South Central 34 I Karnataka’s DKS-Siddaramaiah tussle and RSS hypocrisy on Preamble
In Episode 34 of South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran, Pooja Prasanna, and Leena Reghunath first discuss the tussle between DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah over the state’s Chief Minister-ship.
“The Congress in Karnataka is heavily dependent on DKS. If he moves away from the party, there is nobody with that kind of stature,” says special guest Professor Chandan Gowda. He adds that while DKS has so far focused on Bengaluru’s infrastructure and futuristic development, it remains to be seen if he can be associated with the state’s overall welfare requirements, as a leader.
Dhanya asks if Siddaramaiah will step down, whether the party also thinks this is due to DKS, like he himself seems to believe. “DKS has stayed extremely loyal to the Congress, and he brings a certain kind of heft to the party. The Congress must really think about what it will do in case DKS leaves the party over this tussle,” she says.
Pooja Prasanna, however, feels that the credit attributed to DKS may be slightly exaggerated, though she agrees that there should not be so much confusion in the matter if DKS was promised the CM-ship after two or three years of the government being in power.
In the second half of the conversation, the hosts delve into the hypocrisy of the RSS with activist Shivasundar. The General Secretary of the RSS recently questioned why the words ‘secular and socialist’ were added to the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.
“The RSS’s mouthpiece, Organiser, had, in 1949, rejected the Constitution, which it later took a u-turn from for political mileage. While we can discuss the political intentions of Indira Gandhi in introducing the 42nd Amendment, today, if we remove words like secular and socialist, it will mean we are alienating the marginalised,” says Pooja Prasanna.
Shivasundar says that the RSS’s claim is also a deeper ideological agenda to thwart the idea of a secular India as against the RSS’s idea of a Brahminical India. Leena Ragunath says that if the RSS feels that Indira’s emergency was terrible, yet feels comfortable with today’s undeclared emergency, two minutes of silence for them!
Tune in to this charged, pointed conversation.
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Audio Timecodes
00:00:00- Introduction
00:01:46- Announcements
00:03:31- Headlines
00:14:26 - Karnataka State Leadership
00:35:31- Preamble
01:13:08 - Letters
1:17:47 - Recommendations
References
Why Keeladi Is Shaking Up India’s History and Politics | LME 80
Video | ‘Too dark, too thin’: Women who died due to spousal body shaming
Article | 'Too dark, too thin': The women who died because of spousal body shaming
Why the leader replacing Yediyurappa means a lot for Karnataka politics and secularism
Why ‘Secular’ & ‘Socialist’ were omitted in Preamble | Let Me Explain | Ambedkar| Nehru| Modi
How Ambedkar’s vision challenges RSS Hindutva in Nagpur| Maharashtra election
Recommendations
Shivasundar
Ambedkar’s Last Speech in the Constituent Assembly
Chandan Gowda
Leena Reghunath
Pooja Prasanna
Dhanya Rajendran
The First Assault on Our Constitution
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Produced by Bhuvan Malik, edited by Vignesh Manickam.