Aditi Phadnis / New Delhi April 19, 2008
The results of 5 by-elections in UP make it clear that only Mayawati counts here.
Apologies if this is blindingly obvious to everyone, but the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is here to stay. If any proof was needed, the results of the UP by-elections declared earlier this week provide it. The BSP won all five — two Lok Sabha and three Assembly seats — wresting two from sitting incumbents. The Azamgarh and Khalilabad Lok Sabha seats were both held by it earlier. The Colonelganj Assembly seat was earlier held by the Congress. The BSP has won it this time. Murad Nagar was held by an Independent. The BSP has won that as well.
But what should worry both LK Advani and Sonia Gandhi is that in as many as four seats, the Congress and BJP candidates have lost their security deposits. This means in four seats, they were not even able to poll one-sixth of the total votes polled. In Muradnagar, this fate befell the Samajwadi Party (SP) nominee.
Although as a measure of abundant caution, the Congress chief in the state, Rita Bahuguna, had said before the election that she did not view it as a referendum of Congress popularity, the fact is that it must have come as quite a blow. The BJP wasn’t even talking of losing, so in that sense, it ends up looking even sillier than the Congress.
Basically, the by-elections tell us that in UP now, the number one and number two slots are occupied by the BSP and SP. The two biggest national parties, the Congress and the BJP, are so out of the reckoning, they can be ignored. They have become irrelevant to the politics of the state.
How has this come about? The seeds of the destruction of the Congress and the BJP lie in the immediate past, the Vidhan Sabha elections last year that brought Mayawati to power in UP.
If the SP improved its vote share by a miniscule percentage-share (0.8 per cent), Mayawati won essentially because of the annihilation of the BJP’s share of the vote. The upper castes willingly and enthusiastically joined her project of a “sarvajan samaj” (universal society), so traumatised they were from the law and order deterioration in UP and their targeting by the Yadavs.
Basically the upper castes decided they would vote for anyone who could end Mulayam Singh Yadav’s rule. He, in turn, got the reputation of an inefficient law-keeper because he packed the police force with his own caste, something Mayawati is now attempting to dismantle.
This set of by-elections was the first test of the loyalties of the upper castes: were they going to stick with Mayawati or return to the BJP ? The result is crystal clear — the upper castes have still not got over their heeby-jeebies at the prospect of the return of Mulayam Singh Yadav and will go with anyone who can defeat him, not unlike the Muslims who were in the grips of the same sort of thinking — their vote was available to anyone who could defeat the BJP.
For the upper castes in UP, neither the SP nor the Congress is capable of keeping Yadav at bay. Therefore, the same alliance that worked as a formula for Congress victory for years — upper castes-cum-Dalits — is now being leveraged by Mayawati. In her tenure as CM, she hasn’t put one foot wrong. She has, in fact, talked of economic backwardness as the criterion for reservation, not caste, something that can only come from deep-rooted confidence that her own community won’t see this as a sellout.
What does this mean in terms of UP’s regional politics? In the Vidhan Sabha elections, the biggest chunk of Mayawati’s vote came from western UP, the home of the vocal Jats but also of militant Jatavs (untouchables) and outspoken Muslims. With the Muslims already batting for her and voting along with Jatavs, the unity of the upper castes and Jats has no meaning. If anything, farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait’s anti-Dalit statements in a public rally, have consolidating the lower castes against the Jats. Anyone who consorts with the Jats has a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting the Dalit vote now.
True, no by-election was held in western UP this time. But Jats are anti-Congress by temperament and the BJP needed Tikait’s call for caste assertion at this point like a hole in the head. Because while Jat consolidation is a political blessing, its backlash represents the consolidation of anti-Jat forces, a development that can only bolster Mayawati’s chances.
Besides, so long as Ajit Singh was in alliance with the BJP, it was he who mopped up the Jat vote for it. Now he’s out and the BJP is neither getting the Jat vote in western UP nor the anti-Jat vote.
What this points to is obvious: in the Lok Sabha election, while the BSP and SP will fight for number one and two place, the Congress and BJP will vie for number three and four, a cheerless prospect from the point of view of government formation after the next Lok Sabha elections.
There is another factor that has begun to have a role in UP: personality factor. Today, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav have pledged to give their all to UP. But can you think of a single person in the Congress or BJP who has said: “I am dismayed at the way UP is being governed and I’m going to make UP my karmabhumi (centre). I don’t want a role in central politics, I’m renouncing that and am going to focus on making UP a better place to live in?”
Not one. Not Rahul Gandhi, not Murli Manohar Joshi, not LK Advani. So the UP vote naturally thinks, “Well, if we’re not good enough for you, then you’re not good enough for us”. And with 40 Lok Sabha seats out of 80 (or thereabouts) under her belt, it is Mayawati who will be among those to decide who President Pratibha Patil swears in as Prime Minister of India
Friday, April 18, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
First of all thanks for such an elaborate and comprehensive review of caste politics at play in UP. That caste politics are a reality in India should not come as a surprise to even the outsiders who know the fragmentation of hindu society on the basis of multitude of castes.
However, it also doesn't require much intelligence to observe that such caste equations often impedes the growth of society and diverts public attention from real, effective and practical matters that can ameliorate the condition of depressed sections of society.
Shudras have long been at the receiving end of hindu society since historic times. They have offered their manual labour only to receive indignities from upper caste hindus in return. The coming of power to this section of society heralded great prospects and hope among this deprived group of people. But, as would be noted, these hopes have been incapacitated on the guillotine of caste politics. So the new rule of these leaders saw favoritism towards their own community, abhorrence for upper castes and most of the government posts soon came to be filled by this community. So, the rulers changed but the principle of favoritism never did & we didn't move an inch ahead in terms of social equity. And these shudra stayed true to being politicians but didn't show their mettle as leaders. I would also argue that fanning people's emotions on the basis of caste resulted in the complete disregard to development works like water, electricity, industry, law and order and administrative negligence towards common populace. Hard to see, the state of Bihar is not a very developed state and UP, though better, still cannot be tagged along the lines of Kerela, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana.
Almost the same game is now played by Ms. Mayawati. She understands the caste equations in rural UP and has engineered majority of votes along the same caste lines. She is now indeed a powerful person in national politics and UP supremo. The question is - Should we expect that she will do the same that Yadav politicians have done for their own community and the state at large or she will move ahead of casts politics, provide effective help to dalits to rise the social ladder, provide for the development means to UP to be shared commonly by all the sections of society ?
Post a Comment