entity did not exist, sounds so contemporary in the context of statements made by several leaders that the outcome of the Karnataka elections representing defeat of majoritarianism in the state offers lessons for the whole of India.
It would be worthwhile to focus attention on Gandhi’s speech delivered at a Citizens’ Meeting in Bangalore on August 28, 1927. He said, “You have no Hindu-Muslim quarrels. You are unaffected by the misdoings in the North.”
Such a remarkable legacy of Karnataka “unaffected by the misdoings in the North” was sensitively flagged by Gandhi almost 100 years back and tragically, with the advent of the BJP in the electoral arena of the state, the “misdoings of the North” were slowly introduced against the will of its people. The BJP government of Karnataka headed by Basavaraj Bommai went several steps ahead by banning Muslim girls wearing hijabs from entering schools and classrooms. Hindutva groups issued call for a boycott of halal meat normally prepared by Muslims and used by them and other communities. Worst of all, an appeal by Hindutva organisations was issued to drive out Muslims from all social and economic activities.
Those were some of the sinister measures taken to polarise Karnataka’s society and cut it asunder on faith lines. The false and manufactured narrative that Tipu Sultan was not killed by the Britishers while fighting against them but was assassinated by two Vokkaligas, Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda, was hailed by the Vokkaliga leader C.T. Ravi, national general secretary of the BJP. That unprecedented and utterly fictitious assertion was made to drive a wedge between Karnataka’s Hindus and Muslims, described by Gandhi as the right and left eye of our motherland. He said so on July 14, 1927 in his speech delivered in Tumkur in response to the address presented to him by the municipality of the town.
What the Hindutva organisations did in Karnataka to polarise society is contrary to the syncretic and pluralistic ethos of the state, which the BJP wanted to alter for electoral purposes. The Congress manifesto in contrast invoked the ideal of ‘Sarva Janangada Shanthiya Thota (Peaceful garden of all communities)’, affirming Gandhi’s vision.
Gandhi’s perspective on cow protection as an economic issue
On the issue concerning implementation of the religiously divisive Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Prevention of Cattle Act, 2020, it is well documented that it caused severe economic hardship to both Hindus and Muslims, even as it was framed to target minorities, particularly the Muslims engaged in cattle trade.
Hindus owning cattle found to their dismay that Muslims, earlier buying unproductive cows and oxen, did not come forward to buy them due to harsh punitive measures provided in the Act. They were also deterred and frightened by cow vigilantes who apart from indulging in violence against Muslim cattle traders, even lynched some of them. As a result, economic woes impacted both the Hindus and Muslims in equal measure. Therefore, they came together, took a stand against the BJP during the elections and most of them voted for the Congress.
The BJP government in Karnataka, while enacting the cow protection law, dismissed warnings from the state’s Finance Department that such a law would be economically disastrous. It is striking to note that Gandhi wrote a letter on January 11, 1927 to the Cow Protection Committee, Mysore, and said, “In matters of religion I am against any State interference, and the cow question is in India a mixed matter of religion and economy.”
Also read: A Vote Against ‘40% Commission’, ‘Double Engine Sarkar’ and the Politics of Hindutva
The BJP government, driven overwhelmingly by religion on matters relating to the prevention of cow slaughter, neglected the common economic interests of both Hindus and Muslims who took united action to defeat the Bommai regime. Thus, Gandhi’s perspective that protection of cows from slaughter has an economic aspect explains why both Hindus and Muslims extended their support to the Congress.
Brahmin and non-Brahmin issue
Gandhi noted in the early 1920s that the Brahmin/non-Brahmin issue had emerged in Karnataka and it should be sorted out by mutual reconciliation. It is instructive to note that during the election campaign when B.L. Santosh, a BJP leader and that too a Brahmin from Karnataka, played a determining role in selecting candidates for contesting elections and Yeddyurappa was sidelined, it was interpreted as an attempt to give more space to Brahmins in the party at the cost of non-Brahmins.
There was a spate of articles indicating that the Brahmin/non-Brahmin issue affecting BJP plagued political and electoral processes in the state. Even Rahul Gandhi’s statement that he wanted a caste census and his slogan, “Jitni Abadi, Utna Haq,” or rights proportionate to a community’s share in the population, boils down to addressing Brahmin/non-Brahmin issues by upholding the cause of social justice. In all such developments resonate Gandhi’s vision that Brahmin/non-Brahmin issues deserved amicable settlement.
Gandhi wanted voters to vote for candidates upholding Hindu-Muslim unity
In 1925, Gandhi while answering a voter’s question – “What is the duty of the voters in the coming elections to the Legislative Council?” – appealed to voters that they should only vote for those candidates who while remaining committed to the cause khadi, spinning, prohibition and abolition of untouchability resolutely stood for unity among Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews. In other words, he wanted people to vote for candidates contesting elections by taking into account the basic issues, one of which centred around communal unity and amity.
It implied that he wanted voters not to exercise their franchise in favour of those who divided them on the basis of faith and polarised society by taking up religious issues. Gandhi’s advice assumes crtical significance in the face of the danger of majoritarianism unleashed by Hindutva forces across large parts of India. In the voting pattern displayed by Karnataka voters, they amply demonstrated their preferences for candidates of the Congress who upheld the ideal embodied in ‘Sarva Janangada Shanthiya Thota’.
Gandhi’s perspective that voters should vote for those who remain wedded to the unity of people cutting across faiths resonated in the Congress’s massive 43.8% vote share, demonstrating unmistakably that such vast numbers represented diverse faiths and they preferred candidates upholding Hindu-Muslim unity. It was beautifully put by Rahul Gandhi when on May 13, 2023, while briefing the press after his party’s victory, he said that in Karnataka people have opened the shops of love and the market of hatred has been shut. During his Bharat Jod Yatra, he addressed the growing trend of hatred being peddled by Hindutva forces in the name of religion and stressed that unity of India founded on the ideal of love would triumph. In fact, the victory of the Congress in 36 out of 51 seats covered by Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra signifies the triumph of unity of people representing diverse faiths.
Also read: Ten Factors to Remember Amidst the Congress’s Win and BJP’s Defeat in Karnataka
The Karnataka election victory, in this sense, has shown the way for communal amity and unity. In this victory one finds resonance of the vision articulated by Gandhi in 1924 that the state of Karnataka “…will provide the way to Hindu-Muslim unity and thus show the real way to swaraj”. He also proceeded to add, “Thus, for Karnataka sincerely and lastingly to solve the Brahmin-non-Brahmin problem is to solve all her other problems and thereby largely India’s also.”
The country is celebrating the 75th anniversary of our independence which is embodied in the idea of Swaraj – one of the key components of which, according to Gandhi, remained rooted in Hindu-Muslim unity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi often employs Hindu-Muslim binaries. His raising of the ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ slogan in the election campaign in Karnataka and his appeal to voters of the state to exercise their franchise by reciting the same slogan violated the law prohibiting political leaders to seek votes in the name of religion, unmistakably amounted to mixing religion with politics and reaching out to one particular community. It negates the enduring tradition of inter-faith harmony and Hindu-Muslim amity.
The Congress victory in the state in 2023 with 42.88% vote share mirrored Gandhi’s vision in terms of Hindu-Muslim unity and triumph of love over hatred. It offers lessons for the whole country to defeat the majoritarianism posing a danger to the idea of India.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.
