In recent weeks, the newspapers in my home state, Karnataka, have carried numerous reports about the tussle of power between the state’s chief minister and its deputy chief minister. The latter’s acolytes claim that when the Congress regained power in May 2023, the party’s high command told Siddaramaiah to serve as chief minister for the first two-and-a-half years, whereupon DK Shivakumar would take over his job. The followers of Siddaramiah dispute this, saying that their man will stay in power for a full five years.

As that halfway mark approached, and the high command stayed silent, there were a series of breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings where each leader canvassed support for his case among local legislators, heads of caste bodies, etc.

This column goes beyond the leadership dispute to examine the performance of the Congress government in Karnataka as a whole. Let us first recall the months before the last assembly election. Then the news reports were dominated by issues such as hijab, halal, love jihad and the like. The Bharatiya Janata Party was in power in the state, and, as ever, sought to win re-election by stoking communal polarisation.

Its administrative performance had been underwhelming; knowing this, it hoped that by demonising the state’s Muslims, it would somehow recover enough ground among Hindus to win re-election.

As Muslims across India continue to protest the controversial hijab ban on female students in Karnataka, 19-year-old Muskan Khan is being hailed as a local hero after a video of her confronting a far-right Hindu mob went viral.

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Fortunately for Karnataka, this strategy failed. The Congress won the election by a substantial majority, and Siddaramaiah was sworn in as chief minister. One undeniable feature of his government’s term in office has been a significant lowering of the communal temperature. The state has a large population of Muslims (roughly 13% of the total), as well as a not insignificant number of Christians, and both these communities have, without question, felt more secure since May 2023 than they had been in the months and years prior to that.

The Congress was propelled to power in Karnataka by, among other things, its promise of five guarantees: free bus travel to women and girls, cash transfers to women-headed households, additional foodgrains and 200 units of free electricity to each household and, finally, a stipend to educated but unemployed youth. Though no full-scale scholarly studies of these schemes have been carried out yet, reports by........

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