Journal-8, The High Command !

 One hears a lot of high command these days. from all parties .

The Congress utters this mantra.

The BJP endorses it at crucial times.

The only exception is the communist party because they have their own vocabulary.

Even the homegrown JD-S flaunts this term.

Please permit me to trace its historicity!.

when Mysore state , now part of the enlarged karnataka, was ruled by a prince, the administration as well as the top leaders would meet the prince.

this was more like one way speech, the Royal personage asks, and the subordinate answers , mostly with a 'yes'.

that translates to "houdappa" , in kannada.

This hierarchical structure would scarce encourage dissent.

So the ones who disagreed had a hard time.

More, the British resident had to be humoured.

In fact Dewan Vivesvaraya refused to attend a durbar when he came to know that he had to be seated on the floor.

Amends were made later.

The presidency, in this case Madras was breathing down the neck of the administration all the time.

the obstacles put up for the present KRS  dam is a case in point.

the issue figured even in the House of Commons but Dr MV had his way.

In other areas , however, the state had a rough ride.

Permission for starting a university came much, much later, with the result areas which formed part of Madras and Bombay presidencies led  out  front in Medical, Legal and Engineering education.

Of course, the territory ruled by Hyderabad nizam fared much worse.

Even  now Kalyana Karnataka languishes in certain respects.

Kodagu , then called Coorg, fared slightly better because its sons  were  valiant and joined the armed forces . .

 It was a given that only Lingayats could adorn the chair of chief minister . That equation was thrown aside when Devaraj Urs helming the Congress-i occupied the chair more than once.

But this comes with a price.

As i said earlier the high command mantra.

Another interesting facet was that the top leaders, even favourites , could not make good on their own when they broke away from the parent.

Janata dal-S did have a chance but i feel its ambition to establish a dynasty of its own put  paid to the game.

There have been any number of lotuses sprouting from the muddy waters in Karnataka .

a discerning voter would know that local leaders do the bidding of the leadership with nary a protest.

Even on issues like language.

We do deserve something better, don't we ?

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