Ending Kar-nataka’s one-by-two tussle

Sharing is caring, a wise American had once said. But Indians had always known it. 

And Indians also know another thing: sharing is saving.

Nothing on earth, on either side of the equator, bears this out better than the Indian ‘one-by-two’ chai system. Historians have confirmed that the much-revered arrangement was in vogue in India centuries before the great nation came to be ruled by a proud chaiwala. No theory of Aristotle, Confucious, Chanakya, Koutilya, Marx, Engels and Gandhi can rival the noble concept of one-by-two tea that combines both social camaraderie and economic prudence. 

And when this one-by-two paradigm was extended to power-sharing in Karnataka in 2005, all six crore Kannadigas—between Bidar Fort in the north and Barchukki Falls in the south—let out one collective chuckle. Under the 50:50 formula, H D Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal (Secular) and BJP’s B S Yediyurappa were to split the chief minister’s post for equal periods—not a minute less or more.

Did they write it down? No. Do bosom friends sign agreements when they order one-by-two chai? Okay, did the leaders speak about it? No, thank you. Do the boy and girl falling in love at first sight talk about it? Wouldn’t a flutter of eyelashes do?

But when it was Yediyurappa’s turn to warm the chair—and raise Kannadigas to the stratosphere of divine happiness and supreme wealth—Kumaraswamy clutched his stomach and laughed loudly: “What? Really? When did I agree to that?” Their government collapsed like a truckload of bricks. There were six crore groans.

The political one-by-two came back in 2023 when Congress bounced back to power with Siddaramaiah as chief minister and D K Shivakumar, the deputy. Last month, Shivakumar poked a finger into Siddaramaiah’s ribs, first politely and then not so politely, reminding him that his own time to steer Karnataka’s destiny was coming up. Siddaramaiah clutched his stomach and laughed loudly. “What? Really? When did I agree to that?” 

Rahul Gandhi was in no mood to let the Congress government collapse like a truckload of bricks. He summoned Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar to Delhi. They took the same plane.

The flight took off 47 minutes late. Trouble erupted when Shivakumar expressed a keen desire to share Siddaramaiah’s window seat and advanced towards it. Buckling his seatbelt tighter, Siddaramaiah shook his head. Passengers crowded around them and tried to bring peace.  

Deep Throat—as I call my source—was on the plane and watched.

As the fracas went on, a worried captain appeared on the scene. But his clarification that Airbus Industrie designed each seat to fit one adult at a time and that the one-by-two matrix for chai and politics was unsuitable to aircraft seating was drowned in the brawl. 

The two leaders settled down in separate seats only after an elderly woman passenger explained that a single seatbelt was not long enough for two individuals. The plane took off. The arrival of beverages brought fresh turmoil.  

“One-by-two,” announced Shivakumar when tea appeared in Siddaramaiah’s hands. Neither drank it because it spilled in the scuffle.

Peace returned again when a teen-aged flight attendant raised her eyebrows and remarked that after Yediyurappa and Kumaraswamy had battled for the same chair, the chair itself ceased to exist. The plane landed in Delhi with no further incidents. 

Rahul’s power-sharing fix: Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were escorted into a room where Rahul Gandhi sat, his head resting on a hand and eyes shut. Party President Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary in charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala perched on the edges of their seats, watching him with anguish. Having tailed the two Karnataka leaders, Deep Throat peeped into the room through the slightly open door.

Rahul opened his eyes and stared at the two visitors as though seeing them for the first time, which unsettled them. With a trembling hand, he then opened a file marked Kar-nataka. “I won’t let our party government go the way the JD(S)-BJP government went,” Rahul said with grim determination.
“But was there really a sharing arrangement?”

Kharge and Surjewala stared at each other in confusion. 

Rahul raised a hand. “Not to worry,” he said. A large smile appeared on his face. Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar did a control-C-control-V of Rahul’s smile on their faces. 

Pushing the file aside, Rahul picked up two pieces of paper. As he scribbled on them, he announced: “I am appointing Shivakumar as Karnataka’s Chief Mi and Siddaramaiah as Nister.”

The Karnataka leaders deleted their smiles.

Disclaimer: This is a work of satire and is fictitious.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based senior journalist who writes on political, social, civic and economic issues—sometimes tongue firmly tucked in cheek)