Hope my
readers will excuse me for the title of this write up which reads like
one of the many tabloid banner headlines! I could not resist this sort
of a title for obvious reasons. For the uninitiated Yaddi is the pet
name of Yadiyurappa oops Yaddyurappa, for he changed his name to that
following the advice of numerologists! Kummi is the popular name of
Kumaraswamy the ex Chief Minister. The other ex chief minister has the
shortest tenure for any CM of Karnataka- that is only seven days!
Now, it is final and official as to what the (S) in the title of the
Gowda and sons Private unlimited party! The letter stands for superstitions
unlimited! Thereby hangs the sorry tale of the levels to which the parties
in Karnataka have sunk.
Well,
the son of soil (mannina maga) Deve Gowda has not made any mark about
his love for scientific temper. He is known as a personality who does,
thinks and dreams politics and going by the happenings in Karanataka
today his excretory functions too are politics. About a decade ago,
when his throne at Delhi was threatened by a vote of no confidence,
he chose to propitiate the gods through what was called as an Ayatha
Chandika homa which was held at a village near Belathangady. It was
conducted following the advice of his then court astrologer- Koppa Balagopala
Joisa. For this, thousands of Brahmins were invited and they were promised
handsome remuneration as well as traveling expenses. Plenty of funds
were wasted on various offerings for the sacrificial fire like silk
saris, jewels etc. A buffalo was also scheduled to be sacrificed. But,
there were protests by the animal lovers and finally, it was the handler
of this animal who was disposed off. His body was found floating in
a well and it was dismissed as a case of suicide and there was no lover
of humanity to protest that. Needless to add, the costs of this whole
fiasco were met by the local politicians of his party and ultimately
like all such by public funds! All this could not save the chair and
the Mannina Maga, the son of the soil had to return to the soil of his
own territory and he lay low waiting for chances. However, we are told
that he kept on performing various types of yagas and yagnas for the
benefit of his family. Being deeply superstitious and of course unhappy
with his old gang of astrologers and soothsayers, he discarded them
and took on new ones.
All the
attempts to keep the gods happy seem to have borne fruit when Karnataka
voted for a hung assembly in 2004. He managed to cobble a coalition
with congress and get a share of the power. When his family was happily
lining their pockets, tussles emerged between the partners and in a
dramatic move (suggested by his astrologers of course) the second son
of Mannina Maga, Kumaraswamy managed to pull out the rug from under
the feet of the Chief minister Dharam Singh, managed to cobble a majority
between the Janatha Dal(S) and Bharathiya Janatha Party and occupied
the Chief ministers chair. This was anathema to the father who shed
a few crocodile tears about death
of secularism and threatened to commit suicide in the typical Hindi
movie fashion. In a few days the lachrymal glands ran out of water,
the son of the soil was reunited with the grandson of the soil and politics
went on as usual with Gowda family enjoying the fruits of power to their
hearts content. When the 20 months were over and Yadiyurappa sorry Yaddyurappa
came demanding for his turn to sit on the Chief Minister’s chair,
it was denied to him. The excuse was that BJP was a communal party and
its coming to power would vitiate the communal harmony in the state.
This great discovery came of all of a sudden and that too when it was
time to hand over the reins of power! Anyway, that was the excuse made
for public consumption. The actual reason was that astrologers had forecast
that, it the power was not handed over then, Kumaraswamy would continue
to be the Chief Minister for the full term of the assembly!
The Gowda
family going by their implicit faith in astrology believed that and
started looking for excuses not to hand over power, the above mentioned
being some of them. Again, in the meanwhile they were busy conducting
yagas and yagnas to propitiate the gods to continue Kummi in the seat
of power. It was also foretold by their astrologers that Yaddi had no
planetary configurations that would keep him in power! When the question
of withdrawal of support and resignation from the Chief ministers post
came up, elections in the month of February were forecast and
as expected, a landslide victory for Janata Dal (S).
It was
not that Yaddi and co did not believe in astrology. The party which
he leads from has been a great proponent of this “science”. When
they were in power at the center, astrology was accorded the status
of a science and courses were intended to be started at many universities
in this subject. Special grants were promised for those universities
who fell into the trap of starting such. But, most of them declined
despite of these temptations. After the fall of the NDA govt. the issue
was soft pedaled and most of the proposals are now gathering dust. However,
it was a tragedy that the great scientist astrologers could not predict
the down fall of the govt. that had supported them. They could have
perhaps suggested ways and means to propitiate the planets and prevent
this. The sorriest part was that Murali Manohar Joshi, the Minister
for human resource development and one of the strongest supporters of
astrology came down to a miserable third place in the Lok Sabha elections
in his constituency. He would have taken all care to file his nomination
papers at the auspicious time and all that, but it did not help the
least with his electoral fortunes. Coming back to the point, Yaddi’s
favorite astrologer had predicted that he would certainly become the
chief minister. That was done by a top Nadi Jyotishi of Kodihalli who
is reputed to have made lots of predictions which had come true.
After
many flip flops what made the Gowda clan to lend support to BJP? That
too is due to superstitions. It was again an astrologer who told Gowdas
that after the many twists and turns, Kummi had in his planetary configurations
that he and his family would be in prison if they did not have power.
It was at this and after his failures to woo congress that he did another
U turn and promised to support BJP again! After that when it became
sure that they would come to power, supporters of Bharathiya Janatha
Party staged a demonstration in front of the residence of “Daivajna”(one
who has divine knowledge) Somayaji’s house for having predicted that
Yaddi would not become the chief minister.
Now, the
latest is that the Gowda clan has withdrawn the support to BJP and
Yaddi had to submit his resignation. Whose advice worked here? It is
difficult to say as the Gowda clan and the BJP parivar has the habit
of changing astrologers at the drop of a dhothi! Again we hear that
there is a proposal for a new combination. Yaddi announced at press
conference that Gowda and sons were trying to kill him by black magic
and he would file a complaint with the police about that. It would be
interesting to note how the police would react to this as there is no
law about that. Perhaps,these parties would do well to enact a law on
the lines of the Maharashtra draft of a bill on prevention of such practices.
That is
sordid tale of the two parties who wanted power at any cost. How about
the dramatis personae? On both sides there have been gangs of astrologers,
mantriks, tantriks,soothsayers, numerologists and others of their ilk.
The major ones are the above mentioned Daivajna Somayaji who promises
solutions for all problems. He is credited with many things including
have set right the faults at the Raichur Thermal Power Plant. It was
said that at this plant things were going wrong and units started shutting
down one after the other. When the engineers could not find any solutions,
they consulted the all knowing Somayaji who pointed out faults in the
Vastu of the plant. Once these were set right everything started working
perfectly and so the power problems of our state were set right not
by the technically qualified persons, but the astrologer/vastu consultant.
While he is one of the top contenders for the post of the court astrologer
of the Gowdas, there is one more going by the name of Sri Sri Sri Chandrashekar
Swami. He is another wheeler dealer hailing from a place called Kilpadi
near Mulki and the son of a local godman cum conjurer called Kilpadi
Govind Bhatta. Taking after his father, but surpassing him, Chandrashekar
is supposed to have provided Vastu consultancy to the new building of
the World Trade Center at New York, if the newspaper reports are to
be believed.
How about
the third alternative- the Congress? Are they any better is the question!
Prima
facie they appear to be better as they do not flaunt their beliefs in
such things openly. But, we all know how Indira Gandhi was under the
thumb of a so called Godman, Dhirendra Brahmachari and her court Tantrik
Sadachari. She was also flaunting Rudraksha malas, such things and visit
many holy places. Rajiv Gandhi despite his progressive image had gone
in search of many such. Last month, when I was in Gorakhpur, I was told
about his visit to a local godman called Deoraha Baba who used to lie
naked on a platform. He used to bless people by a kick from his foot.
Rajiv Gandhi had gone there and waited for his kick which never came.
However, Rajiv Gandhi got the desired kick from the electorate and lost
power soon after.
Sorry
is the fate of us Kannadigas whose fortunes are determined by the astrologers,
liquor barons, miners lobby, real estate thugs etc. Lucky indeed are
we to be governed by Gowda family unlimited, the Sangh Parivar and the blood
sucking leaches of the congress party!
|