Playing With Pride In Polls

In a week when statues, from the north to south, came under protective cover, a flag was unfurled in Karnataka바카라�the banner, in a manner of speaking, to hold Chief Minister Siddaramaiah바카라�s politics aloft, as the battle lines in the assembly elections get sharper. Its evocative symbolism and its timing바카라�at least for the state바카라�s ruling Congress바카라�couldn바카라�t have been better.

These days, every event in this southern state is sucked inevitably into the poll swirl바카라�the arrest of a Hindu Yuva Sena activist in connection with the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh caused the BJP enough discomfiture to elicit loud protests. Then, a murderous attack on the Karnataka Lokayukta by a complainant inside his office in Ban­galore handed it ample ammunition to attack Sidda­ra­maiah on the state바카라�s law and order sit­uation. But by unveiling a design of Kar­nataka바카라�s new state flag on March 8, it바카라�s clear that the CM, a veteran of the politics around Kannada pride, is weaving a reg­ional counter-narrative to take the edge off the BJP바카라�s Hindutva card and its largely Delhi-led campaign. A chauvinism-for-­chauvinism approach, so to say.

바카라�Siddaramaiah has realised that he can turn the battle against the BJP in his fav­our by focussing on the local. The flag issue is linked to a range of other issues,바카라� says political analyst Sandeep Sha­stri. Caste coalitions, to start with. The Karna­taka CM has long been accused of being castiest, but has claimed social justice as the central plank of his politics around AHINDA (an acronym in Kannada for minorities, backward classes and Dal­its). Invoking Kannada swabhimana (self-est­eem), as a response to the BJP바카라�s narrative of one-nation and national agenda UNI­fying behind one leader, accompanies the larger social coalition he바카라�s trying to stitch up with the promise of Lingayat religious minority status. On both acco­u­nts, critics say he바카라�s sailing close to the wind. Playing with sensitive issues like identity pride, they say, might spiral out of control.  

Language assertion, at least, isn바카라�t new and nowhere more evident than in the capital city, occasionally stirring up overt chauvinism, especially whenever a Cau­very wave rose up. Now, it바카라�s the Centre바카라�s Hindi imposition, as the ruling Congress calls it바카라�the visible example being Hindi signages in the Bangalore Metro stations removed by the government, Sidda­ramaiah바카라�s point to the Centre being that it would be better to follow a persuasive app­roach than a mandatory one. Then there is displeasure about bank recruitment policies that disregard Kan­nada and are hence disadvantageous to locals.

The Congress advertised the fact that its choice of three candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections didn바카라�t feature any 바카라�outsiders바카라�, as national parties often do바카라�it nominated writer L. Hanu­man­thaiah, G.C. Chandrashekhar and AICC spokesman Syed Nasir Hussain, all three 바카라�staunch Kannadigas바카라�, as  Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao put it.

바카라�Siddaramaiah has done good work in terms of the economy, giving subsidies to poor people.... But he바카라�s trying to play the wrong card with the Tipu Sultan Jayanti and appealing to the Kannada emotion,바카라� says former Infosys board member T.V. Mohandas Pai. 바카라�The average Kannadiga is fairly educated, is very moderate and very liberal. There are some groups who try to be more Kannadiga but that has not won elections in the past,바카라� he says. Apart from Bangalore, point out others, there바카라�s not much of a Kannada surge elsewhere, except maybe Belgaum district.

Says Prof S.G. Siddaramaiah, chairman of the Kannada Development Authority: 바카라�Any cosmopolitan city, even when it welcomes every culture, will not forsake its very essence, nor should it. Kannada is the 바카라�asmita바카라� of this land, just as being all-inclusive is the 바카라�asmita바카라� of our federal set-up. Karnataka is committed to both,바카라� he says. The state, he says, has never taken an adv­ersarial position when it came to other languages, pointing at Konkani, Tulu, Kodava, Arebhashe, Beary and Urdu. 바카라�Each has academies and there바카라�s no discrimination when it comes to funding.바카라�

More significantly, by unveiling a new state flag, CM Sid­daramaiah has only put the Centre in the delicate position of having to decide if a state can have its own flag.

바카라�He바카라�s attempting to wrest the initiative from the BJP, rather than allowing it to set the agenda,바카라� says Shastri. Of course, the BJP, too, isn바카라�t letting up and wants to bring the focus back onto fam­iliar ground, through fiery Hin­dutva campaigners like Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Aditya­nath and Union minister Ananth Kumar Hegde. 바카라�It바카라�s basically a challenge between two alternative narratives,바카라� says Shastri.

But the BJP can바카라�t disown flag politics entirely, having once trodden down that path. Nor can it forgo local sentiment too, and so we now have train tickets printed in Kannada too.

In 2012, when the BJP was in power, then chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda decreed that the Kannada flag would be compulsorily hoisted on state formation day (November 1) every year in government offices, schools and colleges. It turned out that a political party, Kannada Paksha, held the rights to the red-yellow flag, and the government withdrew the order when the matter went to court.

바카라�Now, this government has resolved all the questions that the court had raised then,바카라� says Prof Siddaramaiah. The government has essentially approved a new design바카라�a tricolour which has a white band (representing peace and stability) running between the yellow (wealth and celebration) and red (valour and pride) with Karnataka바카라�s state emblem, the Gan­daberunda, in the middle. The Ganda­berunda, a mythical two-headed bird flanked by the Sharaba바카라�a lion with the head of an elephant바카라�was the royal insignia of the Mysore Wodeyars.

바카라�Nowhere does it say you cannot have a flag, nor does it say anywhere that you can. So there are no hurdles legally,바카라� Prof. Siddaramaiah tells Outlook. 바카라�This is not an alternative to our nati­onal flag. The national flag will always fly higher.바카라�

Some history would help to decode the events. Later this month, the Kannada Sahitya Parishat will commemorate the birth cen­tenary of Ma. Ramamurthy, a Kannada wri­­ter who, in the mid-바카라�60s, hoisted a yellow and red (the colours represent the auspicious turmeric and vermillion) flag in Bangalore during the incipient Kannada pride movement. 바카라�When the movement started, it was in reaction to the domination of Tamils in Bangalore,바카라� says poet Chandra­shekar Patil, who was part of the intelligentsia that began its next phase, in the early 바카라�80s, to protest the state government바카라�s move to make Sanskrit a compulsory language in schools. 바카라�All these decades, we have emotionally acc­epted this flag as an emblem of Kannada pride and pressing the state gov­­ernment to give it legal sanction,바카라� he says.

The Kannada movement, Patil says, has also played a key role given the history of the unification of a state whose territories lay scattered in erstwhile presidencies and princely states in 1947. 바카라�Had there been no issues concerning the cause of Kannada, these different parts of Kannada Nadu would rather be away from each other, distrusting each other. The Kannada cause is a cementing factor,바카라� says Patil. For that matter, the chief minister바카라�s connection to language pride also travels back decades. The 1980s Kannada agitation, centred around the Gokak report, was many things at once바카라�a linguistic and cultural assertion and a farmers바카라� agitation. The action that began in Dharwad in northern Karnataka became widespread once actor Rajkumar stepped in. In 1983, when the Janata party came to power, Siddaramaiah became the first chairman of the Kannada Bhasha Kavalu Samiti, a watchdog for Kannada which later became the Kannada Development Author-ity. Therefore, he has, as political analyst Narendar Pani puts it, 바카라�a kind of say with Kannada organisations that other CMs didn바카라�t바카라�.

The BJP claims that a regional issue is being used as a ploy that won바카라�t work. 바카라�Some people are trying to use issues against the Centre, thinking that they are using it against Narendra Modi,바카라� says Suresh Kumar, adding, 바카라�They (Congress) are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. But people have understood it.바카라�

Clearly, a paradox afflicts both parties바카라�the BJP바카라�s local leadership in Karnataka, still burdened by its troubled term in office between 2008-2013 needs the persona of Narendra Modi to win acceptability. On the other side, the unenviable track record of the Congress바카라�s central leadership in rec­ent elections means they need to back Siddaramaiah, as they did in Punjab with Capt. Amarinder Singh.

But even as Siddaramaiah worked out a consensus with pro-Kannada groups over a redesign of the Kannada flag, not everybody was happy. Veteran Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj, who leads the Kannada Okkoota (federation), struck a discordant note. 바카라�Why did the government have to show such haste? Elections are coming. What was the need for a flag right now?바카라� he asks. 바카라�Even if the red-yellow Kannada belonged to a political party, the government could have solved it by placing a Karnataka map in the centre of the existing one,바카라� says Nagraj.

Plucking a politically expedient, low-hanging fruit has led to the kind of exclusionism seen elsewhere, where struggles over linguistic identity have taken root. And Bangalore, with its own historical paradoxes, has been pitched headlong at its centre.

By Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore