In Other Words | HD Kumaraswamy and the art of coalition navarasas

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka cheif minister HD Kumaraswamy

Viju Cherian

What is the toughest job in India? It’s hard to put a finger on it, because every job comes with its challenges. If you ask me, I’d say, at present, the toughest job in India belongs to Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy.

After the May 2018 Karnataka assembly elections, no political party won a majority in the 224-member House. With 104 seats the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the single-largest party — but the Congress (78 seats) extended unconditional support to Kumaraswamy’s Janata Dal (Secular), which had 37 seats, and formed a government. Kumaraswamy was chosen Chief Minister, but little did he know that heading a coalition government, in a House in which his party (the JD(S)) had less than one-fifth of the strength, comes with its challenges. In the eight months since then he has at least twice offered to quit. Evidently, running coalition governments is a thankless job.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee coined the term ‘coalition dharma’ to suggest the broad principles of treating a coalition of political parties. His successor Manmohan Singh showed us the helplessness of ‘coalition compulsions’. Kumaraswamy’s contribution to the lexicon of Indian politics could be ‘coalition navarasas’.

Kumaraswamy has confessed that he is a very “emotional person” — at the same time he has also acknowledged that his emotional swings will win him the sympathy of the people. In these eight months since May 2018, he has showed various expressions of the mind: anger, laughter, disgust, sorrow, etc.

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In July 2018, a few weeks after assuming power, Kumaraswamy broke down at a JD(S) event saying: "You are standing with bouquets to wish me, as one of your brothers has become the chief minister, and you all are happy, but I'm not. I know the pain of running a coalition government. I became like Lord Vishkanth and swallowed the pain of this government.”

In November 2018, he showed his anger towards the media when he said that he would restrict his interactions with the media “to what I speak from the stage”. He blamed the media of misinterpreting his words.

A month prior to that an angry Kumaraswamy warned the BJP against attacking his family members while targeting his government. In December, he showed his menacing side while instructing on the phone to kill the assailants of a JD(S) worker “mercilessly in a shootout”.

At the time of writing this, news reports suggest that Kumaraswamy is a man at peace. Dismissing reports about his government’s instability, on February 4 he said that all Congress MLAs were happy with him.

The JD(S) leader has not completed the set of emotions in the navarasas but, hey, he’s got four years left for that.

The jury is out whether history will highlight HD Kumaraswamy’s political contribution to India — that said, Kumaraswamy’s significant contribution to the Indian political theatre cannot be overlooked. It is doubtful whether India has seen a Chief Minister who has emoted so much in such a short span of time.

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