The state of Karnataka had never reached the low in political morals that it has reached today. The two political parties which failed the coalition after 20 months, surprised the ordinary, simple people of Karnataka by the reasons they gave for their failure. Most people rightly asked: Was the JD(S) justified in breaking a promise?
An auto rickshaw driver, who was not a sympathiser of the BJP, told me that it was allright, but he too felt sorry for Yediyurappa, who had even changed his name for luck. The two parties asked for dissolution of the Assembly and abused each other through advertisements in papers and yatras and jatras, but very soon  surprised the people again declaring they will form the government.

 The Congress, which had declared that Deve Gowda and his family are not trustworthy seemed to talk secretly to him to install a new coalition. After this failed, they tried again to form a coalition minus the Gowda family. This again failed as the mainstay of JD(S) was Deve Gowda, a  superb 24x7 politician, whom none can challenge in strategy in Karnataka. Or even India.

What has gone wrong in this whole vicious drama? People are losing faith, (or have lost faith?) in electoral politics which is the main source of our parliamentary democracy. As our people have become cynical and do not trust any politician, every one of them has to spend crores to get elected. How do they find this kind of money?
I feel nostalgic of the days when a socialist agitator like Shantaveri Gopala Gowda fought the election asking people for one rupee and one vote. I remember as a young man going around the Thirthahalli constituency, collecting a rupee from everyone who could afford and use this money for our food and travel to the next stop. Gopala Gowda would  sometimes start his speech with the poetry of Kumaravyasa, Kuvempu or Adiga and forget the election and talk to the people of Darwin’s theory of evolution. This was absurd but profound.

These days how will they find money? Perhaps no longer direct bribe as in the days of good people like Devraj Urs, when people paid for what they got as jobs in police and other governmental departments. And  Urs used that money for structural pro-people changes. This again is sad and no reason for celebration, but was tolerated by the people. Now, the corruption is so indirect that people do not think they are affected. It is mostly from the mining lobby. And real estate. All the political leaders from all the parties seem to have their own mines, their own commercial educational institutions.

What is the way out? Sheela, the moral fiber of our people and our politicians must improve --that is what one says easily and even unthinkingly. Yet one cannot deny that there is a profound truth in this. But it will not happen automatically unless there are systemic changes. I will venture to suggest a few. The basic ones (only a few, there should be many more changes.)

1. Voting must be made compulsory -- and we should find ways of making this compulsory. A lot of money these days is spent in goading the electorate to go to the booths and this must be a big sum. If the people are obligatorily compelled to reach the polling booth, as a duty like paying water and electricity bills, they will anyhow vote for their real choice.

2. The obscene money that the mine owners make now must be stopped. There should be no mining of our rich resources for export purposes. These non renewable resources must be preserved for future generations.

3. There should be no private schools where only the children of the rich get primary education. All children should be treated as equal and they should all receive the same kind of schooling. We elders may wallow in obscene luxury, but let us spare our children. The children of the poor and the rich must mix. Only then they learn about real life while schooling and the children of the filthy rich will partake of the innocent joy of the poor.

Although their parents are unfortunately cut off from our culture and civilisation in their artificial English-speaking world, we may at least spare their children form this alienation. As a friend of mine says, was it not beneficial for both Krishna and Kuchela since they were school fellows, and shared joyful boyhood memories?

4) We must have some means by which we recall our elected representatives in case they do not fulfill their electoral promises. We should evolve some means to make this “right of recall” effective.

(The writer is a Jnanapeeth-awardee in Kannada)


CHANGING TUNES

H D Kumaraswamy:
Oct 1 : BJP is in a hurry to grab power but I will go by MLAs’ views
Oct 5 : BJP is a communal party. I would rather breach the power-sharing agreement and go to people’s court than risk public safety by handing over power to BJP
Oct 27 : We will support a JD(S)-Cong tie up if Congress holds open discussions and declares M P Prakash as next chief minister
Oct 28 : As legislature party leader I decided to support BJP as Congress is trying to split our party


H D Deve Gowda:
Oct 5 : I was anxious these last 20 months over the party and I coming under the curse (of tie with BJP). Now we are free from that curse 
Oct 7 : JD(S) was constrained to stop power transfer to BJP as the saffron party launched a vicious campaign against the CM and his family


Yashwant Sinha:
Oct 7 : JD(S) betrayal is an insult to the 2004 mandate which was in BJP’s favour. We want fresh election in Karnataka 


Yeddyurappa:
Oct 9 : No question of remarriage with the modern Brahmarakshasas (JD-S). We are ready for election


Abhishek Singhvi:
(AICC spokesman )
Oct 6 : Congress is keeping all options open