BSY’s Lingayat theory a myth: James Manor
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YES|theory|The National|Lok Sabha|Janata Dal
The party’s success in the Lingayat belt is surprising.
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James Manor, 68, professor at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, has been studying Karnataka politics and elections for over 40 years. Excerpts from an interview with TOI:
Is this election a vote against the BJP government?
Even when we consider the damage to BJP that BS Yeddyurappa has worked hard to achieve, the verdict is a strong rejection of the saffron party. For example, the party was nearly wiped out in the coast, an old bastion. This is an astonishing result in an area which saw Hindutva vigilantes committing abuses.
Did Congress' dent into the Lingayat stronghold and in north Karnataka come as a surprise?
The party's success in the Lingayat belt is surprising. But it reminds us that Yeddyurappa's claim about strong Lingayat support there can win elections is a myth. Other groups, to whom Congress mainly appealed, outnumber Lingayats and make up their own minds. BJP national leaders unwisely swallowed that myth..
Old Mysore region continues to be a JD(S) bastion...
JD(S) continues to have solid Vokkaliga support in the region, and the party shrewdly appealed to other groups as well — not least, the Muslims. JD(S) played a weak hand quite well — quelling dissidence and campaigning systematically. HD Deve Gowda has always been very thorough.
Does this mark the end of parties relying on rainbow coalitions?
Congress will seek to revive the tradition of rainbow coalitions. It may succeed, although it'll need to bring Lingayats and Vokkaligas into the cabinet. The party may have some success with this revival because antagonisms between social groups aren't as acute in Karnataka as in many other states.
Can we say coastal Karnataka has voted against moral policing and Hindutva values?
Yes. The punishment given to BJP in the coast is severe.
Will Siddaramaiah be the natural choice for CM even if his party has lost heavily in the district he represents? Or will it be Kharge?
The CM's choice will depend partly on the showing of leaders in their districts, but remember that Siddaramaiah enjoys appeal among OBCs beyond his district. If result analyses show an OBC consolidation behind Congress, he may be well-placed to be CM. The high command may, however, think they need a dalit CM, to send a signal to the community before the national election. Kharge is admired by cabinet colleagues in New Delhi, so he may be the choice. Parameshwara is also a possibility.
None from the Scheduled Caste (SC) has assumed the CM's post...
I am not sure. If they make a dalit — presumably Kharge — the CM, they will send a message to dalits in other states before the Lok Sabha election. But that will irritate the Kurubas and other OBCs here, since Siddaramaiah has been a good opposition leader. When he spoke in the Assembly on financial matters, BJP ministers used to take notes!
For one year now, Karnataka government will be in sync with the party at the Centre.
Yes, that's very unusual. But one year (or less if they go for an early poll) is a short time. After the national election, it's unlikely that Congress will lead a ruling coalition at the Centre.
What's the future of JD(S)? What is the party's prospects?
JD(S) has an opportunity to become the main opposition force in Karnataka if BJP crumbles. It needs to find support beyond the Vokkaliga belt in southern Karnataka — the kind of support, which the old Janata Dal had when Hegde and Bommai were active. That will be difficult, but HD Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy are shrewd and they will recognize this.
What next for BJP in the south? How should its think-tank strategize?
We must look at the percentage of votes that the party gets when the final figures are out. BJP may have a respectable vote base, despite the wretched government of the last five years. Hindutva has little appeal in Karnataka, but if they find a leader who is less arrogant, inflexible and inept that Yeddyurappa has been for 25 years, they may remain important . But it is hard to see who that leader might be.
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In 1905, Lord Curzon ordered the partition of the province of Bengal, which was seen as a perfect example of the the Brits' divide and rule policy. The division caused widespread agitations across India
![Page [34] of Social Scientist, Vol. 6, No. 5, Dec., 1977](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sng_tHSlbbClmmlvqhQI-a9UKq2sSgVwDF6gDHTIRZF0m4nNEuH3JNqlWfDICNOUaLNzgzRQGEpQVGDjHwQptuRIpTAtVdXiTUa2XKgY9MbNOh1TQ5KVWdgQzailrw9nSIlTuFvDMh3h0rokF7MygaLn0GBv6MVcpM3uji9UuWc8GQgUjcO2V72V6UxLV3Jss42tAsf2msynEP2l153h_KjH3cn5ipMzkmX_-7Vf_ai-3MGztjHt0VLxjOm9MFuXdSqeZTjmda2YtKn5fl8Rr80ZDI6KAPhZIfiKKE4_sobo8ulCo4FWH6CfIkrUdRQ_odwRZUnEHn4xKFilvKedxuHflmHaHxOw=s0-d)
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Is this election a vote against the BJP government?
Even when we consider the damage to BJP that BS Yeddyurappa has worked hard to achieve, the verdict is a strong rejection of the saffron party. For example, the party was nearly wiped out in the coast, an old bastion. This is an astonishing result in an area which saw Hindutva vigilantes committing abuses.
Did Congress' dent into the Lingayat stronghold and in north Karnataka come as a surprise?
The party's success in the Lingayat belt is surprising. But it reminds us that Yeddyurappa's claim about strong Lingayat support there can win elections is a myth. Other groups, to whom Congress mainly appealed, outnumber Lingayats and make up their own minds. BJP national leaders unwisely swallowed that myth..
Old Mysore region continues to be a JD(S) bastion...
JD(S) continues to have solid Vokkaliga support in the region, and the party shrewdly appealed to other groups as well — not least, the Muslims. JD(S) played a weak hand quite well — quelling dissidence and campaigning systematically. HD Deve Gowda has always been very thorough.
Does this mark the end of parties relying on rainbow coalitions?
Congress will seek to revive the tradition of rainbow coalitions. It may succeed, although it'll need to bring Lingayats and Vokkaligas into the cabinet. The party may have some success with this revival because antagonisms between social groups aren't as acute in Karnataka as in many other states.
Can we say coastal Karnataka has voted against moral policing and Hindutva values?
Yes. The punishment given to BJP in the coast is severe.
Will Siddaramaiah be the natural choice for CM even if his party has lost heavily in the district he represents? Or will it be Kharge?
The CM's choice will depend partly on the showing of leaders in their districts, but remember that Siddaramaiah enjoys appeal among OBCs beyond his district. If result analyses show an OBC consolidation behind Congress, he may be well-placed to be CM. The high command may, however, think they need a dalit CM, to send a signal to the community before the national election. Kharge is admired by cabinet colleagues in New Delhi, so he may be the choice. Parameshwara is also a possibility.
None from the Scheduled Caste (SC) has assumed the CM's post...
I am not sure. If they make a dalit — presumably Kharge — the CM, they will send a message to dalits in other states before the Lok Sabha election. But that will irritate the Kurubas and other OBCs here, since Siddaramaiah has been a good opposition leader. When he spoke in the Assembly on financial matters, BJP ministers used to take notes!
For one year now, Karnataka government will be in sync with the party at the Centre.
Yes, that's very unusual. But one year (or less if they go for an early poll) is a short time. After the national election, it's unlikely that Congress will lead a ruling coalition at the Centre.
What's the future of JD(S)? What is the party's prospects?
JD(S) has an opportunity to become the main opposition force in Karnataka if BJP crumbles. It needs to find support beyond the Vokkaliga belt in southern Karnataka — the kind of support, which the old Janata Dal had when Hegde and Bommai were active. That will be difficult, but HD Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy are shrewd and they will recognize this.
What next for BJP in the south? How should its think-tank strategize?
We must look at the percentage of votes that the party gets when the final figures are out. BJP may have a respectable vote base, despite the wretched government of the last five years. Hindutva has little appeal in Karnataka, but if they find a leader who is less arrogant, inflexible and inept that Yeddyurappa has been for 25 years, they may remain important . But it is hard to see who that leader might be.
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Indo-Pak project grapples with versions of history
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World Bank|Indian National Congress
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MUMBAI:
Most schoolchildren in India associate the 1905 partition of Bengal
with Hindus and Muslims uniting to oppose the division of the state
along religious lines. They learn that Bengalis from both religions
composed songs, marched barefoot to the Ganga and tied rakhis on each
other in protest.
In Pakistan, however, the partition of Bengal sparks
off a different set of associations—those of furious Hindus agitating
only because they couldn't bear to see Muslims become a majority in East
Bengal.
These divergent accounts of history have been put together in a book, 'The History Project', conceived in 2005 and compiled by youths aged 16 to 27 from both India and Pakistan. A core team of three Pakistanis, who were instrumental in creating the book, launched it last week at four Mumbai schools, two of them being J B Petit High School, Fort, and Gokuldham High School, Goregaon.
A note at the beginning explains that most of the book's 30-odd contributors are graduates of Seeds of Peace, an international organization that brings together teenagers from conflict zones to a campsite in Maine, USA, for a few weeks every year. It was while debating history at this summer camp that most of the youngsters discovered the differences in their school textbooks. "We decided to make 'The History Project'... so that the reality that there are differences becomes literally inescapable," said Qasim Aslam (27), a Pakistani entrepreneur and part of the book's core team.
The project deals with the years from 1857 to 1947 and includes 16 historical events—such as the formation of the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League, the Khilafat Movement, Direct Action Day and the Mountbatten Plan.
"The War of Independence (in 1857) seemed like a good starting point because that is where the first divide happens," said Pakistani Ayyaz Ahmad, another core team member who is also a consultant with the World Bank in Pakistan. Since the Civil Disobedience Movement is omitted from Pakistani textbooks, that page in the Pakistani section of the book is left blank. The editors have also focused on questions that recur in Std X and XII exams, because "if you trace a line across those events all of a sudden you can identify a narrative", said Aslam.
To steer clear of controversy, the book's editors chose to reproduce information from textbooks but not introduce an alternative narrative. "We stayed well away from coming up with anything that says we are experts and know what history is," said Aslam.
This non-committal approach extends to the artwork, which uses a faceless character to avoid cliched depictions of Indians and Pakistanis. "I wanted to illustrate the illustration of history (on both sides) without imposing my view on it," said artist Zoya Siddiqui.
'The History Project' has only seven Indians among the 30-odd contributors. All five editors are Pakistani and more Pakistani than Indian texts were used. When asked about this, a core-team member said there was a shortage of volunteers from India and those who visited Pakistan took only three books. Besides Seeds of Peace, the book has also been funded by the British Council and Global Changemakers, an international youth network.
These divergent accounts of history have been put together in a book, 'The History Project', conceived in 2005 and compiled by youths aged 16 to 27 from both India and Pakistan. A core team of three Pakistanis, who were instrumental in creating the book, launched it last week at four Mumbai schools, two of them being J B Petit High School, Fort, and Gokuldham High School, Goregaon.
A note at the beginning explains that most of the book's 30-odd contributors are graduates of Seeds of Peace, an international organization that brings together teenagers from conflict zones to a campsite in Maine, USA, for a few weeks every year. It was while debating history at this summer camp that most of the youngsters discovered the differences in their school textbooks. "We decided to make 'The History Project'... so that the reality that there are differences becomes literally inescapable," said Qasim Aslam (27), a Pakistani entrepreneur and part of the book's core team.
The project deals with the years from 1857 to 1947 and includes 16 historical events—such as the formation of the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League, the Khilafat Movement, Direct Action Day and the Mountbatten Plan.
"The War of Independence (in 1857) seemed like a good starting point because that is where the first divide happens," said Pakistani Ayyaz Ahmad, another core team member who is also a consultant with the World Bank in Pakistan. Since the Civil Disobedience Movement is omitted from Pakistani textbooks, that page in the Pakistani section of the book is left blank. The editors have also focused on questions that recur in Std X and XII exams, because "if you trace a line across those events all of a sudden you can identify a narrative", said Aslam.
To steer clear of controversy, the book's editors chose to reproduce information from textbooks but not introduce an alternative narrative. "We stayed well away from coming up with anything that says we are experts and know what history is," said Aslam.
This non-committal approach extends to the artwork, which uses a faceless character to avoid cliched depictions of Indians and Pakistanis. "I wanted to illustrate the illustration of history (on both sides) without imposing my view on it," said artist Zoya Siddiqui.
'The History Project' has only seven Indians among the 30-odd contributors. All five editors are Pakistani and more Pakistani than Indian texts were used. When asked about this, a core-team member said there was a shortage of volunteers from India and those who visited Pakistan took only three books. Besides Seeds of Peace, the book has also been funded by the British Council and Global Changemakers, an international youth network.
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comment white washing the divide and rule policy?
In 1905, Lord Curzon ordered the partition of the province of Bengal, which was seen as a perfect example of the the Brits' divide and rule policy. The division caused widespread agitations across India
Partition of Bengal (1905) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Bengal_(1905)
The decision to effect the Partition of Bengal was announced in July 1905 by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon. The partition took effect in October 1905 and ...
I. British India:
‘Divide and Rule’ was the standard policy
employed by the British in their dealings with India and the Indians
from the very beginning, when the East India Company (EIC) first made
its presence felt in the subcontinent.
From its earliest victory at the Battle
of Pelasi (Plassey) in 1757, the EIC was already actively engaged in
turning the Indian rulers against each other. At Pelasi, the small force
of Robert Clive only managed to defeat the larger force of
Siraj-ud-Dawla, the Nawab of Bengal, because he had managed to conspire
with the Nawab’s uncle Mir Jafar and persuaded the latter to betray his
nephew. After gaining control of Bengal and other parts of India, the
EIC began to introduce reforms in law and taxation law which allowed it
to earn more profit which also creating dependent class groupings within
Indian society.
In 1793 the Zemindari system was
introduced by the British in the region of Bengal. The law transferred
the ownership of the land from the village communities to the Zemindars,
the class of tax-collectors, who were responsible to the EIC directly.
These Zemindars became a new class grouping within themselves and this
division led to further alienation and antagonism in Indian rural
societies. The Zemindars in turn became a new breed of land-owners under
EIC protection and served the role of tax-farmers who provided the EIC
with guaranteed revenue through their own unscrupulous and often brutal
means of tax-extortion.
Then in 1818 the EIC introduced the
Ryotwari system in the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras. This made the
Indian peasants (the ryots) tenants on land that was previously theirs
anyway. The ryot were forced to pay tent-taxes to the EIC and if they
failed to do so they were forced off their property. The Ryotwari system
created a class of itinerant peasants and a new class of rural homeless
poor. They were often victimised by EIC forces and officials, as well
as local Indian money-lenders and profiteers who eventually took over
all their lands.
The strategy of divide and rule was
further entrenched and institutionalised in the wake of the First Indian
War of Independence in 1857. Even during the conflict itself the
British were engaged in pursuing the policy in their dealings with the
Indians. The British authorities won the support of the Indian feudal
rulers, Princes and Talukdars by promising that their lands would be
returned to them if they supported the British effort. This isolated the
mass peasant base that supported the war of independence, and allowed
the British to defeat them in stages. After the defeat of the Indian
forces, the British effectively decapitated the political leadership of
the country. The last moghul ruler of India, Emperor Bahadar Shah Zafar,
was deposed by the British in 1856, but he was proclaimed emperor once
again in 1857 by the Indians. After the defeat of the Indians in 1858,
Bahadur Shah was once again deposed by the British, this time for good.
He was sent into exile in Rangoon after his entire family was executed
and their heads were presented to the emperor by the British soldiers,
served on silver platters.
The British colonial government then took
over the rule of India from the East India Company, and it began to
introduce a number of policies which were designed to further entrench
the pre-existing social divisions within the country: It worked to keep
Muslims and Hindus apart in the colony, and it introduced a system of
deliberate racial discrimination which favoured Muslims over Hindus in
some areas and the opposite in others. This was part of a deliberate and
orchestrated plan to maintain British rule in the colony. Government
officials realised that the pre-existing racial and religious
differences between Hindus and Muslims could be turned to their
advantage if the two groups were made to oppose each other, instead of
working together to oppose British rule. As Sir John Strachey put it:
‘The truth plainly is that the existence side by side of these hostile
creeds is one of the strong points of our political position in India’
(1888). This climate of hostility was itself artificially created and
intensified by the divisive policies outlined above. As Lieutenant
Colonel Coke has explained it: ‘our endeavour should be to uphold in
full force the separation which exists between different religions and
races, not mix them. Divide et Impera should be our principle aim’
(1860).
The British government also sought to
employ the different racial groups in different sectors of the colonial
economy and administration, thus emphasising ethnic and cultural
divisions even more. In particular those ethnic groups that were
regarded as being ‘martial races’ (i.e. Rajputs, Sikhs,) were used to
man the military and security apparatus of the colonial state both in
India as well as in the other neighbouring colonies.
Minor principalities and small Indian
kingdoms were also given limited autonomy and governed indirectly. By
allowing some petty Indian rulers to enjoy some of the trappings of
power, the British government hoped to ensure that a minor Indian elite
and aristocracy could be maintained that was well-disposed towards their
colonial rulers. As in the case of the Malay sultanates, the Indian
courts were appointed British residents and advisors, who in fact
assumed de facto powers to rule while the native rulers were reduced to
puppets of the colonial regime.
These policies were perpetuated and
intensified well into the twentieth century. It culminated with the
fragmentation of the Indian nationalist movement along class, ethnic,
ideological and religious lines and the emergence of the Muslim League
of India in 1906. By this time, Indian Muslims were certain that their
presence would no longer be welcomed in an independent
predominantly-Hindu India. The British, however, did not relent in their
aim to keep the two communities at odds with each other, for it feared
the prospect of an emerging Indian nationalism that might lead to the
overthrow of British rule in India. The net result of nearly a century
of racial division and social engineering was the eventual partition of
India in 1946-47, and the racial and religious conflict that preceded
and followed in the wake of India-Pakistan’s independence.
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SEEMS BRITISH ARE STILL uncommonly, unduly, unusually, utterly INTERESTED IN DAY TO DAY POLITICS AND LIFE OF THEIR FORMER COLONY CALLED INDIA;AND EACH STATE IN INDIA !!
The White Man's Burden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden“The White Man's Burden” is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle ...
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