http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2951101.eceOpinion » Op-Ed
March 2, 2012
There is an elephant in the room
Vidya Subrahmaniam
Two conflicting narratives, both built around the BSP, dominate the
Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
A government official in Lucknow says this of the 2012 Assembly
election in Uttar Pradesh: "This is an election where every party
thinks it is forming the government."
This election fairly bristles with paradoxes, starting with the fact
that two strongly opposing currents can be detected on the ground.
Travelling through the State, it is impossible to miss the contempt
for Mayawati who is denounced as a Chief Minister wedded to the
welfare of stone idols (a reference to the Maya statues dotting the
landscape), ignoring the living, teeming millions, and who cares, if
at all she does, only for her own biradari (community). But as
striking is the aggression on the other side with Dalit support for
"our behenji" reaching staggering levels. State government officials,
in fact, attribute the huge increase in voter turnout in the different
poll phases to the Mayawati government's war-like distribution of
voter identity cards to the BSP's potential voters.
'A wave for Mulayam'
Indeed, this is an election where the biggest and the most committed
crowds have been for the U.P. Chief Minister. Yet from east to west,
the common refrain is that there is a "leher" (wave) for Mulayam
Singh. In a further irony, those vouching for the return of the
"cycle" (the Samajawadi Party's symbol), seem equally willing to vote
sundry other parties, making the SP's struggle to get past the post
that much more difficult. This election has also seen Rahul Gandhi
produce the most dazzling fireworks — skewering and outshouting his
rivals, tearing up their manifestos and forcing himself into the
electorate's forgotten consciousness through sheer, dogged
persistence. But all this perhaps for the Gandhi heir only to learn
that while his effort might increase the Congress' share of votes and
seats, the party could still end up nudging the last spot. Voters
speak of him with affection, promising to give him his big break, not
in this "SP versus Bahujan Samaj Party" election, but in the next.
Then there is the contrasting image of Akhilesh Yadav. Very different
from the mutinous Gandhi junior, this affable son of the SP elder has
logged countless miles on his kranti rath, canvassing support for a
party which was booted out in 2007 for its lawlessness, but which he
promises has forsaken its goonish past for a clean, new start. This is
not all. Incredible as this might seem, the congenitally
over-optimistic Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been the underdog of
this election, running a campaign so deceptively and surprisingly
low-key that any improvement it shows — and show it will — must seem a
surprise.
BSP's journey
Political U.P. has changed unrecognisably in the five years since the
BSP swept into office in 2007. The Maya avalanche decimated rivals
even as it smashed the barriers of regions, castes and communities.
The party of Bahujan (or depressed people), which abhorred the forward
castes and built its foundation on muscular anti-manuwadi slogans,
mellowed and metamorphosed into a Sarvajan (or everyone) party
committed to the well-being and prosperity of every citizen regardless
of her social antecedents. Though the BSP forged a rainbow coalition
of castes, what amazed social observers was its new-found chemistry
with the forward castes. Consider this: each time the BJP aligned with
the BSP, it found its core forward caste support shrinking, presumably
because the Brahmins and the Thakurs were deeply inimical to the BSP.
Yet in a few years, these very castes would dump the BJP for a social
pact with the BSP, enabling the latter to form a majority government
for the first time in 16 years.
But only two years later, with the BSP down three percentage points in
the 2009 Lok Sabha election, the Sarvajan pact would start to come
apart. Today, little remains of the once magnificent alliance. If
anything the empathy has been replaced by a hostility that expresses
itself in malicious, intemperate language towards the BSP boss. From
impoverished rickshaw pullers and pavement shopkeepers in Lucknow in
Awadh to entire Brahmin villages in Gonda in the east to Muslim
clusters in Moradabad in the West, hardly anyone has a nice word to
say about the BSP or its supremo. And many of these are the same
people who had enthusiastically lined up behind the party in 2007.
The complaints are endless but some things crop up over and over. The
stone statues of Ms Mayawati and the acres of parks have become
eyesores — a metaphor for a regime that has been obsessively
self-centred. Farmers and Muslims seem particularly aggrieved. Farmers
argue that Ms Mayawati has no intrinsic understanding of kheti
(agriculture) unlike Mr. Mulayam Singh whom they celebrate as zameeni
(rooted) and therefore naturally inclined towards farming.
In Bakshi-ka-Talab on the outskirts of Lucknow city, lawyer Veerendra
Kumar Singh rages against Ms Mayawati, accusing her of betraying the
faith of all those, like his own family and friends, who had risen
above their caste affiliations to vote the BSP. "Farmers are in
distress because there is no electricity and fertilizer is selling in
the black. In Mulayam Singh's time, things were so much better.
Mulayam is a "kisan priya neta (loves farmers)."
An emotional people, Muslims rue the lack of warmth in the BSP's
government's approach to them. "We are harassed at the police
stations, there is nobody to hear us out and sometimes we feel we
don't exist for this government," says Mohammad Hanif, a shopkeeper in
the Chamraua Vidhan Sabha segment in the Muslim majority district of
Rampur. Adds noted Lucknow lawyer Zafrayab Jilani: "We tried to tell
Maya the advantage of supporting Muslims who would make an unbeatable
combination with the Dalits. But she was indifferent." Not
surprisingly, there is a longing for the Mulayam Singh regime among
Muslims. Whether this nostalgia will actually turn into votes for the
SP is difficult to tell given the number of players vying for the
Muslim vote, among them the Congress and the newly ascendant Peace
Party.
The SP's mellowed form has brought in support from other quarters. In
2007, Brahmins and Vaishyas (traders) had a single mission: To oust
the Mulayam regime which was seen as extortionist and lawless.
Shopkeepers claimed to live in fear of SP musclemen, and indeed, that
is why this BSP slogan resonated with the forward castes: "Chad
goondon ke chhati par mohar lagao haathi par (crush the chests of the
goondas and stamp on the elephant symbol)." Five years on, many of the
forward castes have returned to the BJP, some to the Congress, and a
fair section is surprisingly receptive to the SP.
At a dhaba in Ram Nagar in Barabanki, owner Shyam Sundar Shukla, a
Brahmin, is declaiming in favour of the SP, arguing that he erred in
voting the BSP in 2007. The local Vypar Mandal president, Shivram
Gupta, agrees with him. "I have no fear of the SP," he says,
disproving the popular theory that the trading classes can never
countenance the SP.
The logic and reason seemingly evident in the anti-BSP conversations
cannot obscure one fact, though. The Maya baiters are united by their
fear and dislike of what they see as a Dalit upsurge against the
status quo. In villages, as in cities, men complain of being hauled up
under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
Atrocities) Act, referring to Dalits, not as Dalits or even as
Harijans, but as "them." The Chief Minister "indulges them," and a
single (Dalit) household can "wreak terror" on an entire Brahmin
village.
Understandably, Ms Mayawati's core support is furiously consolidating
behind her, with a repartee ready for every barb thrown at "behenji."
Bring up the Maya statues, and Rajbir Singh, a Jatav resident of
Pagbada in West U.P. hits back: The Gandhi family can have samadhis
and name every institution after the clan, but Behenji cannot have her
murtis? If they build parks, it is khoobsoorat (beautiful), but if we
do the same, it is badsoorat (ugly). Why?"
vidyasu@thehindu.co.in
------------------------------------
----
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
ZESTCaste-digest@yahoogroups.com
ZESTCaste-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ZESTCaste-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
