Through the pages of history

Communal and secular traditions in Karnataka

A paper presented by Shivasundar, senior journalist, Lankesh, on behalf of the Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike at an anti-communal workshop held in Bangalore in August 2006.

History is an important signifier of the present and hence the criticality to engage with the historical traditions of communalism and secularism.

Universality and specificity of issues frame discussions at varied levels. If there are multitudes of commonalities that we can derive in order to address issues from a broader context, there are also specificities that dictate responses appropriate to the local context. A theoretical understanding from a larger perspective feeds actions possible locally and vice versa. This is certainly true in the case of Karnataka when we consider communalism.

Communalism has not existed from ancient times. It is a modern phenomenon, a creation of the existing democracy and reflects the compulsions of a modern democracy to gain consent through people. Given the rapid pace of globalisation, it becomes imperative for the state to devise and depend on political strategies such as communalism in order to sustain democracy as it currently exists. The most fundamental essence of communalism is its anti-people stance. It creates and sustains hatred between two communities; hegemonic power relations in society are maintained by ascribing a higher status to one religion ahead of others, one caste over others.

Democracy too has historical roots and has its base in the aspirations, values and demands that emerge from people. In Karnataka, for instance, the decisive victory of the Avedic forces in history is an important signifier and establishes the fact that a deep egalitarian theology has its roots in Karnataka.

Even a cursory tracing of the concepts of hatred and harmony between communities leads us to consider the following classifications in time periods:

1. Ancient Karnataka – leading up to the 12th century

2. Arrival of Islam in Karnataka

3. The period of the independence struggle

4. Post-1947 to the current status

In Karnataka, as in the rest of the country, theological discourses reflected the conflicts of the material life interests of different groups in society. Hence the conflicts were not based merely on different understandings of god but were instead differences that stemmed from differing aspirations of communities, finding its ultimate expression in religious differences. The Shaivaite-Vaishnaivite conflict in Hampi, the differences that resulted in the emergence of the dvaita-advaita philosophy in theology from Udupi, are indicators of the theological manifestation of these conflicts. The emergence and decisive victory of Vaishnavism in theology reflected the victory of the feudal classes over the people.

The manifestations of these debates in theology can also be seen more specifically in the Sanskritisation of the Jain stupas and Buddhist viharas across Karnataka. There are unambiguous historical evidences to suggest that the (now) Manjunatheshwara temple in Dharmasthala in Dakshina Kannada district and the matha in Sringeri, Chikmagalur district, were once Jaina stupas and Buddhist viharas. Today, however, both sites stand transformed as Brahminical sites of worship with most practices there steeped in Brahminical caste rituals.

Both the Jains and Buddhists opposed stratification of society; they were in essence raising their voices against the landowners or the ruling classes of the time. On the other hand, Brahminism sought to imbue the stratification with religious overtones. This was in essence the core of the conflict between Brahminism on the one hand and Jainism and Buddhism on the other. The Sanskritisation of the stupas and viharas then appear as victories registered by Brahminism. The continued stratification of society, the hegemonic political and cultural assertion of the upper castes and, in turn, a strengthened system of oppression, were the decisive consequences of these victories.

The resistances to these dominations were also considerable. Kannada literature of the time, for instance, reflected non-Brahminical reconstructions of the Puranas. Pampa Bharata, a Jain reconstruction of the Mahabharata written by Pampa around 942 AD was an important response in opposition to a Brahminical account of history. There were several such written records of pluralistic accounts that emerged during this period. We need to construct such efforts within the parameters of resistance to domination. It is in these efforts that we can see the roots of the communalisation process currently in place and resistance to it reflected.

Yet another significant resistance to the domination emerged in the form of Sudra rulers in certain pockets of Karnataka. Though the Sudra rulers enjoyed Brahminical patronage, much like the Warkari movement in Maharashtra, in the superstructure this represented basic changes in the material life of the historically oppressed. Kalachurya was one such ruler who belonged to the barber caste and in whose kingdom the Vachanakarara movement of the 10th century first took shape. All the Vachanakararas were from the artisan classes who had liberated themselves from the clutches of feudalism and hence aspired to fight against the oppressive feudal structures.

Basavanna was renowned for giving this resistance a platform and for defining a meter for the vachanas or free verse compositions. The vachanas spoke primarily of a democratic society – a society that was equal and did not discriminate between people on any basis. The Vachanakarara movement comprised people from different castes, there were Dalits as well as Brahmins who followed Basavanna’s teachings and hence belonged to the Lingayat community. The inherent epistemological and theological conflicts within the broader framework were in fact representations of the Brahminical and non-Brahminical conflict within the movement. These instances of discrimination within the Lingayat movement found clear voices of critique in the vachanas.

To cite an example – Akka Mahadevi, a poet and proponent of the Basavanna tradition was in essence against Brahminism and yet there were traces of Brahminism to be found in her vachanas at several instances. In her descriptions of how a Lingayat should behave she clearly states that he should not eat meat and in all circumstances abstain from eating beef. Responding to her suggestion through another vachana composition, a Dalit Lingayat asks:

"If we, the people who make the leather bags that you use to carry your sacred puja materials, eat beef, why are we considered inferior?"

To cite another example, Brahmins at the time considered themselves ‘polluted’ if the shadow of a Dalit fell on them or if they saw a Dalit at all. Commenting on the social practice of the time, a Dalit Vachanakarara wrote:

"Seeing one Brahmin first thing in the morning is worse than being born as a pig in the next 18 lakh births..."

The interface with Islam proved to be a harmonious blend of two cultures that was reflected in various facets. Though the Sufi message spread across India in the 7th or 8th century, it made its presence felt in the coastal areas of Karnataka in the 8th century. Though the contradictions between the Vijayanagar empire and the Sultanates rule, specifically the Bahamanis of Hyderabad-Karnataka, seemed to be the main preoccupation of historians’ discourse, various facets of society reflected the true nature of the blend that was taking place. Written accounts of history clearly state that the oppressed castes like the Bedas, Voddas, Bestas, Madigas, Holeyas, Bovis, Naindas and Lambanis were attracted by Islam.

The emancipatory appeal of universal brotherhood reflected in Islam meant that the oppressed castes welcomed it easily thus ensuring a non-conflicting relationship with the local cultures of the time. Further, the tenets of Islamic theology and culture too faced no cultural barriers assimilating with the non-oppressive Sudra theology. Around the same period the Advaita sect, which was non-Vedic and non-Brahminical in its foundational discourse, was gaining prominence amongst the masses. Consequentially, it ensured that the comradely relationship between Sufi and Islamic traditions and the Sudra traditions flourished.

The social integration of Islamic influences in the everyday lives of the people is visible in the language, architecture and culture of the people. Evidences of this blend of cultures are visible even from a religious perspective. To cite concrete examples, Sudras in North Karnataka address their gods as ‘aiah’ while the Sufis refer to their saints as ‘baba’. The fusion of cultures is obvious in its manifestation in peoples’ lives – Babiah is a frequently occurring name amongst the people of North Karnataka – both Muslims and Hindus, to the extent that the name is no longer a signifier of religion. It is unclear from the name itself whether the person is a Hindu or a Muslim.

In terms of language as well, Khadi Boli, or the language of the soldiers, fused with Parsi to form Urdu while Khadi Boli and Sanskrit came together to form Hindi. It is also significant that Urdu was a language of the masses and did not belong to the category of the court languages. This organic evolution again meant that the language too was not a religious differentiator. There are several Urdu scholars, Ramakrishna Hegde was one, who were not Muslims and yet extremely proficient in the language.

Within the political field as well, there were several instances of Muslim rulers whose armies were commandeered by Hindus and vice versa. The battles that took place between warlords in such instances were never based on religion but were in fact a signifier of the battle of the ruling classes to extend their spheres of influence.

There are several such examples that reflect the harmonious intermingling of Islamic culture with the local culture of the people.

Any discussion about Islam and Islamic rulers in Karnataka is incomplete without the mention of Tipu Sultan. Though another article traces his rule in significant detail, to summarise here it would suffice to say that Tipu’s rule was opposed by the British and the Brahmins since he was responsible for the implementation of several reforms that conflicted with their class interests. Tipu’s reforms included the destruction of oppressive warlords, restructuring of the administration thereby destroying traditional practices that had empowered the Brahmins and the Patels, redistribution of land and discouragement of the maths’ domination.

It is important to state that on the eve of British colonisation, the people of Karnataka had encountered both Islam and Christianity as faiths and the relationship with the Islamic theological tenets were harmonious rather than conflictory in nature. Since the same harmonious relationship prevailed with the Christian missionaries at this stage as well, no elaborate discussion is provided about the influences of Christianity.

It was during this phase that across India and more specifically in Karnataka communalism’s imprint on the nationalist discourse became more evident. There were different currents under Indian nationalism with different leaders exerting different influences. Within Karnataka, the independence struggle reflected Gandhi’s influence as well as that of Tilak. It stands to reason then that in Karnataka the path of the Indian nationalist struggle veered closely to Hindu nationalism. Kannada nationalism, which emerged in the shadows of the independence struggle, also reflected a strong Hindu bias. Comparisons drawn with Tamil and Telugu nationalist movements taking place at the same time make this evident.

Under Tilak’s influence, Kannada nationalism attempted to fight British rule through interventions in the cultural field. The glory of the Hindu past was constantly evoked to inculcate a sense of pride in Kannada culture and in the resurrection of the Hindu past the interpretation flowed very closely to the Hindu communal interpretation of history. The pride of the Vijayanagar empire and the supposed destructive Muslim conquest of Karnataka formed rich sources for the Kannada novels of the time. Novelists such as AN Krishna Rao and the father of Kannada nationalism, Alur Venkatrayya, writing about Karnatakatva, or Karnatakaism, constantly and consistently stoked the flame of nationalist pride by nudging the embers of sentiments attached to a destroyed past. The fact that the source of cultural strength to fight British colonialism at the time was located in religion paved the way for the future communal historiography of Karnataka.

A brief comparison with the Tamil self-respect movement further reveals the dominant Brahminical position within the Kannada nationalist movement. There were significant differences in the class/caste composition and in the ideological positioning of the two movements – the Tamil self-respect movement veered towards an egalitarian society, questioning the caste oppression and the domination of the Hindi speaking Indian nationalist struggle. Further, a comparison of the flags used by the two nationalist movements is incredibly revelatory of their ideological positioning. The Tamil black and red flag signified the movement of Dalits towards an equal (communist) society whereas the yellow and the red of the Kannada nationalist movement signified harshna (haldi) and kunkuma (kumkum) – symbols of Brahmin ritualistic traditions. If Tamil pride had a strong anti-Brahminical tradition through its constant ridicule of Brahmin tradition, Kannada nationalism on the other hand celebrated the Brahmin identity through its adoption of Bhuvaneshwari – a goddess who projected Brahminism in her appearance. To carry the comparison further, Tamil nationalism turned to the anti-Aryan Puranas in search of its historical roots (Ravana being the reigning deity) whereas in Karnataka it was the admission and assertion in terms of Hindu Puranas as reflected in the novels of AN Krishna Rao and N. Ramamurthy.

While this was the situation in North Karnataka, in Hyderabad-Karnataka, since the region was under the Nizam’s rule and his army comprised Rajakas who were looting the Hindu peasantry, history was rewritten as the loot and plunder of the peace loving Hindu population by a Muslim ruler. While there were some attempts to resist the Hindu Mahasabha’s efforts at the time to reinterpret history, this was not entirely possible. Taranth’s novels at the time bear ample witness to the ideological positioning put forward by the Mahasabha.

In old Mysore, under Tipu’s rule, the Sudra ascendancy was reflected in their demands for political power. Reservations were created at the time for Sudras in the Pratinidhi Sabha and in the Administration Assembly.

It is interesting to note that the Backward Castes employed by Nalamudi Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar to implement the reservation scheme included Muslims – a further suggestion of the harmonious integration. Nevertheless, Tilak and Alur Venkatrayya’s mode of Kannada nationalism had an impact on certain sections of political forces in old Mysore areas, especially Bangalore. The first communal clash in Karnataka took place in Bangalore during the Ganesh festival in 1921. This was, however, an exceptional incident at the time.

Even closer to the year of independence i.e. 1947, the social conditions in Karnataka were not as communally tense as was the case in North India. Karnataka remained untouched by the raging fires of partition. It must however be acknowledged that the material grounds prepared by Alur Venkatrayya’s followers could have potentially allowed communal mobilisation to take place on the basis of caste, language or religion. Pride in the Vijayanagar empire has, to a large extent, been instilled in the Kannada psyche.

Across the country this period was marked by three decades of political lull, due primarily to the presence of the Congress party and its encompassing hold on all emerging classes. The decline of Hindutva forces during this period was also due to a ban on the RSS following Gandhi’s assassination; the RSS shakhas had hence not spread as rapidly as expected.

In Karnataka, specifically Kannada nationalist fervour remained subdued despite the process of unification of the state. Once again, the cultural domination of the Kannada nationalist movement by Hindu nationalism was obvious. Whereas in Tamil Nadu the domination of the Hindi nationalist movement was vehemently opposed (the Tamilians had burnt the Indian Constitution in protest in one instance), in Karnataka owing to the already present influences of Hindutva, the link to Hindu nationalism was possible and easy.

The Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan campaign that swept the northern parts of the country along with the cow slaughter campaign in the mid-1950s had minimal impact on Karnataka. It is pertinent to ask why, despite years of close association with dominant Hindu voices of the Indian nationalist movement, Karnataka remained untouched by the emerging sangh parivar.

One of the important factors was the assimilation of the dominant political actors into the Congress fold; newer political actors would make their presence felt only in the Devraj Urs regime.

During the Emergency period, while the entire region was awash with anti-Congress sentiments, Karnataka remained strongly in support of the Congress party. The political consciousness of the Sudras awakened at the national level against the Congress and in favour of socialism had already been incorporated into the Congress fold in the state. Social justice as a concept had entered the Sudra consciousness in the 1920s in Karnataka and by the Emergency period had been redefined well within the trenches of the Congress party. Another significant factor for the lack of anti-Congress sentiment in the state was the weak Left movement. Within the dominant literature in Karnataka, including the writings of P. Lankesh and Poorna Chandra Tejasvi, communists were caricatured and presented as objects of ridicule.

In the post-Emergency situation, the Congress was still in power in Karnataka. Though Indira Gandhi was defeated elsewhere, she was elected to power from Chikmagalur. The Devraj Urs factor in strengthening the Congress party by addressing the concerns of the emerging political class cannot be discounted.

There were, however, forces to resist the Congress march – Brahmins, in particular, in certain pockets, tried to push forward their own agenda. During the Emergency, pockets of resistance from petty bourgeois intellectuals were also visible in the urban areas, primarily in Bangalore, Mysore and Gulbarga. The social movements that emerged at the time also gained some foothold, including the Samajvadi Yuva Sabha, Raitha Sangha, Dalit Sangharasha Samiti, and Bandaya Sahitya Sanghatane. Even as we recognise the various democratic attempts outside the influence of both the Congress and the Brahminical spheres, it is important to state that the intention here is not to belittle their contributions through mere mentions. The caveat of space constraints is the only reason for not delving into the details of these movements and the change they effected on the political landscape of Karnataka during that period. These movements had the potential of opposing the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and the RSS, which was gaining momentum.

The decay of the 1970s and the 1980s proved to be a glorious time for the peoples’ movements. The Dalit Sangharasha Samiti (DSS) and the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha with their village-based mobilisation of the peasantry made their presence felt. The DSS in particular was able to forge alliances between the rural and the urban voices, between different caste groups against the political hegemony of the class and cultural forces of the Brahmins. Beyond a doubt, these mobilisations acted as a check to the growing influence of Brahminical forces.

In the 1983 Karnataka state elections, the Janata party was voted to power as the single largest party with Ramakrishna Hegde as the chief minister. Hegde forged alliances with the BJP who, on the basis of dominant caste equations, had won several seats in different constituencies. The tragic history of socialists giving the fascist forces a new lease of life was repeated in Karnataka as it was elsewhere. The socialist Janata party came back to power in 1985 in a comfortable victory, the Congress’ foothold in Karnataka was weakened after Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

It was in the 1985-89 period, in tandem with the rest of the country, that the sangh parivar’s hold in Karnataka too increased. The different branches of the sangh parivar were instrumental in attracting the unemployed youth in urban small towns. The new Sudra class forces that could not find space for amalgamation within the older bastions of power were also included. The growing influence of the sangh parivar in Karnataka found an expression in communal clashes. During the Ram Rath Yatra, Karnataka witnessed over 50 communal clashes. The rising discontent in the decade of the 1980s could be attributed to the state’s withdrawal of subsidies, the blanket ban on recruitment of teachers, the enactment of new Cooperative Acts restricting loan grants, the reordering of public sector loans and various other measures. This rising discontent of the population found no accommodation within electoral politics; there were no mobilisations to address these concerns. Peoples’ movements too were on the wane with the co-option of the DSS.

Hence the decade of the 1990s began with weakened democratic forces, an equally weak Left force and a socialist force adamant on its anti-Congress stance. The introduction of liberalisation policies, removing all barriers to the entry of global capitalist forces into India’s economy, ushering in the era of globalisation in 1991, by the Congress government did nothing to ebb the flow of rising discontent in India on the whole and amongst the Karnataka masses as well. If anything, the discontentment directly fed the rising flames of communalism.

Communal hatred reached its zenith during that time with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 following years and years of mobilisation by the sangh parivar. The existing scenario of a discontented population, no proletariat struggle, a weak Congress force (the Congress lost the general elections at the national level in 1996) and the lack of political mobilisation against liberalisation and privatisation policies – all contributed significantly to the growth of the sangh parivar. In Karnataka, the extent of the sangh parivar’s growth could be mapped through this instance – Davangere, earlier considered the traditional stronghold of the Communist Party of India, also turned into a BJP seat of power.

With the NDA coming to power at the Centre, and Hegde and socialists switching to the BJP, previously illegitimate forces gained legitimacy. The neo-rich classes found political patronage within the BJP. Consumerism and communalism – two values that justified neo-liberal rule – paved the way for the growth of the BJP in Karnataka.

It would be appropriate to summarise the factors responsible for the predicament in which the people of Karnataka found themselves at the end of the 1990s as the increasing strength of the BJP, the soft Hindutva stance of the Congress, the adamant anti-Congress stance adopted by the centrist socialist forces and a weak Left political force.

With the collapse of the welfare state and the emergence of the neo-liberal state, survival within the parliamentary democratic space is possible only if it rides on the back of fascism. It is precisely this compulsion that has driven even the Congress to adopt fascism with a human face. Legitimising fascist politics within the electoral space is both a weakness and a requirement of the neo-liberal state. The reformist Left parties too are faced with a similar dilemma – the neo-liberal framework provides no space for them to deliver pro-people policies. As a consequence, we find the BJP moving from 0.03 per cent of the vote share to 30 per cent in recent times – a whopping 10 crore people nationwide supporting the BJP’s communal agendas.

In the case of Bababudangiri as well, the same reasons stand – failure of the centrist forces, inherent weakness and failure of the reformist Left. In a scenario such as this, radical secularism is the only alternative – whether the state is ruled by the BJP, the Janata Dal or the Congress. The attempt to saffronise and further agendas based on communalism has remained consistent despite changes in the political parties. n