An inverse bellwether!

As Karnataka goes into polls in a few days the country is watching. The national elections are due in barely 12 months, and maybe earlier if you ask cynics. Calling this the semi-final might be a bit of a stretch, but the importance of the elections in Karnataka cannot be underestimated. For the congress it is a great chance to to start the home stretch on a winning note. For the BJP emerging from the tangle they have got themselves into with some modicum of respect is important for them to be considered seriously as a national party.

Another round of state elections is due before that. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Chattisgarh will go to the polls later this year. The BJP would fancy their chances of winning at least three of those four. Everybody wants to back the winning horse and having a respectable position in Karnataka, and a winning a few more in the next round would  position them well in the coalition sweepstakes before 2014. Conversely a bad performance in Karnataka could adversely effect chances in the next round, and with few allies around anyway, push it towards a desparate 'all-in' strategy.

Karnataka results would also be watched because for some wierd coincidence, Karnataka is somewhat like an inverse bellwether of the national political scene. Karnataka for some reasons always seems to go in the opposite direction as the rest of the country is going. A point that is brought out by the following graphic illustrating the fluctuating fortunes of the main political formations in the state over the last 35 years.

Learn About Tableau

Lets start at 1978, barely a year after the Janta Party swept the Lok Sabha to give the country its first non-Congress government, the congress swept Karnataka winning more than 60% of the seats. In Indira Gandhi's darkest political hour, she fought the by-election from Chikmagalur in 1978 to get back to parliament.
Again on either side (1983 and 1985) of of Rajiv Gandhis historic 80% majority in 1984  Karnataka stayed shy of the Congress, giving the Janta party led by Ramakrishna Hegde a clear majority in 1985. Once again in 1989 when Bofors and the emergence of VP Singh forced the Congress out of power in the center, it roared back to power in karnataka with an unprecedented 4/5 majority. In 1994 while Narasimha Rao ruled in the centre Karnataka went back to the Janta Dal. 
In 1999 BJP came to power in the Center with the NDA government but Karnataka was safe with the Congress. SM Krishna completed the rare full term in office. This strange phenomenon continued in 2008 when at the heels of UPA winning a secont term in Office, the BJP stormed to power for the first time in a southern state. 

The graphic also tells a strong story about the steady growth of the BJP over the last 30 years in Karnataka. Whether the Saffron 'worm' has lost its steam just before it was about to catch up with the blue Congress one is something we will find out shortly.  Also what does come out clearly is that amidst all its highs and lows the Congress has managed to keep its vote share relatively stable in Karnataka. The growth of the BJP, though it has been nibbling at the Congress core as well has largely been at the expense of the fractious Janta family of parties..

A deeper look at the regional level is perhaps warranted to get a better understanding of the evolution of  Karnataka politics in this period. 

Karnataka-2008, How the BJP got its first southern state government

The 2008 assembly elections in Karnataka were significant for the state in a number of ways.  The following is an attempt to analyze  the 2008 assembly elections and to extrapolate implications on the 2013 if possible. As always perhaps a look at the events in lead-up to the polls is a good place to start

Leadup to 2008:

 In its short democratic history of about 60 year, Karnataka has seen as many as 21 Chief Ministers. It has been common for Chief Ministers to be unable to complete their full 5 year term, many of them falling to internal bickering in the course of their term. Devaraj Urs(in 1972) and S.M Krishna (in 1999) have been  the  only two exceptions to this. 

When elections were held in 2004 after S.M. Krishna completed his full term, the verdict was highly fractured, plunging the state into 5 years of political uncertainty.  The BJP emerged as the single largest party with 79 seats followed by Congress with 65 and JD(S) with 58.

The grand ‘betrayal’: The Congress and JD(S) formed a coalition government with Dharam Singh as the Chief Minister. The Dharam Singh government collapsed after a split engineered by Kumaraswami, who went on to become the CM of a power sharing coalition government with the BJP . The agreement was to split the remaining term 20 months each. However when Yeddyurappa’s turn came Kumaraswami refused to step aside, leading to the BJP withdrawing support reducing the government to a minority. Kumaraswami relented later, and Yeddyurappa was sworn in as chief minister  only for Kumaraswamy to pull out the rug 7 days later over some disagreements in sharing ministries leading the state into a 6 month period of presidents rule. This one month drama that played out in Bangalore in October- November 2007 created a very sorry image of the states politics. From this episode, JD(S) and  specifically DeveGowda/Kumaraswami emerged from this farce as distinct villains in public perception.

A contrast in leaderships: This was exploited to the hilt by the BJP which portrayed it as a betrayal of not just the party, but of the entire Lingayat community, and by extension northern Karnataka, by a party lead by a Vokkaliga from the south. Yeddyurappa a strong leader of the Lingayat community, was clearly and unambiguously promoted as the chief ministerial candidate by the BJP to further exploit this sense of betrayal. On the other hand the congress did not have a clear CM candidate. The last minute recall of S.M.Krishna to the state from the governorship of Maharashtra was too little too late.

Delimitation: Another important event that happened between 2004 and 2008 elections was that electoral constituency boundaries were drastically redrawn as a part of the delimitation process, to better represent the movement in populations. A full analysis of this is perhaps not appropriate for this post but there were two important outcomes from the process. Firstly, the number of urban constituencies drastically increased. For example the number of constituencies in the the two districts of the greater Bangalore region increased from 25 to 36. The second consequence was that the number of seats reserved for SC and ST candidates also increased from 35 to 51.  

Result - 2008

The Results of Karnataka-2008 marked an important transition for the BJP. In the short history of its existence the BJP has always been seen as a party of the Hindi heartland. Its leaders took great pride in their chaste Hindi, and even at the height of its popularity in 1999, when it formed the government at the center, it did not really make an impact in the vernacular periphery of the country. It was literally absent from the south, north-east and parts of the east.  By emerging as the single largest party and almost garnering a majority in Karnataka the BJP took a step towards becoming truly a national party.

Learn About Tableau

In all the BJP garnered 109 of the 224 seats, falling just 4 short of a simple majority. The congress was a distant second with 80 seats.  The BJP took this 29 seat lead over the Congress inspite  of garnering a lower vote share (~1%) than the Congress (vote shares are represented by the light grey bars in above graphic).  The BJP’s all in strategy with promoting a Lingayat as leader evidently reaped rich rewards in the Lingayat heartland of Bombay Karnataka and Central Karnataka. In both these regions the BJP secured more than twice the number of seats as both its opponents combined.

In spite of its internal bickerings the  Congress maintained a good performance in its traditional stronghold of Hyderabad Karnataka  and Mysore region, where they benifitted from the slide in the fortunes of the JD(S).

The figures from coastal Karnataka on the other hand seem to belie the image of saffron heartland and BJP bastion. Even though the BJP won the majority of seats here, once again it actually secured less votes than the congress in the region.

The same story repeated itself in the Bangalore region where BJP ended up winning 5 seats more than the BJP in spite of having a lower vote share. Both of these factoids may be pointers to poor prioritization and election management by the Congress. Overall the performance of the Congress seems to reflect the state of its leadership in the state, scattered and without focus.

Coming back to 2013, Once again the BJP seems to be going for the caste based permutation with a Lingayat at the helm. Once again the congress has not called out a clear leader.  Siddharamaiah, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Veerappa Moily, Dharam Singh, JH Patel, Oscar Fernandez and even the likes of SM Krishna, Margaret Alva and C.K Jaffer Sherief could all be in the fray. And the JD(S) again looks like being  restricted to Mysore region as a player.

However a lot has changed in 5 years. In terms of appeal as a mass leader Shettar is no Yeddyurappa. And Yeddyurappa himself is now out of the BJP forming a separate political party, the KJP. The Reddy brothers who were purportedly bankrolling the BJP are now in prison, and not just that they now have a political outfit of their own. At the least the BSR Congress is likely to erode the 8/8 that the BJP got from Bellary last time around.

Most importantly, last time around the BJP was at the receiving end of sympathy, the one that had been betrayed. This time in the eyes of many people,  it is the betrayer, of the trust that the people of the state reposed in it, having squandered a golden opportunity amidst its bickering.

Balance of Power

We talked very briefly about the post modern history, or the history of the state in the 65 years post independence/integration. Lots has happened in this time and there is no denying that the events of this period have a lot of import on  current politics and hence very important to understand. I guess it has been a bit daunting precisely because of its importance and I have been a loss about where to start from. 

Perhaps a look at the leaders who have shaped the history of the state over this period is a good place to start. Karnataka has seen a number of leaders of stature over the last 65 years. The  graphic shows the 21 chief ministers that the state has had on a map of the state based on the constituency where they built their political fortunes. The size of the circles representing the their tenure as chief minister and the shading represents the time since they were at the highest seat. (so the earlier chief ministers are shaded with a lighter hue and the more recent ones with a darker one).

Some disclaimers here, This is built out of unstructured data scraped from wikipedia, for the earlier chief ministers there is not a lot of data on their assembly constituencies. In some cases I have extrapolated from the district. Also there are others who have fought elections from multiple constituencies across regions to varying results, in such cases I have picked up one randomly. 

Learn About Tableau

The graphic seems to underscore the the much propagated political narrative of Vokkaliga-Lingayat and north-south power balance in the state. The Vokkaligas constitute about 15% of the population of the state and are concentrated in the southern parts of the state, while the northern parts of the state are dominated by the Lingayats, who constitute about 17% of the states population. The remainder is constituted of Kurubas (about 8%), Dalits (23%) Muslims (10%) Brahmins, Christians and other backward castes (27%)

Between them the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats  constitute 32% of the states population, but a much bigger share of political power in the state. Of the 19 chief ministers that the state has had till date 6 have been Vokkaligas, 8 Lingayats, 2 Brahmins and 3 belonging to other backward castes. Goes without saying that like in much of the country Dalits and Muslims remain highly under represented at the top job.

Much of the states political narrative has been shaped by this power balance. As recently as in 2007 when Yeddyurappa was dumped by Kumaraswamy and the JD(U), it was portrayed as a betrayal of not just an individual or a party but the entire Lingayat community, re-opening old festering wounds of the north. Deve Gowda's earlier  involvement in the ouster of another popular North Karnataka leader, Ramakrishna Hegde and Virendra Patils sudden sacking by Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 are a few more chapters in this narrative.

So,  like it or not, caste, still plays an important role in the politics of Karnataka, as it does in much of the country. Whether the next chief minister of the state will be a Vokkaliga, a Lingayat, or as a welcom first - Dalit/Muslim something we will have to wait and see.

Getting my bearings straight..

I kind of skipped the post-modern history of the state almost entirely, and admittedly a lot has happened in Karnataka since unification which has implications on the politics of the state today. However at this point of time I think it necessary to delve deeper into the geography of the state, understanding the lay of the land, getting my bearings straight. So with that, onto a geography 101 for the state, with the promise to return to the post-modern history bit.

Karnataka is one of the nine coastal states of India, bordered by the Arabian Sea on its west. The coastal strip that borders the sea, is about 50 kms wide and has abundant rainfall. The western ghats separate the coastal plain from the  the interior parts of the state, the dry, semi-arid parts of the deccan plateau with low humidity and rainfall. 

While the northern interior parts of Karnataka which includes the districts of  Belgaum, Bidar, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Haveri, Gadag, Dharwad, Gulbarga, Koppal, Bellary and Raichur have an average rainfall of as low as 70cms, the coastal districts have as high as 350 cms with the southern districts receiving marginally better rainfall then the north. 

In the arid interiors of the state, water, or the lack of it, is a   key part of the social and political discourse. The long standing disputes over the waters of the Krishna and the Kaveri are a testament to this. 

Administratively Karnataka is divided into 30 districts. The tableau graphic below shows these districts. (Note - the graphic does not represent the three latest additions to the list of districts namely Chikballapur (by dividing Kolar) , Ramanagara (By Dividing Bangalore Rural) and Yadgir (from  Gulbarga)). I am trying to get my hands on the latest shape-files. Will refresh this when I find it.

The Karnataka Assembly has 224 constituencies. distributed across the various districts of the state as shown in the graphic. The district of Bangalore constitutes the largest number of constituencies (24) followed by Belgaum (18) and Mysore,Tumkur at 11.

Learn About Tableau

Now like it or not, the practice of psephology thrives on dividing  areas into distinct regions based on a variety of factors to facilitate analysis .  In the case of Karnataka, this division is done by most psephologist as shown in the image above. The basis of this is primarily around where these regions belonged to before integration. So Hyderabad Karnataka, has parts of Karnataka that came from the erstwhile princely states of Hyderabad, Bombay Karnataka has areas which came from the Bombay Presidency and Coastal Karnataka has the coastal districts that came from the erstwhile Madras presidency. The practice of calling out Bangalore as a separate region is recent by most accounts primarily due to the number electoral of might of Bangalore post delimitation ( the greater Bangalore region accounts for as many as 36 seats.

Learn About Tableau

Perhaps useful at this stage to point out the relative importance of the empirical regions that we just defined in the larger arithmetic of the state. As is shown the following graphic what we defined as Mysore Karnataka leads the list with 53 assembly constituencies closely followed by Bombay Karnataka with 50. Bangalore (36), Central Karnataka(33) and Hyderabad Karnataka(31) each have 30 odd seats while Coastal Karnataka brings in 19 seats.
To close this post, analysts in all fields are often accused of overdoing it and psephologist should not be an exception. however we have come across some of the historical and geographical reasons for such a segmentation. An analysis of past election results can perhaps lay some light on whether it really makes sense. 

A quick look at history..

A look at history is usually a good place to start.  The land of Karnataka has a long and checkered history as is testified to by the rich architectural heritage. More importantly, some of these  events of the distant past still find echo’s in the politics of the present.

Quiet a few great dynasties have  had their regal capitals in the area we now call Karnataka and patronized Kannada language and literature. The Chalukyas and the Rashtrakutas were the earliest of them.. The Chalukyas of Badami built grand architectural temples in Badami and in Pattadakal.  The rulers of the Rashtrakuta dynasty of Manyakheta ( present day Malkhed in Gulbarga district) who ruled between the 8^th and the 10^th century ruled large parts of the Indai from the gangetic  plains to the Malabar coast and  are credited with making the Kannada language nearly as important as Sanskrit during that time.

Art architecture and the kannada language flourished again under the Hoysalas of Belur-Halebidu during the turn of the Millenium(11^th to 14^th century). Muhammad bin Tuglaq sacked Halebidu in 1327 marking the end of the Hoysalas.

Halebidu was annexed back by the Hindu empire of Vijaynagara in 1346. The Vijaynagara dynasty was at its peak between the 14^th to the 16^th century with Hampi being the seat of their power.

During  this period the hegemony  of the Vijayanagara kings was constantly challenged by the Deccan sultanates of Bidar (Bahmani sultans) , Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Golconda and Berar. The confederacy of sultanates defeated Vijaynagara in the Battle of Talikota in 1565. The sultanate armies later plundered Hampi and reduced it to a ruinous state in which it remains. 

After the eventual conquest by the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda, the main feudatories of the Vijaynagara empire, chief among which were the Wadiyars of Mysore declared independence and went on to play important role in the history of the region.

The Sultanates themselves were later conquered by the Mughal empire.  Bijapur and Golconda fell to Aurangzeb in 1687.

As the British were starting to sow the seeds of empire in India, Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan were the key protagonist of another brief but important history of the state when they briefly controlled Mysore State between 1761 -1799. Tipu  faught four Anglo-Mysore, his defeat and death in defence of Srirangapatna, being  milestones in the establishment of the British Empire in India. Post Tipu, The British reinstalled the Wadiyars as titular heads of a  reduced kingdom. Other parts were divided between between the British presidencies of Bombay and Madras and the Nizam of Hyderabad.

Krishna Raja Wadiyar III, now a British subsidiary was deposed on a specious case of non-payment of subsidy in 1831 and British appointed commissioners were in charge of the kingdom between 1831 and 1881. Cubbon and Bowring are 2 well commissioners that people of Bangalore will be familiar with.

The governance of Mysore went back to the Wadiyars in 1881 when the British Parliament upheld the Kings plea to transfer the kingdom back to his adopted son  Chamaraj Wadiyar IX. This marked the beginning of an important phase for modern Mysore. Under British hegemony, and free from security concerns Mysore flourished. The Wadiyars were great patrons of kannada and arts in general and under their patronage Mysore became the cultural center of Karnataka. Their rule was even hailed as Ram-Rajya by  Mahatma Gandhi.

As India was at the throes of independence, about 2/3 of present day Karnataka was still outside the rule of the Wadiyar kings, under diverse administrative units of Kodagu, Madras, Bombay and Nizam of Hyderabad.  What this meant was that the Kannadigas in these regions despite their large numbers did not enjoy linguistic privileges in administration. Hubli for example was in Bombay presidency and Marathi was the official language, similarly for Hyderabad Karnataka where Urdu ruled and South Canara where Tamil was the main language. A feeling of discontent, of another language being thrust, began to brew among Kannadigas outside Mysore.  Even economically, these areas remained neglected and undeveloped in stark contrast to Mysore. It is in this backdrop that a movement started against linguistic suppression and then morphed into a movement for  a separate state for Kannada speaking people. Spearheaded by poets, journalists and writers this movement was called Ekikarana. Not surprisingly, the seeds of the Ekikarana movement and all its most important protagonists including Aluru Venkata Rao were from northern parts of Karnataka. Congress leaders like Kengal Hanumanthaiah and S. Nijalingappa also joined in the ekikarana movement.

The Ekikarana movement mirrored similar struggles across other parts of the country for linguistic reorganization. India got independent in 1947 with Kannada speaking population still distributed across six administrative units. Technically,  The districts of Hyderabad Karnataka (Gulbarga, Bidar and Raichur) joined the Indian union with the rest of Hyderabad only after the Nizam was forcefully overthrown ON 17^TH September 1948. As multiple commissions formed by the government  came up with conflicting recommendations, the multiple movements for linguistic reorganization reached a crescendo with the death of Potti Shriramulu while on hunger strike for creation of Andhra Pradesh. The states reorganization committee (Fazal Ali Committee) was formed by Nehru . The States Reorganization Committee eventually recommended reorganization on linguistic lines and this was ratified by Parliament soon. The State of Mysore formed on November 1^st 1956 incorporating kannada speaking parts of Coorg, Madras, Hyderabad and Bombay.  This day is since celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava. Mysore was renamed as Karnataka in 1973 by the government of Devaraj Urs.

The non-inclusion of Kasargod into Mysore was still a disappointment for people who fought for Ekikarana,  and it is an issue that still rankles in quarters.

Meanwhile , after India attained independence, the Wadiyar king,  acceded his kingdom to the dominion of India, but continued as the Maharaja until India became a Republic in 1950. After the re-organization of Indian States on linguistic basis, he was appointed as the Governor of the integrated Mysore State (present Karnataka state) in 1956, which post he held until 1964.

Lots has happened in the last 60 years of integration and democratic politics. The 'post-modern' history of the state (which deserves a deeper look) has been shaped by riverine conflicts, liquor barons and Linguistic agitations. Through all of this the political divide between the northern and southern regions of the state has remained, in terms of issues, and preferences.

Reboot..

I had tried giving blogging a shot back in 2009. The intent back then was to chronicle my understanding of the electoral process, through its twists and turns. I wrote one post but never got around to writing more. I guess i got into the act far too late, elections came and went, and some events in life conspired to keep me away from this. Above all, must confess, that doggedness or even persistence is not really one of my biggest virtues. 

Anyways, The buzz of elections is in the air again. In this country it almost seems like nobody wants 2013, this is merely a year we need to cross, to wait out, to get to 2014 and the elections, so much so that it seems we have given up on 2013. 

So some free time in my hand and all this buzz in the air got me back to the thought of giving this another go. The talk by Anand.S of Gramener during datameet,Bangalore was also a catalyst. Data is a tool I intend to invoke a lot this time around, to try to understand a bit more about how all of this works. 

Now even though the countdown is well under way, the elections for the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) are still a year away (as per schedule) . There will be a few skirmishes before the big one and the elections for the state of Karnataka, where I happen to live, is one of them. Karnataka Vidhan Sabha polls will be held on the 5th of May, and analysis of this is where I intend to focus my efforts over the next one month. 

Before I get into this tough a couple of disclaimers are due here. Firstly, I am no expert, more like a student myself. The intent is to learn more, about something I care about, and the blog is more like a tool to document this. Any pointers to factual mistakes made are more than appreciated, that is the whole point of putting it out there. Similarly criticism of ideas or opinions expressed is welcome. 
Secondly, most of the data I intend to use comes from the public domain, mostly from the Election Commissioner of India Website. The process of converting these to excel is manual  and errors do creep in. Please do point me to any obvious ones. Also more than happy to share the excel files if someone wants to do their own analysis. Once again, please note that there might be some errors due to manual conversion from ppt to excel

With that its time to get things started. Where we are coming from is usually a good starting point in understanding where we are going and a quick look at the History of Karnataka may be useful.