Pratap Simha's path to power paved with provocation

Pratap Simha is the only Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Karnataka whose political foundation is based entirely on his writings in support of Hindutva and Narendra Modi. The Member of Parliament from Mysuru, who was recently on the national radar after issuing passes to the two Parliament intruders, was one of earliest journalists to openly support Modi in the mid-2000s. He wrote reams in defence of the then Gujarat CM, calling him a sacrificial goat of the Gujarat riots. The key moment in Simha's political journey was the release of his 2008 Kannada book, Narendra Modi: Yaaru Thuliyada Haadi (The Untrodden Road). The book became so popular that during the BJP's national executive meeting in 2008 in Bengaluru, Narendra Modi apparently insisted on Simha's presence for an exclusive interview..Simha's early foray into journalism at Vijaya Karnataka, owned by Vijay Sankeshwar of the VRL group, set the foundation for his career as a Hindutva proponent. Joining the Kannada-language newspaper in 1999 as a trainee reporter, he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming an editor under the guidance of Vishweshwar Bhat, an influential newsroom manager with extreme Hindutva views. Writing under the column Bettale Jagattu (The Naked World), he championed Hindutva views while vehemently criticising those who opposed it. Those were the days when the BJP was still a regional party in Karnataka, restricted to a few pockets along the coastal and northern districts. The positions he took at the time on Muslims and other marginalised groups are today part of the mainstream Hindutva discourse, easily amplified and endorsed in a range of big media platforms. But when he started writing on these subjects, it was new rhetoric. It triggered shock and awe in equal measure in the Kannada speaking world and created sharp divisions. Simha was a beneficiary of the boom in online political discussions as well as a significant contributor to the creation of the Sangh’s army of social media sympathisers in Karnataka. He had legions of followers online when other political formations were still discovering things like chat rooms, Orkut, Reddit and Facebook.When Bhat quit to work at Kannada Prabha, Simha followed him into the daily, which was promoted by the New Indian Express group, and partly owned at the time by BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter Capital Pvt. Ltd. During those days he would have heated exchanges with the left oriented Kannada journalists and activists. They didn't just take each other on in their essays but also took it to social media where Simha’s followers gave progressive writers the first taste of online trolling. .Contrary to the notion that Simha's electoral opportunity solely hinged on his proximity to editor Vishveshwar Bhat, critics argue that his journey was a result of his provocative columns. “Simha's pen was not just mightier than the sword; it was a weapon of ideological warfare," a senior Kannada journalist told TNM. Simha's stardom increased with the release of his book Mining Mafia: Ivaryaaru Gottenu, Ivara Kathe Helaleenu (Mining Mafia: Do you know who they are? Shall I tell you their story?) in 2010. He managed to burnish his reputation as a hindutva thinker and not a party lackey in this book by exposing the Reddy brothers of Ballari whose money went a long way in bankrolling the BJP’s first successful push for power in 2008. The timing coincided with Yediyurappa leaving the BJP to start his own party, Karnataka Janata Party, in 2012.In 2011, Pratap Simha received the Kannada Rajyotsava award when DV Sadananda Gowda replaced a scam-tainted Yediyurappa as the Chief Minister. In August 2012, news broke that Pratap Simha was the target of an alleged terrorist plot targeting right-wing personalities in the state. Eleven individuals, including a Deccan Herald journalist Muthi-ur Rahman Siddiqui, were arrested on charges of plotting to kill Simha. The arrests were carried out through police surveillance, and six months later, all the accused were released due to the lack of substantiating evidence. But by then Simha had already established himself as a 'victim’. There were several investigative reports at the time showing how the terror suspects, particularly Rahman, had been framed on the basis of false and flimsy grounds.Like Simha, Modi too has consistently portrayed himself as a target of conspiracies and assassination attempts. The most recent is the Bhima Koregaon case where 16 activists were accused of plotting to assassinate the PM. Both Simha and Modi utilised these narratives to create waves of sympathy, portraying themselves as individuals facing adversities for their political beliefs. .On April 14, 2014, just when the final lists of candidates were being drawn up for the Lok Sabha polls, Simha quit his job at Kannada Prabha and joined the BJP. “I decided to plunge head-first into politics. If changing the system is the cry of the hour, why not be an agent of that change? In February, I wrote to Team Modi indicating my desire. I wanted a ticket for the Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency, because my family has deep connections there and my columns are very popular. But a combination of factors, including the reluctance of some party bigwigs, resulted in my getting Mysore,” Simha had written in an Outlook article.Hailing from the dominant Vokkaliga community, Simha is known as one of the most polarising elected representatives in the region of Old Mysore, which is known for its multiculturalism. His first electoral foray received a big boost when his rival candidate from the Congress, H Vishwanath, made disparaging remarks about the Vokkaligas. Simha used Vishwanath’s statements as a rallying cry for Vokkaliga unity. “When counting day dawned, I had a lead over him (Vishwanath) in every round of counting, eventually getting over five lakh votes, the first time it’s happened in Mysuru for any candidate. In 33 days, I had gone from columnist to parliamentarian,” Simha had boasted. He also became the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Youth Wing. Simha's victory in his second term in 2019 is credited to the Modi wave rather than his individual achievements, which is the case for many BJP MPs. Prior to the 2019 parliamentary elections, Simha secured an ex-parte injunction against media organisations from a Bengaluru court. He had told the court that he feared that an audio of defamatory nature involving a woman could be used against him. A history of controversiesSimha's political career has been rife with controversies, from inflammatory statements against historical figures, such as Tipu Sultan, to facing charges of overspeeding and causing injury to a police officer.In 2015, Simha inflamed Hindutva passions with his book Tipu Sultan: Swatantra Veerana? (Tipu Sultan: Is he a freedom fighter?) during the political campaign against the 18th-century ruler of Mysore. Each intervention in his political journey provided ammunition to Hindutva workers who used half-truths from his books to campaign for their ism. He vehemently opposed the Karnataka Congress government's decision to celebrate Tipu Sultan's birthday, contending that Tipu Sultan could only serve as a role model for Islamists.In December 2017, Simha was booked for overspeeding, breaching barricades, and causing injury to an additional superintendent of police who attempted to halt his speeding vehicle during a Hanuman Jayanti procession. The cases against him were withdrawn by the Yediyurappa-led government in September 2020. In 2017, Pratap Simha appeared in a viral video where he claimed that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had instructed the BJP’s youth wing to take out violent protests against the Congress government.Simha was heard saying in the video: “Amit Shah has inquired about how many protests Yuva Morcha workers have staged. He has said intense agitations should be held. He has asked if the protests had led to firing of teargas or lathicharge by police. When I said we have not had such protests, he (Shah) said we should hold protests with intensity. We promised we will conduct such protests in future.” This caused an embarrassment to BJP with Yediyurappa claiming that Simha had misunderstood Shah’s directions. “Amit Shah only directed party members to take up public issues strongly and stage protests,” Yediyurappa had said. Simha later dismissed the video as a ‘cut-and-paste’ job, claiming that some political parties and media outlets had used a small portion of the video, editing it to mislead the public.There was also a Facebook page – ‘Pratap Simha for CM’ – at a time when the BJP had officially declared its then State president BS Yediyurappa as its CM candidate. There were pictures that idolised him in a tough stance, with fan comments varying from ‘Hindu tiger’ to ‘Simha Garjane (roar of the lion)’.In 2019, Simha publicly apologised to actor turned activist Prakash Raj for making what he later acknowledged as "derogatory" and "unwarranted" remarks against him on social media. Simha had used the death of the actor’s son to attack him for his criticism of PM Modi. Prakash Raj’s five-year-old son died in 2004 in a kite accident. In a tweet, Simha had written in Kannada: “Being sad due to your son’s death, having left your wife and you ran behind a dancer...do you, Mr Raj, have any right, legitimacy or worthiness to say anything to Yogi-Modi [Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi]?” The tweet came a day after Prakash Raj criticised Modi and Adityanath for their silence on journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder and for following Twitter users who had expressed joy over her death.February 2022 brought Simha into the spotlight again during the ban on hijab imposed by the Karnataka government in government schools. During this episode, he remarked that those who wanted to wear the headscarf should "go to Pakistan."Simha's penchant for making anti-minority statements was on display again in 2022 when he took issue with dome-shaped bus stations in Mysuru. Threatening to demolish them due to what he perceived as a "mosque-like shape", he said, "I have seen gumbaz-like structures in bus shelters, one big gumbaz in the middle and two small on both sides of it. It is nothing but a masjid (mosque). The engineers have to remove these types of shelters. Otherwise, I'll bring JCB and bring them down." Historians and architects later exposed his claim and said that the bus top was modelled around the Mysore palace, constructed in the architectural style that combines Indo-Saracenic and Dravidian elements. The domes were demolished by the city corporation in November 2022 after the National Highways Association of India (NHAI) wrote to the civic body that the structures threatened communal harmony in the region..Critics argue that Simha's association with controversy is not merely coincidental but a pattern of behaviour inspired by the politics of hatred. As one senior journalist puts it, "Simha's political journey is a tapestry of divisive rhetoric, questionable decisions, and a persistent refusal to be held accountable for his actions. His anti-minority writings and politics of hate is what made him a politician, and he knows that these controversies are what will keep him in the news cycle.”