The Hindu : Karnataka News : Time for a committed political movement Karnataka: 60 years of independence

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Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Time for a committed political movement Karnataka: 60 years of independence

G. Ramakrishna

Sixty years is a long time to translate people’s aspirations into reality if there is a will to do so. The political freedom we gained in 1947 is yet to be converted into economic, social and cultural freedom. In the absence of concerted political action on the part of the State, people’s movements can create the conditions to fulfil the promises made to the people.

Two major movements

In the specific context of Karnataka, there were two major political movements immediately after Independence, namely, the movement for the abolition of monarchy as a precursor to the integration of the State with India, and the movement for the unification of the State along linguistic lines.

The movement for land reforms was led by the Communists and socialists, although major political segments remained outside its fray. Some land reforms were legislated in the 1970s, which are in jeopardy now. The 1970s also witnessed Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement for “total revolution”, wrongly described as the “second freedom struggle”. The Lohia Socialists, who were in the forefront of the movement, today can only ruminate on the Kagodu agitation, by far the most significant of the movements they led.

The other prominent group of the “total revolution” movement, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has increasingly taken to communal politics in lieu of the more demanding political challenge of articulating and struggling for the resolution of fundamental socio-economic issues.

Caste identities

Ironically, caste forces within rival political parties often coalesce for actions unworthy of the label of a movement, as was witnessed only recently in the demand for banning a book. This is in contrast to the 1950s when concrete issues concerning the people used to be the focal point for political movements.

The Left movement has consistently remained political and people-centred, notwithstanding the fact that it is none too pervasive in the State. Yet this political trend continues to be the most authentic representative of the oppressed and marginalised sections. In fact, if Karnataka has made a mark in the literary and cultural world it is because of the progressivism established by radical ideology.

Dalit influence

The scope of the Left movement has been broadened and complemented in the past two decades by the vigorous intervention of the Dalit movement, although the latter has of late got increasingly fragmented.

A new political movement is currently taking shape on the issue of land and food security. Farmers today face the most problems, be it in the form of suicides triggered by debt, failure of crops, absence of remunerative crop prices, market manipulations and the modern-day monster called the ‘Special Economic Zone’, which takes away the little land that the farmer possesses.

Women’s issues

Issues concerning women have induced political movements right from the early days of Independence. While there is no crime that is not perpetrated against women, there is no significant, united women’s movement in the State. Once again it is the Left that has articulated basic demands and organised movements that have yielded some results, though few and far between.

We are told that opportunities are aplenty for the youth, but that is true only for a small section. The rest are consigned to daydreaming about the dawn of the millennium. The lack of concern for natural and human resources and the absence of a practical approach to the linking of the two is central to this colossal problem and underlines the need for a genuine political movement to address it.

The failure of professional bodies of teachers, engineers, scientists, doctors and the like to intervene creatively and effectively as accessories to a political movement has created a breach that needs to be filled.

There is even an irresponsible tendency of late to brand as ‘naxalism’ efforts to articulate the real problems of people. A political vacuum results from this irrational attitude. The most effective way to defeat extremism is by bringing succour to the dispossessed. It is everyone’s knowledge that political power will never flow from the barrel of isolated guns. So also, power gained on the basis of stirring communal frenzy will not last, much less defend the sovereignty of the country.

(G. Ramakrishna is a former professor of English, and presently the editor of the Kannada weekly ‘Hosatu’.)

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