The divisions are out in the open post the election results in Karnataka. Divisions of caste and religion. If the Vokkaligas want from the Congress, the victorious party, a Chief Minister from their own community—obviously D.K. Shivakumar—the Lingayats want a Deputy Chief Minister. While a Muslim cleric, the chief of Karnataka’s Waqf Board, Maulana Shafi Saadi wants the Congress to repay the favour done to it by the Muslim community who comprise 13% of the state’s population. The maulana says that by consolidating behind the Congress, the minority community has ensured the party’s victory on 72 seats, so a Muslim must be made Deputy Chief Minister and that five more from the community must be made ministers with plum portfolios like Home, Revenue and Health. Given that a total of nine Congress candidates belonging to the Muslim community won this time, the maulana’s demand is very ambitious. But then he is convinced that but for his community Congress would not be anywhere near power, which is possibly true. In fact, Karnataka has been one of the most divided elections possible, with the dominant castes and the minorities going for bloc voting on the direction of their caste and religious heads. Amid this, in the run-up to the elections, Rahul Gandhi gave the very divisive call of a caste census and went to the extent of seeking proportionate reservation, where the percentage of population decides how much reservation is given to OBCs and Dalits, among others. This will require lifting the 50% cap on reservation and will ensure the marginalization of the meritorious. This is totally unacceptable coming from a man who aspires to be the Prime Minister to India.
Rahul Gandhi’s stated aim is “Bharat Jodo” (Unite India), because of which he completed a Bharat Jodo Yatra a few months ago. But such divisive rhetoric does not do anything to unite Indians.
What makes the Karnataka elections different from the elections that have taken place in recent years, is the complete shift in focus from development politics to identity politics. For that matter, even the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2022 managed to become a post-caste elections to a large extent, in spite of the state being a hotbed of caste politics. But then there is no denying that a state like UP is not only witnessing phenomenal development but has been able to create a buzz about it, which has been missing in Karnataka in spite of the state being far more developed than the North Indian state. This is because of the weak leadership of the BJP in Karnataka. As a result, even for the local BJP, there was overreliance on identity, but it did not work, because even the Lingayats apparently are tiring of B.S. Yeddiyurappa, which is obvious from the election results. In fact even for the Congress in Karnataka, this issue of identity will continue to be a problem, as one caste group or the other—as well as the minorities—will be upset with it for not getting what they think is their due for supporting the party.
The problem is, at this rate, divisive issues will continue to dominate Indian politics. The more the desperation of political parties, more the reliance on such issues of identity, including caste and religion. Instead of relying on identity, political parties need to shift the narrative towards development.