Karnataka had its 15th assembly election in May - a much discussed election

While the media followed the election closely, the "exceptionalism" of Karnataka politics was not noted by any observer. So what makes Karnataka exceptional in the context of Indian politics?

Let's take a closer look at the results in 2018 -

The two national parties - BJP and INC accounted for 74.2% of the votes! This makes Karnataka a battleground for the national parties, unlike any of the other southern states.

To put things in perspective -

In Tamil Nadu, the two national parties accounted for 9.26% of the votes in the 2016 assembly elections.

In AP in 2014, BJP+Cong got 14.8% of the votes polled
In Kerala in 2016, the two parties polled 34.4% of the votes.

That makes Karnataka's 74% truly exceptional in the context of South Indian politics.

Nor is this a recent phenomenon - the two national parties between them have always polled well over 40% (in most cases 50%+) votes in every assembly election held in Karnataka between 1952 and 2018!

This is worth remarking given that Karnataka is a South Indian state that speaks a "Dravidian" language and has a distinct regional political history of its own going back nearly two millennia from the Kadambas and Gangas right down to the Wodeyars in the 20th century.

Despite its distinctiveness as a cultural and political bloc for much of Indian history, Karnataka, has post independence, resisted regionalization of its polity

The complete failure of Dravidian politics and the consistent success of the national parties in Karnataka has to be one of the most remarkable conundrums in Indian political history.

But that's not the only thing worth remarking about Karnataka politics. The other exceptional feature of this state is that it remains in many ways the last stronghold of @INCIndia - a state where the Grand Old Party has enjoyed more success than perhaps in any other major state

In fact in the 66 years since 1952, the Indian national Congress has enjoyed power in Karnataka for close to 50 of those years! With brief interludes being 1983 to 1989, 94 to 99, and again 2006 to 2013.

The dominance of Congress in Karnataka hardly has another parallel in a similarly large state - not even in states with bipolar polity - like Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP, where Congress remains a force, but has not been as consistently dominant as in Karnataka throughout history.

In fact in the 15 elections since '52, Congress vote share has dropped below 30% on just one occasion- in 1994, when HDD Gowda brought the Janata Dal to power.

Till 1994, Congress vote share never fell below 40% in any election! Not even in the 80s when it sat in the opposition

The other exceptional feature of Karnataka has been its hospitability to right wing politics - it was one of the earliest states to provide the BJP some serious encouragement. Very few states responded to the Ayodhya movement as viscerally as Karnataka did.

Between 1989 and 1994, the BJP increased its vote share in Karnataka from 4.1% to 17% - an enormous increase. While BJP's remarkable show in 1994 may have fetched it only 40 seats, this was a remarkable rise of a party for which it is hard to find a parallel.

But it would be inappropriate to trace back the rise of BJP in Karnataka to the Ayodhya movement per se.

A climate of opinion favorable to conservative Hindu politics has always existed in Karnataka right from the 50s.

The Bharatiya Jan Sangh contested its first election in Mysore state in 1957. Even in that early year, BJS got 1.3% of all votes in the state!

In 1962 that vote share was 2.3% and in 1967 2.8%. This suggests a significant presence of the Sangh in the state from its incipience

When the newly constituted Bharatiya Janata Party fought one of its first elections in Karnataka, in 1983, it got a whopping 7.9% of the vote in the state!

This was actually higher than the 7.7% that BJP got nationally in the general elections in 1984!

So the point to be noted here is that BJP is not a force that emerged out of nowhere in Karnataka in mid-2000s under Yediyurappa's stewardship.

A culture amenable to right wing politics has always existed in the state. Its rise merely got accentuated by the Ayodhya movement

In fact back in the 60s, Mysore was also one of the states where the other conservative party - "Swatantra" enjoyed some success

In 1962, barely 3 years into its founding, Swatantra polled over 7% in the state. So Jan Sangh and Swatantra together accounted for 10% of all votes!

So we have discussed three remarkable features of Karnataka politics -
a) The failure of Dravidian politics to take root
b) The dominance of INC throughout the state's history
c) The state's hospitability to right wing parties and its incredible response to the Ayodhya movement

But what makes Karnataka special?

Why has the state bucked the trend in its neighboring states towards greater regionalism?

Why has the state stood by the Congress for as long as it has?

And why has BJP succeeded in Karnataka while failing miserably in rest of the south?

These are questions that are difficult to answer conclusively.

Karnataka is very much a part of the Dravidian southern bloc, in lingual terms.
It is a state that has had a distinctive regional political culture going back atleast 1500 years

Yet it has proved to be different

One of the reasons for this lies probably in the lingual diversity of the state which has prevented language based fundamentalism from emerging, notwithstanding the dominance of Kannada as the lingua franca in the state.

As per a recent census, Kannada is the mother tongue for only about 74% of the state's inhabitants. Other mother tongues include - Urdu (9.7%), Telugu (6.3%), Tamil (5.5%), Marathi (4%), Tulu (3.4%), Hindi (1.9%), Konkani (1.8%).

An incredibly diverse state.

This is in sharp contrast to say Tamil Nadu, where Tamil is spoken by 88% of the population and AP where Telugu is the language of 84%. In Kerala, Malayalam is spoken by 97% of the state's inhabitants!

The other aspect of Karnataka that makes it different from other states is the enormous regional diversity both in landscape and culture.

While South Interior Karnataka (often dubbed "Old Mysore") remains the heartland of the state with a very dominant Kannada culture, this is less true for other parts of the state.

The coastal areas have considerable Tulu, Konkan, Malayali minority presence.
The north western part is usually dubbed "Bombay Karnataka" with very significant influence of Marathi culture. While the North Eastern portion is an arid desert with significant Telugu minority.

In fact, the town of Dharwad in north west Karnataka is regarded as the capital of Hindustani music (the north indian variant of Indian classical music). It is regarded as a town where north meets south! Probably emblematic of the state's complex cosmopolitanism.

The other distinctive aspect of Karnataka is the incredible cosmopolitanism of its capital city - Bangalore, where the politics is centered.

Bangalore by most accounts has less than 50% Kannada speakers. This is in sharp contrast to Chennai where Tamil is spoken by close to 80%

The multi lingual character of Bangalore isn't new fangled. The city atleast 50% non-Kannadiga even back in the 1940s-50s in its early years as the state's capital, long before its emergence as a PSU and later IT hub.

The other interesting characteristic of Karnataka is its social structure and culture. The two dominant castes are Vokkaligas and Lingayats which between them account for nearly 35-40% of the population. The Brahmins number around 2-3%, but higher than other southern states

Unlike the Madras Presidency, a culture of Anti-brahminism never developed in Karnataka to the same extent. This is probably because the brahmins in Karnataka had historically succeeded better in sanskritizing language and culture than brahmins in TN, Kerala or AP

The Kannada language is easily the most sanskritized of all the four southern languages (though some Malayalis may object). More importantly there is no gulf in the language spoken by different castes. The Kannada of a brahmin is no different from the Kannada of a Lingayat

This is in sharp contrast to say TN, where to this day, there is a gulf in the language across castes. Brahmin tamil remains a distinctive Tamil dialect. The Tamil brahmins were simply put, less successful, in sanskritizing the language of the masses than the Kannada brahmins.

Similar observations can be made in terms of general culture. Karnataka is home to one of the highest rates of vegetarianism outside of North India. Over 20% of the population is vegetarian, unlike the rates of 2-4% in the states of TN, AP and Kerala.

While in the other 3 southern states, vegetarianism remains a mark of "brahmin culture", in Karnataka, vegetarianism is mass culture to a significant extent.

The other reason for the lack of the development of a "Dravidian" culture in Karnataka is the strong conflict between the two dominant groups - Vokkaliga and Lingayat, in just about every respect.

The Vokkaligas are largely inhabitants of "Old Mysore". While Lingayats are dominant in northern Karnataka. So there is a geographical distinction

Lingayats are vegetarians and teetotallers. Vokkaligas are not.
There are major religious differences as well between the two groups

So there never has been a "Dravidian" consolidation in Karnataka, given the diversity that is inherent to the state and the healthy rivalry between the two dominant upper caste groups

These are some of the important reasons why Karnataka remains unique, and so is its politics! Feel free to chip in with more thoughts!

A truly unique state with a particularly distinctive political, social and lingual culture!

PS : A correction on the mother tongue break-up in Karnataka (as per 2001 census). The figures cited earlier weren't adding up -

Kannada: 66.3%, Urdu: 10.5%, Telugu:7%, Tamil:3.6%, Marathi:3.6%, Tulu:3%, Hindi:2.6%, Konkani:1.5%, Malayalam:1.3%, Kodava:0.3%