Is politics a cesspool?  According to Amitabh Bachchan, the super star of Bollywood, it is. But I would say that politics in India is a cesspool of corruption. No wonder Amitabh Bachchan, a friend of Rajiv Gandhi, quit politics as a Congress MP.

Today this opinion may not be applicable to India, specially to Narendra Modi’s BJP Government. But the damning opinion is very much applicable to Karnataka which has become a cesspool of corruption after S.M. Krishna laid down office as Chief Minister in May 2004.

After S.M. Krishna, BJP came to power but was corrupt and incapable of good administration. Then came the Congress again and Karnataka saw the rise of a new star in the horizon of Karnataka politics — Siddaramaiah. His claim to political rise is his leadership of AHINDA (a Kannada acronym for Alpasankhyataru or minorities, Hindulidavaru or backward classes, and Dalitaru or Dalits). The Congress High Command made him the Chief Minister by default as Dr. G. Parameshwar as the President of the Congress had lost the election. That is called the quirk of history.

With this fortuitous turning point, people have forgotten that Siddaramaiah was not from the original Congress but a later day entrant. Following the political turmoil in the JD(S), where he was enjoying various positions under the JD(S) Supremo H.D. Deve Gowda, he was shown the door in JD(S). That was also a significant turning point in the history of Karnataka politics.

As Chief Minister (13 May 2013 -17 May 2018) Siddaramaiah was unstoppable with  an attitude of hubris. He plunged into appeasement politics and nepotism as never before by any Congress CM.

The government’s decision to declare Tipu Sultan’s birthday as a holiday and celebrate Tipu Jayanti all over the State was the trigger for agitations, violence and two deaths in Kodagu. The Hindu-Muslim divide was created to an otherwise harmoniously living communities across the State. This was worse than the decision taken by Dr. M. Veerappa Moily as Congress Chief Minister to broadcast Urdu news in Karnataka Akashvani which saw violent protests that even BBC telecast.

Along with the endemic law and order problem which became all pervasive, as a natural corollary, corruption too came to be accepted as normal. The BJP, which succeeded Siddaramaiah, with B.S. Yediyurappa and S.R. Bommai as Chief Ministers, was better in maintaining law and order but beat Siddaramaiah’s earlier government in corruption. Naturally, BJP lost in the 2023 Assembly election and once again the Karnataka’s Congress hero Siddaramaiah returned to power triumphantly with absolute majority of 136 MLAs but with his wings, tentacles and beak clipped with the presence of D.K. Shivakumar as Deputy Chief Minister and Dr. G. Parameshwar as the Home Minister.

Despite these constraints on his power, Siddaramiah became the most powerful Chief Minister of Karnataka because he had the blessings of the Congress High Command and he is also the Minister for Finance, Cabinet Affairs, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Intelligence, Information, Youth Services, Sports and S.T. Welfare and all unallocated portfolios. Small wonder, though Dr. Parameshwar is the Home Minister, the Intelligence is excluded from him!

No wonder Siddaramaiah rarely faced allegation of corruption, unlike his aides and Ministers. It is also no wonder that he had abolished the Karnataka Lokayukta, during his first term as Chief Minister, where many cases were filed against him. And, intelligently, in its place brought in a subservient Police outfit known as ACB (Anti-Corruption Bureau).

The result: Widespread corruption and erosion of credibility of Siddaramaiah’s Congress government and his own. Yet, the Congress High Command is silent. Silence is deafening and also a sign of approval of corruption. Since we are aware of the ongoing cases of corruption, nepotism, appeasement of Muslims, there is no need to list them here. In any case they are too many and still counting.

One regret that is disturbing an honest and law-abiding citizen is, as Justice Santosh Hegde says, the stigma that used to be attached to a corrupt person or a criminal is no longer there. When such criminals are released from the jail, we see their admirers and fans receiving them with garlands and taking them in a procession. It does not augur well to see Congress politicians display ostrich behaviour as if nothing illegal or venal has happened even as proof is piling up about the loot of properties worth crores of rupees and money meant for Backward Classes and Dalits siphoned off illegally. Yet, the wheels of the law seems to move slowly and selectively. Hope, now that ED has entered the arena, at the end it will grind well and guilty will be punished.

Hearing the words of former Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde about the corrupt and the criminals being honoured and condoned of their crimes, I was reminded of the old times of decency and ethical conduct among the Gandhian politicians, I mean Mahatma Gandhi. Not the present ones.

Those were the days when corruption, violence or murders were considered heinous crimes and the guilty would, in majority cases, repent and feel ashamed of their acts. Some even committed suicide unable to bear the social boycott and stigma. But today, as Justice Santosh Hegde says, that sense of shame is not found among our politicians.

I have heard that once in our Karnataka’s Vidhana Soudha, the then Leader of the Opposition, the inveterate socialist leader Shantaveri Gopala Gowda was speaking about the “Sharavati Scandal.” An eloquent and powerful speaker he was, he blasted the Chief Minister in verbal fusillade: “I have never seen a corrupt Chief Minister like you in my life.”

Like Julius Caesar, what Gopala Gowda had spoken, he had spoken. There was pandemonium and utter chaos in the Assembly that was inevitably adjourned.

Nijalingappa got up and went to his office in the second floor, asked the door keeper not to allow anyone inside, went in and closed the door behind.

In the meanwhile, Gopala Gowda, felt remorse for having spoken using such offending words and went to Chief Minister’s chamber to see him. The door keeper did not allow him to enter the CM’s chamber. However, he shouted at the door keeper and barged into the chamber. An unexpected surprise awaited Gopala Gowda. Nijalingappa was sitting with his head resting on his hands bent towards the table. Gopala Gowda began to console him but all of a sudden Nijalingappa burst into tears and began to cry.

“Why do you cry? What happened?” asked Gopala Gowda.

“Gowdre, you called me a corrupt man in the full house of the Assembly. Am I really corrupt? Do you really believe that I am corrupt? Tell me, if your conscience says so?”

Gopala Gowda instantly woke up to the reality and said:

“O, God, in the heat of my speech, in anger, I used those words. Come to the Assembly, I will take back those offending words, will tender apology and request that it be removed from the record.”

This is an example of the decency and dignity with which our politicians conducted themselves in those days. But today? Where is Nijalingappa? Where is Siddaramaiah?

God Save Karnataka.

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