A SMART GAME IN KARNATAKA

The joke of the season is a BJP leader accusing Karnataka's Congress chief minister of dividing people along communal lines. The BJP had combined the talents of Newton, Einstein and Chanakya to invent the science of pitting people against people in the name of religion and caste. It still remains the prime promoter of the technology. Karnataka, in the heat of a life-and-death election, will no doubt see all parties copying the BJP. Communalism will be in full gallop. We can already hear party strategists saying 'May the worst man win'.

Actually Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is being quite smart. Cynical, may be, but smart. Lingayats with B.S. Yeddyurappa as leader have been BJP's presumed support base. Siddaramaiah created havoc for the BJP by formally approving the Lingayat community's demand for separate-religion status (which will qualify them for minority privileges). The claim that Veerashaivas and Lingayats are the same was shattered with Veerashaivas protesting and Lingayats cheering Siddaramaiah. (Lingayats reject Brahminical precepts, bury their dead instead of cremating them, follow Basavanna's vachanas in Kannada and use no Sanskrit text and have rituals entirely different from Hindu versions). Siddaramaiah had already ordered the display of Basavanna's portraits in government offices across the state. Of course the Centre will not approve the state's new proposal on Lingayats. But Siddaramaiah has scored the points he wanted to score.

Smart, too, has been the Chief Minister's use of the Kannada-pride card. The removal of Hindi signboards from metro stations was welcomed by many when it became known that in some Hindi-speaking states traffic signage followed a one-language formula, and that milestones in many rural roads in southern Karnataka had only Hindi lettering on them. BJP chief Amit Shah's speeches to Kannada audiences in Hindi, without translation, struck people as a sign of arrogance. In this climate, Siddaramaiah got Apple to include Kannada in their keyboards and demanded that passports issued in Karnataka have details in Kannada.

The Government also promoted the Kannada Flag. It didn't invent the idea; a separate flag had been there from the pre-independence days of the Samyukta Karnataka movement. In 1938 acclaimed writer B.M.Srikantaiah wrote a poem called "The Kannadada Bavuta"(flag). A decade before that, poet laureate Kuvempu had composed Jaya He Karnataka Maathe which stirs listeners' hearts even today. Thus Karnataka has its own anthem as well. By no means can this be seen as a challenge to national unity. Every state in America has its own flag, but they still remain the united states.

Karnataka also has something which perhaps nobody else has; A mother-goddess of its own called Kannada Bhuvaneshwari. Distinguished litterateurs of the state and some public figures came together last year with an appeal to the Chief Minister for the installation of a Bhuvaneshwari statue at a prominent spot in Bangalore city. There are two temples dedicated to the Goddess in the state. A statue in the capital will boost the state's cultural heritage -- and win some votes, costing less than the BJP's Patel statue in Gujarat.

In five years of power, Siddaramaiah has done nothing that can be called outstanding in terms of vision. But no major scandal has caught up with him either. He has been reasonably good at budget management. His populist moves such as Indira Canteens have won some appreciation. He also wins approval by challenging Modi in Modi style. An example is his meet-the-people programme called "Kaam Ki Baat" (any resemblance to Modi's Man Ki Baat being purely non-coincidental).

In the circumstances, a direct test of strength between Siddaramaiah's Congress and Yeddyurappa's BJP can well go in the chief minister's favour. But two obstacles may disrupt the scenario. One is the vote-wasting capability of India's most frustrated politician H.D.Deve Gowda. His JDS doesn't have a hope in hell of getting anywhere near power. But he can be an effective nuisance -- and he likes to play that role.

The second obstacle before Congress is the Harris factor -- the unforgivable display of gangsterism by a Congress MLA's son in a restaurant. The father had clearly promoted his rowdy son's rise in Congress politics. The blot on the Congress can perhaps be removed to some extent if the party disowns the Harris family altogether, denying a ticket to the MLA father as well. Whether the leadership will have the imagination to take such a righteous stand is to be seen. In other words, the doors to power are wide open, anyone can walk in, saint or sinner. That's the pity of it.

TIME FOR REVISIONIST COMMUNISM

Governmental non-performance in Kerala and electoral devastation in Tripura gave the CPM its unfinest hour in history. Just then the imaginative leadership of the All India Kisan Sabha miraculously pushed it into its finest hour; the Nasik-Mumbai Long March of some 50,000 farmers marked a milestone in the political annals of the country. The lesson is obvious: the CPM as presently constituted and led has become irrelevant, but so many people are oppressed that a well-conceived movement pursuing socialist egalitarianism can emerge a winner.

People are ready as public reactions to the Long March showed. In some areas locals showered flowers on the marches. In some other places NGOs and residents welfare associations lined up to give them food and water. Traffic police went out of their way to say that the march never created bottlenecks; in crowded areas the marchers took to the road past midnight so that citizens wouldn't be inconvenienced. All this while the farmers developed swollen eyes, foot blisters, dehydration and blood pressure problems.

The success of the Kisan Sabha's march could be attributed to (a) the people-friendly style in which it was conducted, and (b) a growing feeling among citizens that some basic changes in the polity are overdue. The time has come for Indian communism to recognise this and alter its course. Lenin altered Marx. Stalin altered Lenin. Mao altered everything while Deng Hsiaoping altered Mao himself. During these tumultuous alterations that brought progress, Indian communists stuck to imitations with shameful slogans such as "China's Chairman is Our Chairman". Can't India's Marxists work out a "Communism with Indian characteristics"?

Perhaps they can start by looking at the way Europe's communists changed themselves to fit into the temper of the democratic systems in which they lived. Adjuncts to Soviet Communism as India was, they saw sense in Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci's argument that sectarianism must give way to social alliances that sought social reforms. The concept of "another democratic way to socialism" gained ground. Inspiration came also from the Prague Spring of 1968 when the Soviet Union ruthlessly crushed a popular movement for reform in Czechoslovakia.

Old-style ruthlessness was the backbone of old-style communism. Even in its heyday state terror was unacceptable to people (Stalin's purges and Mao's cultural revolution will remain historical landmarks of horror). On the other hand, the appeal of socialism and democracy grew in strength. The influential communist parties of Italy and Spain embraced "Eurocommunism". After the Soviet Union disappeared, the French communist party also toyed with Euro. The communists of Britain, Belgium, Netherlands and Austria are Eurocommunists. The collapse of the Soviet Union made traditional communism more palpably irrelevant. India is the only country in the world where the old-style communism of the Soviet era survives. That's a shame.

Eurocommunism was part of the effort to move away from the unpleasant connotations the very term "communism" acquired through repressions in communist countries. Today China and Vietnam are the only countries where a Communist party, named as such, rules. Other countries have embraced the more acceptable term of socialism. Germany's Social Democratic Party was born out of the General Workers Union in 1875. Communists and revisionists within its fold carried on a prolonged battle. The revisionists eventually won with their argument that social and economic justice for the working class can be achieved through democratic elections without violent class struggles.

This is the line India's communists must now formally and ideologically adopt. By participating in electoral politics, they have effectively accepted the democratic system in preference to B.T. Ranadive's revolution thesis. But they have not reaped the benefits because they are caught in old-style theoretical polemics of the Prakash Karat type on the one hand and luxury-lovers of the Pinarayi Vijayan type on the other. (Karat's explanation of the Tripura debacle was so laboured that it sounded like saying that the CPM lost because it didn't get votes. Vijayan's cabinet decided recently to buy 35 Innova Crysta SUVs costing about 10 crore for ministers).

The best way out is to leave the CPM for theoreticians and lovers of the good life. Others could follow the European model and float a new party devoted to socialism and democracy. Constructive revisionism could save the essence of the communist dream by adapting it to the moods and needs of the present times.That is what the Kisan Sabha did. That's why those who led the Long March must now lead India to Indocommunism. Over to Ashok Dhawale, Jiva Gavit, Ajit Nawale, Kisan Gujar, Vijoo Krishnan.

ELECTIONS ARE NOW MIRACLES

It's miracle time in India. A tree with no roots and no leaves, nevertheless bears fruit in Tripura; the BJP, with a previous record of 0, wins 35 of 59 seats. The bigger miracle is that it does not matter who wins, it's the BJP that will form the Government. In Meghalaya it won only 2 seats against the Congress's 21. In Nagaland it won only 11 seats against the NDF's 29. But in both states the BJP took over, as it did in Goa a year ago with only 13 seats in a house of 40. At this rate, don't be surprised if Siddaramaiah leads the Congress to victory in Karnataka and Yeddyurappa forms a BJP Government. Sweet are the uses of power at the Centre.

It will be a mistake however to attribute BJP victories to political and money power alone. It has strategists who are not second to Kautilya and are adept at forging cynical alliances. The sharpness with which the likes of Ram Madhav, Sunil Deodhar and Himanta Biswa Sarma used these skills is unmatched in the history of elections. There are only a half dozen such brains in the BJP, but that is a half dozen more than other parties have.

The pity is that their intellectual vigour goes hand in hand with party apparatchiks' addiction to the vulgarity of hatreds. The Tripura triumph was followed by violence of a kind that turned triumph into shame. Mobs attacked not just CPM offices, but also colleges, houses, villages, markets and areas considered Leftist. The wrecking of Lenin statues led to an avalanche of chain reactions with statues of Periyar, Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Ambedkar and even Gandhi getting vandalised. The world must be laughing at our "democracy".

The mentality that condones criminality in the name of patriotism is dangerous. H.Raja symbolised this. This BJP leader in Chennai is good at discrediting the BJP with asinine comments. True to form, he said that the fate that overtook the Lenin statues must now overtake Periyar statues in the South. In that one stroke, the BJP lost whatever ground it gained by taming the AIADMK. For Periyar, with all his weaknesses, was a visionary who enthroned rationalism in public life, gave meaning to Dravidian ethos and put self-respect above Brahmin hegemony. Even his critics respect Periyar. Raja will not understand the nuances of such things. Small minds with big mouths never do.

Note also that neither the statue desecration spree nor the Tripura violence stopped after the Prime Minister's "strong" criticism of them. Like lynchings in UP and Gujarat, BJP's communal extremism has a momentum of its own, beyond the control of even the Prime Minister. For that reason, the northeast is going to be restive and violence-prone in the days ahead.

In Meghalaya, for example, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma plans to lead a "secular" Government with BJP's collaboration when the BJP does not accept even the word secularism; it only recognises "pseudo-secularism". Conrad is in for surprises.

And in Nagaland? Remember BJP leader Kiran Jijuju attacking his cabinet colleague Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi over the right to eat beef? During the campaign the BJP uttered not a word about Nagaland's food habits or religion. But campaigning BJP and power-wielding BJP are separate entities. It is a certainty that there will be ghar wapasi efforts now in the beef-eating Christian-majority state. How will this affect a state already in the grip of insurgency and armed political groupings?

Continuing minority bashing shows that the BJP takes it as normal under its rule. Just last week Roshanbiwi in Gujarat's Gandhinagar district had her thumb, index finger and middle finger chopped off by Bhajrang Dal rowdies. Reason: She had disobeyed the gang's order to remain indoors when they were celebrating the anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition.

The late Christopher Hitchens, disgusted by the Iranian fatwa-givers' hunt of his friend Salman Rushdie, summed up the malady of intolerance in two words: "Religion Kills". The Ayatollah's call for murder was at last a religious edict based on religious beliefs. In India it isn't even that. It is merely the misuse of religion for selfish political gains. It is not Hinduism at all. It is a convoluted version called Hindutva.

So what are our tomorrows going to be? Will we have to say with King Lear: "We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorder, follow us disquietly to our graves?" Or, will this too pass and sanathana dharma survive unscathed?

THE GREAT BANK ROBBERY. BY ALL

The funny thing about the banking fraud that is rocking the country is that no one is accountable for it. The Finance Minister remained silent at first and then blamed the supervisory agencies -- as though he was but an onlooker. His cabinet colleague, the ever-unconvincing Ravishankar Prasad, blamed the Congress for the mess. He was no doubt seeing Indira Gandhi's bank nationalisation as the reason for the mess. Being a fair man, he didn't blame the Italian grain merchants who invented banking in the Middle Ages.

The problem with the Ravishankar Prasad brand of rodomontade is the self-conviction that they convince others. It is nobody's case that there was no corruption before his party's rise to power. Unforgettable scams marked the governments of all Congress prime ministers from Indira Gandhi's time. Manmohan Singh, personally respected for his incorruptibility, was finance minister in 1992 when Harshad Mehta triggered a Rs 4000-crore banking scam with an ingenious method of siphoning money from interbank transactions. As prime minister, Singh allowed some abominably corrupt ministers to flourish under him.

So, do Congress scams justify BJP scams? Only the sick can argue along those lines. There is no way the Government of the day can dissociate itself from the Nirav Modi scandal. Official bank records of LOU (Letters of Understanding that facilitates loans from other banks) issued by Punjab National Bank to Nirav Modi have appeared in the media and they show that the letters were issued during 2017-18. Ravishankar Prasad's contention that the jeweller's appearance in a photograph with the Prime Minister in Davos was "a coincidence" also stands demolished. Protocol governs such occasions and nothing happens without prior clearance. No "coincidence" is permitted.

According to PTI, the national news agency, Finance Minister Jaitley travelled to Davos with a "100-strong Indian delegation" of prominent businessmen. Among them was Nirav Modi. The attempt by apologists of the Government should be not to look at this banking scandal from a politically partisan viewpoint, but from the viewpoint of national interest. Whether under the Congress or the BJP, businessmen who cheat banks are cheating the citizens and the country. They should be handled from that defining angle.

Those who have eyes to see can see that scandals of this kind cannot happen without the knowledge and/or condonation and/or participation of politicians in power. Suspicions about the Modi style of operations had surfaced in the diamond business circles as far back as in 2015. A potential investor who had felt cheated had reported to the police twice, then to the CBI. Neither taking any action, the investor alerted the PMO which forwarded the matter to the Registrar of Companies who chose to close the complaint. Could this happen without the involvement of well-placed politicians and officials?

Equally relevant is the question: Could Modi have escaped from India in the nick of time without official collusion? In the immediate family he is the only one with an Indian passport. His sixth sense stirred when two senior staffers of the PNB who had the power to issue LOUs left India in November last year. In a measured manner thereafter he, business partner/uncle Mehul Choksi and some family members quietly and separately took flights out of the country. All that India could do was seize their assets within its borders and send look-out notices. Big deal.

What we see here is the old story of VIP offenders being helped by our law enforcers to escape from the law of the land. When the Bhopal gas tragedy, described as the world's worst industrial disaster, killed 4000 to 8000 and maimed countless others in 1984, senior ministers in Delhi helped Union Carbide chief Anderson escape from India. Ottavio Quattrocchi, Italian business agent who became so close to Sonia Gandhi's family that his four children, all born in India, and Sonia's children grew up together, finally fell foul of the law in 1993 but was helped to escape from the country overnight so to speak. And then we have our modern touch-me-not VIPs, Lalith Modi and Vijay Mallya living in luxury abroad beyond the reach of India's reluctant hands.

Nirav Modi has politely declined to cooperate with the CBI in its inquiries against him. Why not? Is Vijay Mallya cooperating with the CBI? Has anyone in our great country dared touch Lalit Modi? His pals are in high office in Rajasthan and Delhi. This is India that is Bharat -- and this is how it will be irrespective of which party is in power.