JD(S) in Karnataka: Chronicle of a death foretold

Janata Dal (Secular) satrap and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy may unwittingly be overseeing the last days of his party in Karnataka. In recent weeks, he has swung like a yoyo by coming to the support of the BJP, leaving his erstwhile partners, the Congress, gasping.

The Congress shouldn’t have been shocked as this is the second time since 2006 when he has abruptly swung away from the party towards the BJP.

If the consequences of Kumaraswamy’s actions had been limited, it wouldn’t have merited a second glance. But his opportunistic moves, in all likelihood, will change the face of Karnataka’s politics for a long time to come – to the disadvantage of the average voter looking for more options.

Kumaraswamy may see it as a simple shift of support from one party to the other. But, for the BJP, it is a great opportunity to gobble up what remains of the JD(S), digest its supporters and give out a satisfied burp after the next elections.

This is not an exaggerated proposition as this is exactly what has happened in Karnataka since the mid-1990s. The BJP’s clout is directly proportional to the marginalisation of the JD, enabled by an historic bungling by former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde and his enduring rival, ex-prime minister HD Deve Gowda.

Analysis | JD(S), a willing Trojan horse for BJP in Karnataka

In 1996, in the immediate aftermath of Gowda being nominated by the Third Front as prime minister,  Hegde unable to stomach the unexpected rise of his friend-turned-foe turned friend taunted him. Gowda, in response, expelled Hegde from the party. The party split into Hegde’s Janata Dal (United) and Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular).

For the BJP, which until then was unable to make it big in Karnataka’s politics, it was pure blessing. Hegde aligned with the BJP, hoping to wreak revenge on Gowda. Hegde’s myopic move saw the BJP dominating the alliance. The BJP shrewdly helped itself to Hegde’s mass base among the Lingayat community in north Karnataka. Not just that, it finished off the JD(U) in the process.

Do we see the Janata Dal (United) anywhere in Karnataka today? It may exist on paper, but for all practical purposes, it is history. Nothing is left of it now. It got zilch in the last Assembly elections.

The next big opening for the BJP came when Kumaraswamy, as deputy chief minister, embraced the party after breaking away from the Congress when in a coalition government in 2006. The reason: the BJP offered him chief ministership for 20 months. When it was time to pass on the mantle to the BJP’s BS Yediyurappa for the next 20 months,  Kumaraswamy backtracked. The government fell. By doing this, Kumaraswamy had inadvertently pushed up the BJP’s fortunes and Yediyurappa returned as chief minister in 2008, the first time the BJP came to power in a southern state on its own.

Twelve years since then, Kumaraswamy is again waltzing with the BJP. The political situation, however, between 2008 and 2020 has undergone a radical rightward shift.  Nationally, the BJP is today far more powerful while the Congress is in an existential crisis.  Across the country the BJP is busy cannibalising its regional coalition partners. It is on the verge of swallowing Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) in Bihar and has already done so in some of the north-eastern states. Only in Maharashtra it tasted humble pie when the Shiv Sena wised up to the BJP’s strategy and broke away from the party for survival, going on to form a government with the opposition Congress and the NCP.

It appears that Kumaraswamy in Karnataka is oblivious to this reality and has offered himself on a platter to the BJP. His support has helped the BJP pass its contentious amendment to the land reform laws and is on the verge of passing a stringent version of an already existing law on cattle slaughter.

Related news | BJP govt in K’taka gets JD(S) support to pass contentious land reforms

The real tragedy for Karnataka would be if the JD(S) disappears from the state’s political scene leaving only the BJP and the Congress to fight each other. Leveraging JD(S)’s support base in south Karnataka, in the Vokkaliga community belt, the BJP stands to make strong gains, similar to how the BJP was helped by Ramakrishna Hegde’s base in north Karnataka among the Lingayat community.

The Janata Dal in Karnataka has always been a balancing factor between the Congress and the BJP,  and an alternative to the two bigger national parties. This benefitted Karnataka which has been insulated from the sharp religious polarisation and social divide seen in states where only two parties dominate the political scene, like in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh among others.

Another uniqueness of the Janata Dal was it filled the space for regional aspiration. Though technically a national party, in reality it has always been a regional party. All decisions pertaining to Karnataka were typically taken in Bengaluru, not in Delhi. Since the JD’s politics was based largely on secularism and social justice, it helped prevent major communal conflagrations despite challenges like the Idgah Maidan dispute or the Bababudangiri controversy.

Though these two issues were used by the Sangh Parivar to try jockey into power,  the influence of the Janata Dal helped defuse these issues before they got out of hand.

At this current time, when the nation is witnessing growing centralisation of power by the BJP’s Narendra Modi government, a party like the Janata Dal in Karnataka would have attempted to stall this trend, similar to the DMK in Tamil Nadu or other regional formations in the south. The absence of the JD in Karnataka is therefore bound to have serious consequences for the state.

Not that the JD(S) is already dead, but it would take an extraordinarily optimistic perception to see the party resurrect itself or even continue the way it is now. Let’s face it. The JD(S), despite such a long and notable stint in Karnataka with an entrenched support base, is today a prisoner to one family’s narrow vision, similar to the Congress in Delhi.

Like its breakaway faction, the JD(U), which could not survive in Karnataka due to the lack of a younger set of real leaders, the JD(S) too is handicapped by the absence of a credible second line unrelated to the Gowda family. Today, there is no one in the party to question the bewildering moves of Kumaraswamy. Though the patriarch of the JD(S),  Deve Gowda,  has in the past expressed unhappiness at his son’s alliance with the BJP, he has never ever actively intervened to change the party’s course.

It may be a trifle premature to write the epitaph of the JD(S), but the situation undoubtedly resembles the title of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold.