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Today, the perfect metaphor for Karnataka is its erstwhile chief minister, B S Yeddyurappa, a stalwart of the Lingayat community and a serial weeper. He has a gift for being able to spontaneously produce tears, unmatched by any Indian politician in recent memory. Over the years, he has broken down innumerable times, at rallies and on television, sobbing and railing at accusations levelled against him in the recent past. This has transformed him into something of a tragicomic character in the theatre of the absurd in Karnataka.
Yet, those shedding the real tears in the state are ostensibly its 52.8 million citizens who have witnessed some of the most brazen scams in recent memory. And, the central figure in a sea of corruption has been Yeddyurappa, accused of aiding the colossal pillaging of iron ore in Bellary and surrounding areas, as well as that of land in and around Bangalore. The party indicted in this orgy of corruption: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "The most surprising thing is the extent to which it has been blatantly corrupt. Karnataka has a long history of corruption, but few parties in power have been as casual about it," Narendra Pani, an economist at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, wrote recently.
Yet, through all of this, the state has recorded average gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7.82 per cent for the period between 2005-06 and 2012-13. Many of these years saw growth close to, or in excess of, 10 per cent. If not for 2009-10, when the state grew at a measly 1.29 per cent, ostensibly because the information technology sector was hit by the global slowdown, the growth could have been even greater. However, services, the engine of economic growth in Karnataka, accounting for about half the state's GDP (much like the country's), was still able to grow eight per cent.
Karnataka has two Achilles' heels: Manufacturing and water. Manufacturing, which represents 17 per cent of the economy and is anemic to begin with, fell four per cent in 2009-10. The state is also drought-prone. The fact that it managed to post growth of a few percentage points in 2012-13 during two consecutive years of drought seems nothing short of a miracle. This time, however, it was a visionary policy-some say the only one in a long time-that harnessed a GIS mapping system that enhanced use of micronutrients across farms. The effort, dubbed "Bhootchetna", is spearheaded by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and is the first of its kind in India. It was during Yedyurappa's reign.
Still, for a state that has one of the best infrastructure for higher education in the country, one of the world's largest information technology hubs and a city that many look to as the face of modern India, its performance has been decidedly underwhelming. Its average growth rate since 2004 is 8.31 per cent, well below that of Tamil Nadu (9.9 per cent), Maharashtra (9.8 per cent) and Gujarat (9.97 per cent). If that's not bad enough, Karnataka trails even the country's average GDP growth rate through the same period (8.33 per cent). Even Andhra, another drought-prone state, recorded 8.72 per cent growth, showing Karnataka, despite its IT hype, was a welterweight compared to its heavyweight neighbours.
But growth figures are often misleading. Gujarat's indicators on human development, as mapped out by United Nations Development Programme, has revealed that the state's uber-growth primarily benefits its business establishment and that its minorities, such as its 17 per cent tribal population, lag far behind. Is Karnataka any better? Apparently not. Critics say it has chronically ignored developing its arid northern and eastern regions, which represent about 60 per cent of its land mass. The district of Gulbarga, for example, gets water only once in thirteen days. Poverty and illiteracy levels have not come down as fast as they should have and women suffer the most, especially from anemia and pregnancy-related problems. "Our students come back and report conditions that haven't changed in a hundred years," says National Institute of Advanced Studies' Pani.
One possibility for this state of affairs is that much of the spending that goes on in the state has happened in and around Bangalore, its lifeblood. However, talk to any Bangalore resident, and he/she would scoff at this assumption. Mounds of garbage on the street corners of the most upmarket of localities abound. "Last year, things got so bad that the city's garbage mafia stopped picking up trash for two weeks and the city virtually drowned in refuse," says V Ravichandar, founder of Feedback Consulting and one of the brains behind City Connect, an initiative to enhance urban civic planning. Despite having what experts say is the best water management system in the country, the city is perennially on the verge of running out of it. "Bangalore receives consistent rainfall of 900 mm a year. There is zero reason for us to be in this situation," says Rohini Nilekani, founder of Arghyam, a non-government organisation focused on sustainable water solutions.
Can the corruption witnessed in Karnataka explain the atrophying of the city's infrastructure? Or even the state of neglect of the northern regions? Perhaps. Is it the product of a corrupt BJP membership? Will another party be able to bring in more responsible governance? These are not easy questions to answer, but seeing corruption in the context of history is increasingly becoming vital to figuring a future for the state.
