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    Explained: What Does the Lingayat-Vokkaliga Factor Mean in Karnataka Elections?

    Nalin MehtaBy Updated:No Comments2 Mins Read

    This opinion was first published on  news18.com |  APRIL 26, 202.

    The shaded grand courtyard of the Sree Siddaganga Math (monastery) in Tumkur, one of the oldest and most influential shrines of the Shiva-focused Lingayat sect, is an unlikely place for a political conversation. Nestled amid rocky hillocks that house several sacred caves, the monastery was founded in the 15th century as a Sharana (Shiva devotee) abode for spreading the teachings of the twelfth-century Lingayat statesman-saint-social reformer Basavanna. Trying to understand the famed influence of Lingayat voters in Karnataka politics, I once asked its president, Sri Sri Siddalinga Mahaswamigalu, about how his institution viewed politics.

    The Havanur Commission’s findings, as political scientist Valerian Rodrigues has shown, led to strong protests by upper castes and a challenge in the Karnataka High Court, which upheld its findings. Subsequent Backward Classes Commissions in Karnataka — Venkataswamy Commission (1983-86) and Justice Chinnappa Reddy Commission (1988-90) — led to Vokkaligas also being classified as OBCs.

    Politically, this meant that many Lingayat leaders drifted away from the Congress in the 1970s. They realigned, instead, with the anti-Congress JP movement.

    The BJP’s rise in Karnataka owes a great deal to the Lingayat vote shifting away from the Congress and towards the BJP from the 1990s. This especially gathered momentum after the unceremonious sacking of Veerendra Patil as chief minister by Rajiv Gandhi in 1990 (more details in part 3 of this series).

    Read full opinion on news18.com

    This opinion was first published on  news18.com |  APRIL 26, 202.

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    Nalin Mehta is Managing Editor, Moneycontrol, Chief AI Officer - Editorial Operations, Network18 and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is an award-winning Indian journalist, political scientist and author who has held senior leadership positions in major media companies and educational institutions; served as an international civil servant with the UN and the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland; taught and held research positions at universities and institutions in Australia (La Trobe University, ANU), Singapore (NUS), Switzerland (International Olympic Museum) and India (Shiv Nadar University, IIM Bangalore). Most recently, he has been Dean and Professor at School of Modern Media, UPES University. He has previously been Group Consulting Editor, Network18; Executive Editor, The Times of India-Online, Managing Editor, India Today (TV channel) and Consulting Editor, The Times of India. Mehta is the author of several best-selling and critically acclaimed books, including The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party (hailed as a ‘seminal’ work, No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller lists for 26 consecutive weeks in 2022, and republished worldwide in several languages); India’s Techade: Digital Revolution and Change in the World’s Largest Democracy, India on Television (Asian Publishing Award for Best Book on Asian Media, 2009), Behind a Billion Screens (Longlisted as Business Book of the Year, Tata Literature Live, 2015) and Dreams of a Billion (2022 Ekamra Sports Book of the Year Award, co-authored). His edited books include Gujarat Beyond Gandhi (co-editor), Television in India and The Changing Face of Cricket (co-editor). Mehta is a DFID-Commonwealth scholar with a Ph.D in Political Science from Trobe University, Melbourne; M.A. International Relations from University of East Anglia, UK; and B.A. Journalism (Honours) from University of Delhi.

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