Deve Gowda’s greatest failing

Published in 2021, Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of H D Deve Gowda, a doorstopper biography by Sugata Srinivasaraju, takes a deep dive into the life and achievements of a deliberately under-rated prime minister and chief minister. In it, the author describes how class, caste, regional and/or lingual prejudices stopped the mainstream press, both in Kannada and in English, from giving Gowda his due. The book shows how Gowda’s understanding of secularism was an organic one, and built by lived and shared experience with people of varying religions and beliefs in rural Karnataka, Bengaluru and, intermittently, Delhi. Towards the end, it takes us to 2006-2007, when H D Kumaraswamy forges an alliance with the BJP in Karnataka to become chief minister. Gowda calls it a ‘betrayal’ of the JD(S)’s secular values; suffers mentally from it, and even works to break the coalition when it’s the JD(S) turn to concede the chief ministerial chair to the BJP.

The book stops in 2020. In 2023, Gowda’s secular claims look shattered. The JD(S) and the BJP are now partners in Karnataka, with Gowda’s acquiescence and blessings. “Congress leaders have no moral right to talk about JD(S). The JD(S) is not politically opportunist. The pact with the BJP is not opportunist. We agreed for the alliance with BJP to save the regional party. I’ve worked 40 years to save the regional party. There’s no greed in this,” he said on September 28. A newer edition of his biography will have to account for this ideological U-turn, to set the record straight. The party hasn’t won itself any admirers with the comments it made over its efforts to get Muslim support, which it didn’t. The JD(S)’s views on lack of Muslim support is unlikely to go down well with its Dalit and other ‘lower caste’ voters too. That apart, this volte-face raises many queries about the personality of some regional parties, that may in fact be sub-regional.

Furrows in a Field brings in many perspectives that question or differ with Gowda, yet it ceases from asking a question that seems increasingly relevant after the 2023 Assembly polls that delivered such poor returns for the JD(S) that it felt corralled into allying with the BJP: How come, especially after having given India a PM, the JD(S) failed to become a party with all-round presence in Karnataka? (The only time it had such presence was from 1994 to 1999 – when Gowda became PM in 1996, J H Patel took over as CM till 1999.) Moreover, Gowda hails from modest rural ancestry and as PM, naturally identified with commoner Indians and Kannadigas. Examine the irony: a PM for a short period leads a post-PM life of a party that can only influence its community in one region of Karnataka. Beset with existential problems, the very different Pawars or Thackerays of Maharashtra face issues not unlike what the JD(S) confronts today. These are parties that could only be kingmakers in their state or the Centre, and given extraordinary circumstances, be kings for a few months. Yet, there’s plenty of misperception on coalition governments; they can and have punched above their weights.

Yet it’s a pity that these parties aren’t like the TMC in West Bengal or the DMK or AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, where the voters’ choices are clear, simply because of wide and deep decades-long grassroots presence in their states. Even at their peak, the Thackerays or Pawars of Maharashtra influenced only pockets in those states. The same holds true for Gowda. The JD(S) had time and momentum. They must ask, why couldn’t they make it big in Karnataka? Why are they facing such a day?