Basavaraj Bommai
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Career in the BJP
2008- 21 (and continuing)
Radhika Ramaseshan, Oct 27, 2021: The Times of India
The Karnataka CM, who joined the party in 2008 from Janata Dal, is one of BJP’s most successful lateral entrants. Like fish to water, he adopted Sangh’s core philosophy
Basavaraj Bommai joined the BJP in a trice when his predecessor BS Yeddyurappa approached him in 2008. Like a career politician, Bommai was unhampered by the secular-communal polemics that other migratory politicians pretend to agonise over before biting the bait and going over to the BJP. Bommai shared a trait with his socialist seniors and peers who had issues with the Congress, but blithely co-existed with the BJP and its precursor, the Jana Sangh, until the guilt pangs hurt like they did for Madhu Limaye who forced the Jana Sangh’s ejection from the Janata Party.
Bommai’s father, SR Bommai, was a socialist, and like his son, a Karnataka chief minister, who is remembered for the battle he fought in the Supreme Court against the arbitrary imposition of President’s rule in states with governments hostile to the Centre. As an HRD minister in the Deve Gowda-led United Front government in Delhi in 1997, Bommai senior had piloted the introduction of education as a fundamental constitutional right and paved the ground for the Right to Education Act, 2010.
When Yeddyurappa offered a place in the BJP to Bommai, he accepted, waving aside the secular-communal predicament as something born out of “selfish interests” and not a debate which impinged on a nation’s fundamental character. With such a headset, is it surprising that Bommai has presided over the most harrowing episodes of communal violence in Karnataka?
The state is a bit of an anomaly in the South in that it was always susceptible and receptive to the R S S’ agenda and projects, particularly in the coastal belt bordering Kerala. Unlike Kerala, where the Sangh so far failed to transfer its divisive ideology and sustained ground work into votes for the BJP, Karnataka readily embraced the party for over a decade with highs and lows. Communal violence marked the BJP’s earlier spells from 2008 to 2013, although Yeddyurappa cracked down on the Sangh’s hard-core activists when the going got tough. Bommai has no such intention. He might not h ave sounded dog whistles for the Sangh’s cadre, like Yogi Adityanath, but his security apparatuses have been indifferent to the brutal acts against minorities. Bommai and Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Assam chief minister, are the BJP’s first successful lateral entrants. Bommai came in from the Janata Dal and Sarma from the Congress, in 2015, but they are more sharply focused on implementing the BJP’s core programmes with their own amplification than the chief ministers from the original ideological school. It paid off Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to invest in the lateral entries unlike in the past when many of the non-R S S inductees had lifestyle issues with the BJP and fell by the wayside.
Bommai gleaned valuable lessons from Sarma’s playbook on how to negotiate and make a place for himself in the multitudinous Sangh fraternity, populated by outfits and self-styled leaders, each a law unto himself. The cherry on the icing was an endorsement from Shah who declared that Bommai will lead the BJP in the next Assembly election, putting paid to the ambitions of the Karnataka veterans who still nurse hopes. In Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal, the BJP’s first chief minister, also came in sideways through the AGP but was shortly eclipsed by the energetic and aggressive Sarma.
Bommai breached the barrier an “outsider” like him might have mentally carried when he justified the moral policing of interfaith relationships by vigilantes, using the BJP’s characteristic riff on Newton’s third law. “When sentiments are hurt, there will normally be action and reaction,” he stated, unmindful of the strictures from Karnataka’s civil society. The statement was provoked by an incident in Moodbiri (Mengaluru) where self-styled morality upholders attacked Hindu women, travelling in a car owned by a Muslim. In Belgavi, a young Muslim was murdered and his body thrown on rail tracks because he was in a relationship with a Hindu girl. The girl’s parents, in conjunction with the Sri Rama Sene Hindustan, hired a contract killer to eliminate Arbaz Aftaf Mullah.
But the born again Bommai refused to swerve from the Sangh’s fundamentals. He continued playing to the gallery. When a BJP MLA alleged in the Assembly that his mother was converted to Christianity by “force” or “blandishment”, Bommai announced he would bring a “strong” law to curb religious proselytisation. One of Bommai’s first moves on becoming the CM was convening a meeting with industry leaders to discuss Bengaluru’s industrial development and infrastructure. Yeddyurappa was plagued by the perception that he was not congenial towards industry because farming was his preference. Bommai was expected to bridge the government-industry deficit and restore the state capital’s credentials on investments. How will he square up the acts of social regression and minorities’ alienation with Karnataka’s endeavour to look and sound modern? He doesn’t have to.
This is the least of the BJP’s dilemmas. The ostensible quandary was settled in Gujarat in 2002. A few corporate leaders spoke up against the communal killings that year, but their dissent was quickly neutralised as investments poured in and the “Vibrant Gujarat” jamborees became the highlight of the regime. There was no incompatibility between economic interests and social conflicts in the “Gujarat model” that has since been adopted as a prototype by other BJP-ruled states. Bommai is crystal clear about his priorities. For him, survival is paramount.
Radhika Ramaseshan keeps an eagle eye on all that's hot in the corridors of power.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own)
