The Congress’ victory in the 2023 Assembly election in Karnataka was a difficult pill for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to swallow, especially since the grand old party had secured its biggest vote share in 34 years. Then the Congress decided to implement its five guarantees: free bus rides for women, ₹2,000 a month to each woman-headed household, free electricity up to 200 units, 10 kg of rice, and guarantees for the young and unemployed. But above all, the Siddaramaiah government has wrested control of the police. It has lost no opportunity to remind the police to return to the impartiality to which they are committed and literally shed their orange tinge (in two police stations, Kaup and Vijayapura, the police donned saffron for Vijayadashami). In short, the government has honoured its commitment to the Constitution both by offering welfare schemes and by protecting all citizens equally.
The previous ‘double engine’ government (2019-23) had introduced, with extraordinary speed and little discussion, the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Act, 2021; the Karnataka Religious Structures (Protection) Act, 2021; and the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, 2022. These laws had emboldened the majority and induced fear among all the minorities. They had also bred a whole layer of intermediaries (apart from the police) who decided which parts of the cattle trade would be allowed. The regime also honoured as ‘martyrs’ those who had dubious pasts, such as Harsha of Shivamogga.
So it was with some relief that the citizens returned to things that mattered after May 2023: jobs, alleviation of poverty and price rise, freedom of speech, the rule of law, and dealing with the prospect of drought. The fulfilled guarantees drove public discourse in a different direction.
On the eve of elections, given that it had no positive pushback against the guarantees, the BJP tried to once again produce fear. There was an attempt to hoist a Bhagwa Dwaj on government property; it swiftly thwarted. A purported quarrel between a shopkeeper and a gang of local toughs (Hindus and Muslims) was handily turned into opposition to the Hanuman Chalisa, but this too died down. Then a blast in Rameshwaram Café and the unfortunate killing of Neha Hiremath by her former classmate Fayaz have fallen like ripe fruit into the hands of the BJP and given it the verve it lacked on urgent economic questions.
Now, the BJP’s full-page advertisement carefully curates random ‘fears’ into a full-fledged red alert. It crosses all standards of decency and amplifies isolated events. It also stands in striking contrast to the Congress’ advertisements based on its guarantees and on the unfulfilled Union government promises. The BJP advertisement, in stark black and red, warns against voting for the Congress. A man who resembles Mr. Siddaramaiah leaves bloody footprints as he walks away. A swirl of accusations posed as questions surround him: should a college going girl be sacrificed for love jihad? Should tea drinkers have to fear bombs in a café? Should those visiting the Vidhana Soudha hear the slogan ‘Pakistan Zindabad’? Should the grazing cow have to fear the chopping block? In this compilation of nine accusations, six single out the Muslim as the enemy and three others serve as assorted warnings about Naxal violence, the reallocation of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe welfare funds, and the sharing of Cauvery waters. The advertisement appears in all the major Kannada newspapers, but curiously, the BJP has chosen to keep this warning only for the Kannada-reading public.
The advertisement about the dangers of voting for the Congress is ironically the BJP’s warning against itself. Wracked by internal dissidence, it falls back on the exhausted capital of Islamophobia, hoping to assert itself as the keeper of law and order, including instant ‘encounter’ and ‘bulldozer’ justice. It thus reiterates its contempt for the Constitution and indeed the rule of law that the people of Karnataka enjoy.
The Congress’s aggressive campaign for the rights of the Government of Karnataka to its share of taxes is exemplified in its use of the chombu, colloquially, an empty vessel. The BJP has now claimed, perhaps emboldened by the Prime Minister’s impunity, that the Karnataka chombu is full of the blood of Hindus. As a coded call for ‘revenge,’ it thus buries any idea of Karnataka or, indeed, of India.
