Fumble Harmer and a Southern Son Rise

Well well well, once again we have this grand spectacle of the Law of Un-intended Consequences at work again, this time south of the Vindhyas in Karnataka. Offstumped will get to that in a moment but first a side note a very optimistic op-ed piece by Mr. Chandan Mitra in the Daily Pioneer http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=mitra%2Fmitra160.txt&writer=mitra exposing the leftist nervousness of postponement of WB polls. Kudos Mr. Mitra you do Offstumped and its Readers proud.

Now let us turn our attention to the developments down south in Karnataka, where the fumble harmer oops the Humble Farmer is about to deliver his last hurrah as the media would have us believe or is he ?

Well the Law of Un-intended Consequences works in mysterious ways. Look at what happened in Karnataka. You had a Congress led government with no claim to a mandate having been roundly beaten to the first place in the assembly polls ruling the roost in tandem with the “Son of the Soil” Mr. Deve Gowda lending support. Who would have thought that Mr. Gowda’s whose undistinguished political career and unapologetic acts of vengance against political friend and foe alike would unravel in the manner it did, here he was trying to get rid of an ambitious protege who was getting ahead of his mentor and look what he is likely to end up with or is he ?

Confused as to what I am referring to. Well the deep rooted cynicism of the Indian Polity towards the Political Class cannot be exemplified in any greater detail than this editorial piece in the Indian Express of the events that unfolded in Karnataka as scripted by the grandson of the soil. Titled “How Humble Farmer Reaps” the Indian Express writes http://iecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.php?content_id=86225

“Forget the blood-is-thicker-than-water axiom. In hard political terms, it is Deve Gowda who is the mass leader in Karnataka. ……..There are many indications to suggest that he was party to the decision to go with the BJP.”

This coming from a media outlet as balanced as the Indian Express is a reflection of how low the former Prime Minister’s credibility in the eyes of the people and in the annals of media. That it is conceivable that a man of the stature of a former Primer Minister could stoop so low as to script an elaborate political drama to get even with friend and foe. While seemingly inconceivable is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. In fact it so very much in the realm of the possible that there is no doubt in the minds of most Kannadigas that the prodigal son has not upstaged the father and it is just a matter of time when the curtains will be drawn on this drama.

Well Mr. Gowda’s acts of vengance in the past have no doubt cemented this cynicism in the people but then you have the wholier than thou form of extreme cynicism from media observers like TJS George. In his op-ed piece “Worship God; your boons will be granted” http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SEC20060121072219&eTitle=Columns&rLink=0 writes

“Karnataka will be no better if Kumaraswamy materialises from thin year. The hunger for power will make way for the hunger for power. Even Kumaraswamy will not say that any principle or issue is involved in this naked power play. In fact, the absence of ideology is conspicuous because both JD(S) and BJP claim to be ideologically oriented. That S, although in brackets, stands for Secular. When a proclaimed Secular party marries a party that sees the very concept of secularism as pseudo, the ideological hypocrisy on both sides stands out. As for the BJP, power at any price had become an obsession.”

TJS George may be right that no principle or issue is involved. But TJS George misses a larger point here in this op-ed piece drowned in his cynicism. The people of Karnataka couple of years back gave a verdict against the incumbent Congress government. The ensuing coalition government was a slap on the face of this mandate as it put the Congress Government right back in power in a weaker form with a lop sided agenda. So the Law of Un-intended Consequences here is working to redeem the state of the original sin, by showing the Congress the door and respecting the mandate of the people. So cynicism apart Offstumped views this as a positive rather than a negative development.

TJS George while alluding to the “S” word again misses a larger political development which the Indian Express rightly points out in its subsequent editorial “God and Gowda”. http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=86221

Making a compelling opening remark the Indian Express writes

“The political convulsions in Karnataka underline, yet again, the apparent foolhardiness of ordering Indian politics around the secular-communal faultline.”

This folks is the most profound political observation, mark Offstumped’s words, for Indian Politics for the rest of the decade.

The Indian Express further goes on to explain this observation

“For one, in a country as diverse as India, there are numerous and cross-cutting cleavages. In a given moment, one of them might appear to be outstanding, but it is futile to expect its dominance to hold as circumstances change. Also, more than five decades after Independence, and almost a decade and a half after the BJP’s Ayodhya campaign issued its strident challenge, the very notion of secularism remains unclear.“

Well folks fasten your seat belts as you ride the roller coaster of Indian Politics where established political fault lines and conventional wisdom are about to turned upside down. We will see the same theme play out in West Bengal and not before long in Assam and maybe again in Tamil Nadu. This notion of “secularism” which is actually a euphemism for rabid minority pandering will be given the burial come Jan 27th when the Congress government falls. For the BJP this obviously is a huge shot in the arm as it lays claim to its first power centre South of the Vindhyas.

What does this really mean to the Right of Centre Agenda, to the right of Free Enterprise to choose how it organizes its operations, to the right of people of Bangalore to a better quality of Urban Life. All of this will probably become clear in the days to come. Offstumped challenges the new formation to prove its cynics and conventional wisdom wrong and demonstrate that it is not all about naked power play and adopt a common minimum agenda that leaves the affairs of Bangalore to Bangaloreans and not some bureucrat in Vidhan Soudha. Let the people of Bangalore choose for themselves the pace of urbanisation, the scale of civic infrastructure and the effectiveness of Law Enforcement where free enterprise and the pursuit of wealth thrive.

On this positive note Offstumped signs off with a reference to an op-ed piece in the Economic Times titled “Emergence of BJP secular” http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1378650.cms in which Pramod Mahajan’s thesis that a major political realignment would have to happen for the BJP to shed the stigma of the Gujarat riots to turn the declining tide of its political fortunes seems to rignt true. Happy Reading

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