June 1, 1996, is a red letter day in the history of Vokkaligas, the second most powerful caste in Karnataka. HD Deve Gowda sworn in as Prime Minister India On that day another sub-regional caste celebrated its leader who had risen to the pinnacle of power in India. That day, Gowda became their undisputed leader who still controls the Vokkaliga vote bank in Karnataka. It is a different matter that three years later the same caste defeated the Gowda clan to make another Vokkaliga SM Krishna the chief minister. But Gowda remained their top leader for nearly 30 years.
After independence, the politics of Karnataka has been dominated by two castes – Lingayat and Vokkaliga. They have been ruling the state by turns except for a few conditions. Unlike the Lingayats, who have a pan-Karnataka presence, the Vokkaligas (literally meaning ‘peasants’) are an older Mysore region-centred caste, with a population concentrated in only three-four districts.
This 100% farming community had a few medieval chieftains – Kempe Gowda – the most famous of them being the founder of Bengaluru. During the rule of the Mysore kings under the British, the Vokkaligas were confined to farming. The level of literacy and political participation of the community was very low. Independence in 1947 changed all that and Vokkaligas became major players in the socio-political life of Karnataka.
Between 1947 and 1956, the Vokkaligas controlled the levers of power in the old Mysore state, until the reunification of all Kannada-speaking regions under one state. The reorganization of the state changed that, forcing them to accept the suzerainty of the Lingayats, a dominant caste in northern Karnataka and a sizeable population in old Mysore.
In the early 1950s, during the height of the Karnataka Ekkarana Andolan (Karnataka Unification Movement), top leaders of the Vokkaliga caste gathered at a house in central Bengaluru to decide their future course of action. All of them were Congress leaders and had participated in the freedom movement. Most had impeccable personal credentials. But most of them were not very enthusiastic about the integration of all Kannada-speaking regions under one administration. He had many reasons for this. Some argued that the Maharaja’s Mysore or Old Mysore was already a well-developed model state and that merging the poorer Mumbai-Karnataka and Hyderabad-Karnataka regions would be a burden on the state’s exchequer and resources. Some were very scared. He argued that once all the Kannada-speaking regions were united, the Vokkaligas would lose their caste dominance to the Lingayat hegemony. The two most powerful castes in the kingdom were still wary of each other.
But the then chief minister of the old Mysore state, Kengal Hanumanthaiah was in favor of the integration of the state. A freedom fighter and an able administrator, Hanumanthaiah was a prominent Vokkaliga leader.
Vetoing his own caste leaders, Hunumanthaiah told them that future generations of Kannadigas would never forgive them if they opposed integration for caste and political reasons.
The Vokkaliga leader threw his weight behind the unification movement and the new Mysore state along with the Kannada-speaking areas of the Bombay Presidency – including some districts of present-day Karnataka, the Nizam’s Hyderabad, Karnataka, the Madras Presidency and an independent, small state of Kodagu ( Coorg) was born on 1 November 1956.
Sadly, Kengal Hanumanthaiah lost power and S Nijalingappa, a Lingayat leader, took over as the first chief minister of the new Mysore state. As expected, the Vokkaliga community lost the chief minister’s chair to the Lingayats and had to wait for 38 years to regain the chair. In 1994, HD Deve Gowda became the first Vokkaliga Chief Minister of United Karnataka.
Between 1956 and 1972, four Lingayat chief ministers (S Nijalingappa, BD Jatti, SR Kanthi and Virendra Patil) ruled the state. Between 1972 and 1983, D Devaraj Urs, a Kshatriya, and R Gundurao, a Brahmin, ruled the state without Lingayat support. Ramakrishna Hegde, who became the first non-Congress chief minister of Karnataka in 1983, was considered an uncrowned Lingayat leader, despite being a Brahmin.
To end Hegde’s rule, the then Prime Minister and Congress President Rajiv Gandhi named Virendra Patil, a Lingayat leader, as the KPCC president and chief ministerial candidate in 1989. Under his leadership, the Congress won 181 seats in the 224-member House. But the Congress chose two other backward class (OBC) leaders – S Bangarappa and M Veerappa Moily – to replace Patil, and the Vokkaliga had to wait until 1994.
The Lingayat religion originated in the 12th century as a movement for a casteless, egalitarian society led by Basavanna, a Brahmin, and his followers took it to all corners of the Kannada-speaking regions in the following centuries. They also came to old Mysore, the Vokkaliga heartland, and many lower castes and untouchables converted to the new religion. But the Vokkaligas, the landowning community, mostly stayed away from it, though there is no record of any confrontation between the two. For centuries it was a harmonious coexistence.
SM Krishna, a young educated Vokkaliga, won a Fulbright Scholarship in 1954 and went to the US to pursue higher studies. Several other young Vokkaligas also exposed the community to Western learning and thinking over the next few years.
In the 1960s, the construction of the Adi Chunchanagiri Math and the consecration of a saint brought several sub-castes under a single religious head. The Math expanded rapidly with the patronage of Vokkaliga politicians and became a giant. During elections, all political leaders turn to the math to support it and it plays a big role in the politics and social life of southern Karnataka.
According to the leaked caste census data, Vokkaligas constitute 11% of the total population of Karnataka. They are at number four after SC, Muslim and Lingayat. However, this data is disputed by both Vokkaligas and Lingayats. The Vokkaligas claim that their numbers are much higher at 16%. Like the Lingayats, the Vokkaligas too have several sub-castes and are generally suspicious of each other. The four sub-castes of Vokkaliga are Gangatakara, Dasa, Marasu and Kunchitiga.
The Vokkaligas decide the outcome of elections to about 80 assembly seats, and hold sway in about 50 assembly constituencies.
In 2018, around 42 Vokkaligas won the assembly elections. Of these, 23 belonged to JDS. A Vokkaliga, HD Kumaraswamy also became the Chief Minister with the support of the Congress for 14 months.
Both Lingayats and Vokkaligas supported the Congress after independence. This changed after 1972. The then Congress Chief Minister D Devaraj Urs, a Kshatriya, became the champion of the Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and Muslims, thereby threatening the political hegemony of these two castes. In 1983, he ganged up and overthrew the Congress government. Between 1983 and 1989, the Janata Party government was predominantly a Lingayat-Vokkaliga coalition. Then in 1994 both these castes came together to defeat the Congress. In 1989 itself, both had supported the Congress.
In the past, whenever their political hegemony was threatened, these two castes put aside their differences and voted together against a common enemy.
HD Deve Gowda is now 90 years old and is ill. He is leading the JDS run by a warring family to save his legacy. With BS Yeddyurappa withdrawing from electoral politics, the Lingayat community is looking for other opportunities. While the BJP is trying its best to retain them, the Congress, which is predominantly a party of OBCs, SCs and Muslims, is hoping that a sizeable number of Lingayats and Vokkaligas will support them in the coming assembly elections.
KPCC president DK Shivakumar is a Vokkaliga and campaign committee chairman MB Patil is a Lingayat. But both these castes are still wary of the most popular leader of the state, Siddaramaiah. His brazen Ahinda (OBC, SC/ST and Minorities) card has angered him. Unless the Congress gets at least 30% votes from each community (Lingayats and Vokkaligas), their chances of coming to power are slim.
The ruling BJP, which is fighting a tough election, is hopeful that the Vokkaligas will side with the Gowda family (JDS) and ensure the defeat of the Congress.
Some community leaders allege that in recent years, the BJP has tried to corner the Vokkaligas by associating their mutt Adi Chanchanagiri with the Gorakhnath Mutt in Uttar Pradesh. Since Vokkaliga Math is an ancient Nath Panth monastery (again there are many versions), UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has visited it on a few occasions in the last five years. The current seer Nirmalananda Nath Swami (he was a technocrat before adopting sanyasa) has an excellent personal relationship with Yogi and even attended his swearing-in. Such new alliance has not gone down well with JDS and Congress. Although they are not expressing it openly.
Congress is trying its best to break Gowda’s fort to capture Vidhana Soudha in the summer. The BJP, which has half a dozen important Vokkaliga leaders, argues that no one has a monopoly on the community, and a sizeable number is with the saffron party.
When the votes are counted, it will be known how the Vokkaligas voted.
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