Lok Sabha polls: How civil society groups joined hands against the BJP in Karnataka
During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Civil Society Collectives in Karnataka campaigned to thwart the saffron party’s divisive policies. Will they make a difference?
During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Civil Society Collectives positioned ‘alternative narratives’ in Karnataka to thwart the BJP’s electoral ambitions and divisive policies. These collectives implemented similar strategies in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly polls, and they yielded positive results. Karnataka has witnessed an unprecedented political churn in recent years, especially since 2014, after the BJP-led NDA came to power at the Centre. According to Prof. Purushottama Bilimale, writer and former professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, “People and institutions across the country are more polarized than ever before due to the well-planned and executed strategy of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. The process of polarisation only intensified after the BJP came to power in Karnataka in 2008.
It is this socio-political situation that brought ideologically diverse civil society groups and progressive movements together and nudged them to counter the BJP and Sangh Parivar with a common strategy. Their approach is simple and straightforward: reminding people that they owe their civil liberties to the Constitution. Founded in November 2021, Bahutva Karnataka, a coalition of progressive people and organisations, stands for a diverse, plural, harmonious and just state. It released a report titled “Guarantee Checks: Employment, Wages, and Inequality,” which dissects the government data, juxtaposing official claims with ground realities, and painting a stark picture of the challenges faced by millions in the workforce.
Unemployment crisis, income inequality in Karnataka
Finding gaping holes in the claims made by the Centre’s “guarantee” policies, the report highlights the need for urgent policy reforms to address issues such as unemployment and inequality in the country, particularly focusing on the situation in Karnataka in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Bahutva Karnataka is very much concerned with the escalating communal violence, hate crimes, and propaganda, aiming to uphold the legacy and culture of pluralism, coexistence, and harmony among different communities in Karnataka.
According to Vinay Srinivasa, a member of Bahutva Karnataka, the report is specifically based on the Periodic Labour Force Survey released by the Central government in October 2023. “Our objective was to communicate to the electorate the verifiable picture of the nation’s development against the Centre’s claims. The BJP promised that the national floor-level minimum wage would increase over the next five years. But on the ground, there has been no change; the minimum wage that was Rs 178 five years ago remains the same even today,” he asserts.
Pointing to the worsening unemployment crisis, the report states that approximately 9.79 lakh government job posts lie vacant in Karnataka alone. Expressing concern over income inequality, the report says the bottom 50 percent of earners fall below the national wage threshold, and marginalised communities are disproportionately affected, lacking safety nets against economic hardships.
The wake-up call
The report serves as a wake-up call for policy makers to address the challenges of employment and income inequality and underscores the imperative for continued efforts to address these issues that dominate the social eco-system of Karnataka, say the authors of the report. To create awareness among the electorates on the danger being faced by federalism, Bahutva Karnataka held an online press conference. Speakers alleged that Indian federalism has been endangered the most in the past five years than it has ever been in the history of Karnataka.
They underlined how the ‘one nation’ political programme of the BJP government has severely affected the autonomy of the federal states in India on economic, cultural, political and linguistic lines. The panel comprised Vinay, noted historian and writer Janaki Nair, member of Bahutva Karnataka, and Clifton D’Souza, an advocate and national general secretary of the All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice, and Venkat Srinivasan, an economist and a member of Eddelu Karnataka.
Even before the announcement of Lok Sabha polls, Eddelu Karnataka (Wake-up Karnataka), a Civil Society Collective, which is known for catalysing BJP’s defeat in 2023 Assembly polls, fortified its effort for a national fight. According to Mallige, an activist of Eddelu Karnataka, “The collective delineated three primary concerns national, state and regional issues. Foremost among these three is democratic norms and constitutional safeguards”. The collective clearly understood that the spectre of authoritarianism is looming large with warnings of curtailed freedoms, weakened institutions of democracy and stressed the importance of addressing misinformation which misleads the electorates.
Thwarting the misinformation campaign
The collective asserted that the misinformation and fake news pose significant challenges to the electoral contest in India, influencing public opinion, political discourse and ultimately the democratic process. According to Dr Vasu of Eedina.com, this phenomenon not only undermines the credibility of information, but also exacerbates societal divisions and hampers informed decision-making among the electorates. “We, in coordination with Kannadafactcheck.com, tried our best to contain the flow of misinformation and the spread of fake news. We wanted to create a pro-active narrative and forced the communal and anti-democratic forces to respond to that,” says Dr Vasu.
Civil society group Jagruta Karnataka (Awakened Karnataka) organised the open debate in Bengaluru and other four divisions of Karnataka on the injustice meted out to Karnataka. Jagruta Karnataka, a socio-political civil society group of around 200 people from across the state, seriously engaged in narrative-building during the Lok Sabha polls. Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda accepted to participate in the open debate. Though Jagruta Karnataka invited Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for this open debate, she refused to participate in the debate. Though she was in Bengaluru on that day, she held a press conference to assert the Centre’s stand instead of participating in the debate.
B C Basavaraj of Jagrutha Karnataka notes, “Though the BJP appears strong outwardly, the scenario at the ground level is completely different”. The collective criticises the BJP’s inability to address concerns of states such as Manipur and tax system queries and its lack of international diplomacy skills.
‘Grow a Spine’
Several civil society and citizen groups across different cities of India jointly undertook a postcard campaign called ‘Grow a Spine’ against the Election Commission of India for the alleged “inaction’ by the Commission over violation of the Model Code of Conduct and laws during polls. A joint complaint in this regard was also submitted through the offices of Chief Electoral Officers in different cities, including Bengaluru. Likewise, Forum for Democracy and Communal Amity, Karnataka chapter, had released “Manifesto for Lok Sabha Election-2024” in Bengaluru, emphasising the need to shun communal politics and focus on real issues of the people.
Activists from Campaign Against Hate Speech and Jagruta Nagarikaru Karnataka complained to the Election Commission demanding immediate action against BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, accusing him of making “inflammatory remarks” regarding a recent controversy in Nagarathpete in Bengaluru, which resulted in communal tension during the Lok Sabha polls.
Most exit polls have predicted the return of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA). As far as Karnataka is concerned, it is to be seen whether the alternative narratives pushed by Civil Society Collective to protect the federal, constitutional, pluralistic and democratic character of the country will yield results like they did during the Assembly polls.
