BENGALURU: The appointment of a Dalit, KS Basavanthappa, as Muzrai minister, is a continuation of former CM Siddaramaiah’s Ahinda connect. The Mayakonda MLA has been allocated the Muzrai, Fisheries, Ports and Inland Water portfolio.
The choice of a Dalit as Muzrai minister is symbolic, representing the Congress party’s commitment to traditionally oppressed communities. The portfolio gives the minister control over Hindu temples and religious endowments.
Though Ahinda (Kannada acronym for backward classes and others) is not a generic Congress inheritance, Siddaramaiah had nurtured the communities over many years. He had turned the portfolio into a political instrument, giving it to Srinivasa Prasad and later Rudrappa Lamani, both Dalits, establishing a precedent and going against his party’s traditional Vokkaliga-Lingayat power base.
Siddaramaiah did not stop at symbolism -- he also brought in policy changes for social justice and Ahinda welfare, pushed for OBC sub-categorisation and built on loyalty over the years. Lamani, once in the Muzrai chair, used the post to institute Dalit archaka training in Agama schools, bringing in changes on who could perform priestly functions.
Whether Basavanthappa uses the Muzrai portfolio to effect change, the way Lamani did, is yet to be seen. Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga chief minister, has this time allocated the Muzrai portfolio to an ‘untouchable’ Dalit rather than a ‘touchable’ Dalit as in previous Congress governments. It remains to be seen if Shivakumar follows Siddaramaiah’s playbook completely, or the appointment is just good optics. The CM’s own position could depend on keeping Ahinda legislators satisfied.
Political analyst BS Murthy said, “BJP was caught on the backfoot on the Dalit issue when shuddhikaran was done at Ramlila Grounds after AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge, a Dalit, held a rally there. An embarrassed BJP minister apologised and said he doesn’t know who did it. If they criticise the Congress for appointing an untouchable caste minister to oversee temples, it could prove costly for them because the Dalit left has traditionally supported the BJP. This critical appointment would appear to the Dalit left as setting right a historical wrong.’’