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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.

Kolkata’s Unified Call for Justice

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Kolkata’s Unified Call for Justice

Never has Kolkata’s conscience been so loud and clear, paying urgent attention to its inner voice. Never before have the sedate Bengali Bhadroloks from all walks of life realised the exigency of stirring out of their comfort zone and saying, “Enough is enough.” Elites, busy professionals, marginalised people, outliers, vulnerable individuals, transgenders, sex workers, and the physically challenged have all come out in unprecedented numbers, sloganeering and lending their voices to the cause. The muffled cry of a rape and murder victim, seeking help through the soundproof walls of a seminar room where she rested after 36 hours of backbreaking duty.

The cry that got silenced forever on August 9th at midnight has returned to reverberate through millions of voices, screaming and demanding justice for her. The onus of having failed a young life and of remaining apathetic and quiet to the rot in the system for so long lies with the city and citizenry as well. Tilottama (beautiful lady), as Kolkata is often called, feels the day of reckoning has arrived. The danger is right at the doorstep, and if left unattended, it would devour everything.

An unprecedented call of conscience is sweeping through Bengal, courtesy of the crime and a deliberate attempt at cover-up. As time passes and suspected perpetrators remain at large, patience is wearing thin, ready to explode at any moment. Citizens have taken to the streets in force, challenging an administration that views the crime as an isolated case. Mamata Banerjee and the party’s second-in-command, Abhisekh Banerjee, are reeling out statistics from NCRB to depict the city’s safety compared to other metros. They are also alluding to other states where rapists come in distinct political stripes and get protection instead of punishment. Yet the collective consciousness, which has seen a mass awakening, is not ready to be trapped in the jugglery of justifications. Dry data is irrelevant to a society where 18.08% of the workforce are women who face daily fear and panic just going to work. After all, the rape and murder occurred at the victim’s alma mater, which she considered her second home.

Every other day, the city and its suburbs witness processions, protest marches, and candlelight vigils. Interesting slogans like “Amar ghar, tomar ghar/ R. G. Kar, R. G. Kar (My home, your home/ R, G. Kar), and Shok noi Droho (Revolution, not Grief), have flooded social media. Artists like Arijit Singh and Aysuhman Kharana have added their voices, creating songs and poems that reflect the collective outrage.

Even school-going teenagers are waking up to the need to raise their voices. A Howrah headteacher recounted how she was in two minds as to what should be her response to the heinous incident. She was dithering to involve the students in a protest due to government strictures and show cause notices, but thankfully they came forward to help the victim get justice. She expressed pride in their commitment to fighting for justice, regardless of age.

Apart from medical students and junior doctors of R.G. Kar, who had been on a sit-in demonstration since the incident, the first call of protest from society, “Reclaim the Night,” came from a 29-year-old independent researcher, Rimjhim Sinha. The call captivated thousands and challenged both the patriarchal mindset and the college principal’s victim-shaming of the young lady for being in the seminar room late at night. The slogan had an electrifying effect on women across socio-economic demography, prompting them to flood the streets and reclaim the night. At midnight on Independence Day, the women in Bengal were asserting their rights to have a safe and secure environment.

The city witnessed similar rallies over the Nandigram police firing in 2007 and rape cases in 2012, 2013, and 2022. Political analysts and social scientists see a marked change in how people have reacted this time. They say that conscience-keepers from all walks of life are leaving behind their political preferences or identities. Apart from the Left student and youth wings’ intervention to prevent a hasty cremation of the victim, the uprising has consciously barred political banners, festoons, and party slogans. The aim was to keep the movement from becoming a political slugfest. Political banners that appeared occasionally faced backlash from the crowds seeking justice.

It was a conscious decision to let people decry the incident and denounce the authorities, rather than politicians doing so. Bringing in political parties would have undermined the sole aim of delivering justice to the parents, who struggled hard to see their daughter become a doctor. Realising that politics divides rather than unites, diverges rather than converges, and disbands rather than combines, politicians chose to wait to see the movement coalesce and consolidate into a cohesive whole. Of course, they had been on the sidelines and throwing their weight behind the logistics, personnel, and even financial support. But that was that! Incidentally, on ‘Reclaim the Night’ events, a band of lumens, allegedly from the ruling party, had a free run in the hospital premises, vandalising it and wiping off vital evidence of the crime. Mamata blamed her political adversaries, the BJP and the Left. But people could see through the dubious design of divide and rule.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. Views personal)

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