The same son-rise
The appa-maga factor explains why BJP workers have just run amok in Mysore, when B S Yeddyurappa’s son was denied a ticket from the Varuna constituency. The appa-maga factor explains why BJP workers have just run amok in Mysore, when B S Yeddyurappa’s son was denied a ticket from the Varuna constituency.
It is election season in Karnataka. So, all ye pundits, pollsters and parachuting journalists, prepare to be flummoxed. This southern state’s mind is a tricky one to read, with a distinctive political culture that eludes caste-iron formulas. Where else would the writings of a 12th century statesman-poet, a man who preached a radical equality, snowball into a 21st century political movement that demands minority status for a dominant caste? Where else, indeed, would you find politicians sparring with poetry? Here, even a certain Chanakya from Gujarat had to brush up on Kuvempu. If you are still not convinced, why don’t you try explaining to yourself the difference between “right” and “left” Dalits and why there is no love lost between them? If you think you know about the Lingayat issue, wait till you have to account for the sub-castes within the so-called egalitarian community. Don’t worry if you haven’t figured out if there is a Hindu in Ahinda. Even Amit Shah appears to have stumbled on that one, when he called the state’s tallest Ahinda leader a non-Hindu.
But, just to make it easier for the rest of the country, the state’s politics does throw up something reassuringly familiar. Call it the appa-maga factor. Or, what in other states is called the son-rise. That explains why BJP workers have just run amok in Mysore, when B S Yeddyurappa’s son was denied a ticket from the Varuna constituency. No amount of defending the move by invoking the BJP’s supposed anti-dynasty gene has assuaged workers. It explains the exodus of several leaders from the Janata Dal (Secular), as H D Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy tightened their grip over the party over the years. The Congress, which its critics describe as a loose confederation of dynasties, is not far behind. Several leaders’ children are in the fray, including the chief minister’s son.
Dynasty, then, is the great leveller — as it is in Tamil Nadu or states on the other side of the Vindhyas, never mind the carping over the differences between southern and northern states. At the end of the day, a leader’s gotta do what his voters also have to do: look out for the children.
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