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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Fractured Crown

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s post after...

Fractured Crown

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s post after two-and-a-half years has hardened into a public confrontation between a chief minister determined to finish five years and a deputy increasingly unwilling to wait. The recent breakfast meeting between the two men at Siddaramaiah’s residence was presented as a truce where the ‘high command’ was invoked as the final arbiter. “There are no differences between us,” Siddaramaiah insisted, twice for emphasis. Few were convinced and soon, Shivakumar was again hinting darkly at change. For weeks, Shivakumar’s loyalists have been holding meetings, mobilising legislators and making pilgrimages to Delhi to get the Congress high command to honour its promise. They insist that the Congress leadership agreed to a rotational chief ministership in 2023 and that November 2025 was always meant to mark Shivakumar’s ascent. The high command, for its part, has perfected the art of strategic vagueness by neither confirming nor denying the pact. This suggests that the Congress does not merely hesitate to act against Siddaramaiah, but increasingly lacks the capacity to do so. From the outset of his second innings, Siddaramaiah has given no signal of easing aside. As he approaches January 2026, poised to overtake D. Devaraj Urs as Karnataka’s longest-serving chief minister, the symbolism is unmistakable. The mantle of social justice politics that Urs once embodied now firmly sits on Siddaramaiah’s shoulders. And it is this social coalition that shields him. His fortress is AHINDA - minorities, backward classes and Dalits. Leaked figures from the unreleased caste census suggest that these groups together approach or exceed two-thirds of the state’s population. Lingayats and Vokkaligas, once electorally dominant, are rendered numerical minorities in this arithmetic. Siddaramaiah governs not merely as a Congress leader, but as the putative custodian of Karnataka’s demographic majority. That claim is reinforced through policy. Minority scholarships have been revived, contractor quotas restored, residential schools expanded. More than Rs. 42,000 crore has been earmarked for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Kurubas, his own community, have been pitched for Scheduled Tribe status, with careful assurances that their elevation will not disadvantage others. DK Shivakumar brings organisational muscle, financial clout and control over the Vokkaliga heartland. In electoral campaigns, these are formidable assets. But in a confrontation with a leader who embodies a 60–70 percent social coalition, they are blunt instruments. The Congress high command understands this equation, even if it publicly pretends otherwise. It also remembers, uneasily, what Siddaramaiah did the last time his authority was constrained. In 2020, when the Congress–JD(S) coalition collapsed after 16 MLAs defected to Mumbai,13 of them hailed from Siddaramaiah’s camp. At the time, he held the post of coordination committee chairman. Instead, he emerged as the principal beneficiary of collapse, returning as Leader of the Opposition with a tighter grip on the party. If the Congress high command could not punish him then, it is doubtful it can coerce him now. Shivakumar’s predicament is thus more tragic than tactical. He is not battling a rival alone, but an entire political structure built to outlast him. The promised coronation looks increasingly like a mirage drifting just ahead of a man condemned to keep walking. For the Congress, the cost of this paralysis is already visible. A government elected on guarantees and governance is consumed by succession. The party’s authority is dissolving while its factions harden. The Congress returned to power in Karnataka after years in the wilderness, only to re-enact the same leadership dysfunction that has crippled it elsewhere. Regardless of whether Siddaramaiah survives this storm, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Congress cannot survive the slow corrosion of its command in one of the few states it holds today.

Countering the Naxal Threat

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Countering the Naxal Threat

The banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), CPI(M), has urged its cadre and masses to observe its 20th foundation day from September 21 to October 20, 2024, according to a recently published booklet. Although the Naxal movement, founded by Charu Majumdar and Kanhai Chatterji in 1968, has existed for decades, its activities have splintered into various factions. 

On 21 September 2004, these splinter groups united to form the Communist Party of India (Maoists) inspired by the principles of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. It firmly believes in capturing power through armed revolution to eliminate capitalism advocated by the United States, feudalism, and its remaining remnants. It proposes starting this revolution in rural areas and encircling urban areas. According to CPI (Maoists), the urban areas would provide sympathisers and further the mass movement. It boasts that during the last twenty years, it launched several successful ambushes against paramilitary and police forces, killing 3090 commandos or policemen, injuring 4077, and capturing 2366 sophisticated modern weapons as well as 1,19,682 ammunition rounds. Significantly, the appeal is completely silent on the gruesome murders they committed of innocent persons who they claim to be police informers.

Their former colleagues who had surrendered out of frustration have also been brutally eliminated. The party is of the firm opinion that without armed revolution, there would be no social justice, real freedom, establishment of people’s rule, and freedom for self-determination with the resolve to break from India. According to the booklet, the three miraculous weapons to achieve these targets are the Party, the Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA), which operates in Dandakaranya, and various urban organisations that act as a front to mobilise its sympathisers and resources.

In 2007, the party formulated the “Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution” with the goal of killing soldiers, police, and government officers to create liberated zones free from government control.

It emphasised the importance of urban naxalism for recruiting, supplying essentials like medicine and money, and acquiring new technologies. It promotes protests against labour exploitation, globalisation, and Hindu supremacy. Urban Naxal groups are encouraged to infiltrate the army, police, and bureaucracy to provide strategic information and ensure the supply of arms, media control, and care for the injured. Currently, about 227 organisations, classified as A4, operate under innocent-sounding names. Sympathisers from these groups are selected for indoctrination and elevated to A3, committed to armed revolution.

The Naxal movement began in Naxalbari, West Bengal, and by 2013, had spread to over 110 districts. However, after the BJP formed the central government in 2014, various developmental measures were introduced, including a ‘one-window assistance’ scheme to ensure access to necessary certificates for jobs and businesses. Over 10,000 youth from Gadchiroli have benefitted from this. State governments have also introduced surrender and rehabilitation policies for former Naxal cadres, including child soldiers, weakening the movement. Additionally, mining activities now provide employment to local tribes, and many affected areas have been designated as aspirational districts, improving infrastructure, healthcare, and education. 

The Indian government has implemented measures to improve intelligence sharing, coordination, and training among affected state police forces while providing additional paramilitary support and funding for infrastructure. As a result, the number of affected districts has dropped from 110 to 34. Currently, CPI (Maoists) remain active in Chhattisgarh’s Abujmal Pahad area, where difficult terrain and isolation leave locals vulnerable to Naxal control. To combat this, law enforcement should adopt loitering drone technology to minimise security personnel losses and assist locals in neutralising insurgents. 

Apart from such administrative measures, it is imperative to realise to all democratic and freedom-cherishing political parties, including those who are in opposition, as well as social influencers such as media, academicians, and professionals, that there would be no change of heart in the CPI (Maoists) cadre, who are determined to break India through an armed revolution and capture political power to usher in their dictatorship. The Public Safety Bill 2024 introduced in the Maharashtra legislature to ensure this democratic freedom also needs to be enacted unanimously.

(The writer is a former DGP of Maharashtra. Views personal.)

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