Yaddi Vs. Gowdas - Battle of astrologers!
Narendra Nayak*
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 Karnatakathat 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 astrologerKoppa 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 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 hi 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 accorder 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 for 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 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 of 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!
*Dr. Narendra Nayak is the national president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations.
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