top of page

By:

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.

The Unlikeliest Constant

Why India’s bond with Russia survives sanctions, summits and shifting global power.

ree

In an era defined by broken alliances and transactional diplomacy, the India-Russia relationship has proved oddly resilient. While the West seeks to isolate Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and China tests the limits of American power in Asia, India and Russia continue to conduct business with an ease that defies geopolitical fashion. Their partnership, rooted in Cold War history but adapted to a fiercely multipolar present, has become one of the quiet constants of global politics.


India’s ties with Moscow stretch back to the aftermath of the second world war, deepening during the Soviet era and reaching their emotional peak under Indira Gandhi in 1971. Those were years when ideology and necessity aligned. The Soviet Union is long gone, and today’s India is scarcely the Congress-led, state-heavy economy of old. Yet the relationship did not fade with the red flag. It was rebooted in 2000 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Putin forged what they called a “special and privileged strategic partnership.” Narendra Modi has since made it more pragmatic, more commercial and no less durable.


Common Interests

The glue holding the relationship together is not nostalgia but interest. Russia offers what India needs at scale: defence hardware, energy, fertilisers and strategic depth. India, for its part, offers Russia a massive market, diplomatic breathing room and the legitimacy of engagement at a time when Europe and America keep their distance.


The war in Ukraine has only sharpened that logic. As western buyers recoiled from Russian crude, India stepped in with enthusiasm, becoming one of Moscow’s largest oil customers. Discounts eased India’s inflationary pressures while keeping Russia’s export revenues flowing. Washington protested. Delhi ignored it. Strategic autonomy, long a slogan of Indian diplomacy, suddenly acquired a very visible balance-sheet.


Behind the oil tankers lies a deeper strategic symmetry. Russia has pivoted from west to east, not out of philosophical conviction but because isolation has given it little choice. It now sees Asia, above all China and India, as its economic rear-guard. India, meanwhile, sees Russia as both hedge and partner: a hedge against American overreach, and a partner in weapons systems that Western suppliers are often reluctant to share on easy terms.


Defence Ties

Defence remains the hard core of the relationship. From fighter aircraft to missile systems and submarines, Russian technology still underpins large sections of India’s military machine. Even as India diversifies suppliers to include France, Israel and America, Russia remains the single most embedded defence partner. This explains why sanctions have dented, but not broken, military cooperation.


Economics, too, is being retooled. Bilateral trade has surged since 2022, heavily tilted in Russia’s favour because of energy imports. Both sides speak of pushing it towards $100 billion in the coming years. That will require India to sell far more than pharmaceuticals, tea and engineering goods. It will require Indian firms to understand Russian consumers, logistics snarls and payment systems insulated from the dollar.


There is also a demographic logic emerging. Russia, ageing and labour-starved, needs skilled workers. India, youthful and credential-rich, is keen to export labour. Agreements to place tens of thousands of Indian workers in Russian industry point to a new phase of engagement.


Modi has also sought to clothe realpolitik in culture. Visa relaxations, tourism drives and talk of reviving old cinematic and artistic exchanges evoke the 1970s, when Raj Kapoor was as beloved in Moscow as in Mumbai.


Yet this relationship is not without its cracks. Russia’s growing closeness to China unsettles Indian strategists who remain locked in an unresolved standoff along their Himalayan frontier. Moscow insists it can manage both friendships even as New Delhi quietly doubts it. Meanwhile, India’s parallel courtship of the West through the Quad, defence deals with America and trade talks with Europe, creates an inevitable tension with its Russian alignment. India insists it can walk multiple paths at once. So far, it has managed to do so with surprising agility.


The India–Russia partnership is neither sentimental nor revolutionary. It is conservative in the oldest sense: it preserves arrangements that continue to deliver power, profit and protection. In a world tilting towards blocs and binaries, India is betting that strategic ambiguity is still viable.

 

(The writer is a researcher and expert in foreign affairs. Views personal.)


Comments

bottom of page