BY Dhirendra K. Jha | 16 January 2010
Crumbling Yadav Bastion
Amar Singh's troubles are only a sign that a caste group long used to
power is now finding itself short of options.
Nearly everyone in Guvar village agrees that the Samajwadi Party (SP)
is the sole political outfit worthy of their vote. But it is proving
hard for them to come to terms with the possibility that the party may
never return to power in their state.
"Reason? Muslims, what else?" replies Samarath Singh Yadav, the
sarpanch of the Yadav-dominated village in Kanpur Dehat district of
Uttar Pradesh, as he instructs other villagers to maintain silence.
"Muslims take both their religion and politics seriously," he goes on,
"Mulayam Singh Yadav has annoyed them, and so they have dumped him.
Without Muslims, he has no chance." Samarath, however, falls silent on
whether he would continue to support the SP even if Mulayam's party
fails to remain in the reckoning of UP politics. It's an inner
conflict that troubles many voters who identify themselves with the
Yadav caste, which was on the ascendant all through the 1990s, until
recently.
Ramsnehi Yadav, a resident of nearby Goriratan-Bangar village,
explains the predicament—after nearly two decades, many of the
region's Yadavs feel left at a loose end, with a sudden loss of
political heft backing them. Muslim voters drifting away from the SP,
as recent electoral results suggest, would mean that regaining this
power would be tough. But the SP is still their party. "Other parties
do not count Yadavs, whether it is the Congress or BSP (Bahujan Samaj
Party). That's why thinking of any other party is impossible. It's a
question of dignity," he says.
CRACKS IN THE FORMULA
To the extent that Yadavs represent a vote base, it is in flux not
just in UP but across a much wider region. Specifically, in
neighbouring Bihar as well. If in UP they have by and large backed
Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP, in Bihar they have rallied in support of
Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which also relied heavily on
the additional support of Muslim voters. With intense political
fragmentation, most electoral fights have been three- or four-cornered
ones, which meant that winning just about a third of the votes was
enough to win Assembly seats. Together, Yadav and Muslim voters could
deliver that. But alone, Yadav voters would not be able to. They
account for only a tenth of the two states' electorate. Hence, the
worry of marginalisation.
There has been a fallout at the top level of the SP already, in the
shape of a leadership crisis. The recent resignation of Amar Singh as
SP general secretary can be traced to a bitter duel he has had with
another general secretary, Ramgopal Yadav, a relative of Mulayam.With
word out that Muslim support for Mulayam cannot be taken for granted
any further, even plenty of Yadav voters have started looking farther
afield for other options. For the first time after two decades, their
vote could be up for grabs. "A community that once tastes political
power always opts for bigger alternatives," says Ashok Yadav, an
independent MLA from Yadav-dominated Shikohabad in Ferozabad district.
He admits, however, that "at the moment, Yadavs do not really have a
clear-cut view of an alternative".
The crumbling of Mandal politics—that guided the political destiny of
North India for two decades by building a social coalition based on
the bedrock of Muslim-Yadav unity—has meant political dethronement of
Yadavs. A visible shift of Muslims away from Mandal forces—primarily
the SP in UP and RJD in Bihar—has left Yadavs in the lurch. With the
prospect of Muslims no longer voting in tandem, Yadavs, who account
for merely around 10 per cent of the population in the two states, are
faced with a situation where on their own they can make SP or RJD
candidates win only in a handful of constituencies. In most other
constituencies, they would simply be wasting their votes if they
continue with their old political line as Mulayam and Lalu have only
shown depletion in their base with no sign of any other social group
getting attracted to them. It is this situation that has left the
erstwhile wielders of political power in the cow-belt at the
crossroads.
Sure, there is the question of political dignity, which still weighs
heavily on the minds of many Yadav voters. Yet, in many areas—and this
includes Ferozabad-Etawah-Mainpuri which is considered the Yadav belt
in UP—this question has started getting obscured by the eruption of
intra-caste differences, stoked by a combination of grievances of
those who gained little in material terms from the Yadav dominance of
politics, and those who prospered from patronage but have no clue how
to retain their newfound privileges. Says Kailash Yadav, principal of
Gyanasthali Senior Secondary School at Etawah, "Mulayam and most top
Yadav leaders of his party belong to the Kamaria subcaste of Yadavs.
It is this subcaste that received most of the benefits from Mulayam's
rise to power. The other subcaste of Yadavs, Ghosi, got nothing—
despite the fact that Ghosis, who account for nearly two-thirds of the
Yadav population in central districts of UP (the SP bastion), have
been supporting the party wholeheartedly for two decades."
Ghosis, who have traditionally been relatively better off among
Yadavs, claim to have led Yadav caste assertion in the state. It was
Ghosi leaders, they say, who led the caste's social awakening in the
early 20th century, giving them the consciousness that has helped
their emergence on the political stage. The first Yadav upsurge, they
point out, began as early as 1912 when a Yadav Mahasabha was organised
at Brahmawar-Lajpur village in Shikohabad at the behest of Ghosi
social leaders. "Choudhary Amir Singh of this village presided over
the Mahasabha… [which] resolved that the Ahirs (another term for
Yadavs) have Kshatriya lineage. It formed a committee of four members
with a specific objective to establish an educational institution for
Ahirs. It was because of the work of this committee that an Ahir
Kshatriya School was set up at Shikohabad in 1916, which was later
promoted into Ahir Kshatriya Degree College. All these early Yadav
leaders were Ghosis," says 89-year-old Narottam Singh Yadav, a retired
school teacher of Brahmawar-Lajpur village. Though born later, in
1921, he says that he remembers his father telling him "how the
leaders had emphasised the necessity of education to break the
upper-caste supremacy". As a mark of protest, local Ahirs even began
wearing the sacred thread that was supposed to be the sole privilege
of Brahmins.
This revolutionary fervour, in Narottam's telling, is what laid the
ground for the Lohia brand of politics that was to come in the 1960s
and 1970s, a subaltern assertion on which Mulayam and his fellow
Samajwadis rose to political prominence. And yet, it is on this very
turf that the SP has faltered. Narottam credits Mulayam for taking up
the Yadav cause and for some development work, but attacks the SP's
politics for destroying the education system that had once formed the
basis for the Yadav upsurge a century ago. "Although Mulayam did a lot
for us and the area, we are not happy with him. He ruined the
education and spread corruption. Not all Yadavs are with him now," he
says.
OLD NEMESIS CALLED ALIENATION
Mulayam cannot dismiss what he owes the Ahir Kshatriya Degree College,
renamed Adarsh Krishna Degree College in 1967 (by the then CM Charan
Singh). "At the height of the Sangh Parivar's Ram Janmabhoomi
agitation, Mulayam Singh Yadav held a public meeting in the ground of
this college in 1991 and assured Muslims that 'Babri Masjid par koi
parinda parr nahin maar payega' (Nobody will be able to touch the
Babri Masjid)." It was this statement that changed UP politics and
turned Muslims in his favour," says Dr RP Pande, former principal of
this college.
Shikohabad MLA Ashok Yadav, whose grandfather was a key figure in
establishing the Ahir Kshatriya School, observes: "Mulayam Singh Yadav
and Kalyan Singh (the former BJP leader) were products of the Ayodhya
episode. UP's agenda has changed now, and both have become redundant."
Indeed, the SP's shocking loss in the recent bypolls held on Mulayam
Singh Yadav's home turf, particularly in the Ferozabad Lok Sabha
constituency as well as the Assembly seats of Bharthana, Bidhuna and
Etawah City, suggests that Yadav voters have started getting restive
about their future.
"Ghosis always treated Mulayam as their own, but Mulayam did nothing
for us," says Shiv Prasad Yadav, the Ghosi leader who wrested the
Bharthana Assembly seat that was vacated by Mulayam Singh Yadav after
he became a Lok Sabha member. Of all the Yadav-dominated seats lost by
the SP in recent bypolls, this one has its own significance. For it
was here that intra-caste differences among Yadavs saw their first
expression in the state.
Even before the polling, it was clear that Shiv Prasad Yadav,
contesting on a BSP ticket, had the majority backing of Ghosis in the
constituency, as against the SP's Kamaria vote base. The election, in
fact, had become such a prestige issue for Ghosis across the entire
region that independent MLA Ashok Yadav, a well-regarded local Ghosi
leader, held a series of public meetings in support of the BSP
candidate in Bharthana.
Shiv Prasad Yadav's victory has deepened the divide between the two
Yadav subcastes in all nearby areas. "Mulayam harmed us the most. He
never allowed any Ghosi leader to grow beyond a point. We have,
therefore, decided to support and elect the leaders from our own
subcaste," says the new Bharthana MLA.
That is more than just a small piece of bad news for the SP, which is
so low on self-confidence at the moment that it seems desperate to
retain influence among voters who were once loyal to the party.
Winning back Muslim support could be a saving grace. As of now, this
looks highly improbable, and could require a big blunder on part of
the Congress, which is back in the fray.
But there is another big party in contest, the BSP, led by UP Chief
Minister Mayawati. On its part, the BSP is also trying to capitalise
on the new feuds that have broken out among the state's Yadavs. It is
no coincidence that of the total 14 party legislators who owe
allegiance to this caste, as many as 11 are Ghosi Yadavs. And yet,
there is a limit to which the BSP can gain from Mulayam's crumbling
Yadav vote base. This is because there has been an underlying standoff
between Yadav and Dalit politics in the state which does not look like
abating anytime soon. As political observers put it, Yadav voters may
be only too glad to see Mayawati lose power in UP.
"Most Yadavs in UP see BSP as the party that has stripped them of
political power," observes Pande, "In a few constituencies, the BSP's
Yadav candidates may succeed in mustering caste votes because of
personal preferences, but in most others, Yadav voters are likely to
vote in vengeance to get Mayawati out of power. Wherever the SP
candidates are not in a position to win, the Yadavs, by and large, are
likely to vote tactically to defeat the BSP candidates."
Of the remaining parties, the BJP is unlikely to get too many Yadav
votes, adds Pande, "Because this caste's two decades of political
unity with Muslims under the leadership of Mulayam has secularised
them so thoroughly that only a miracle can turn them over to the Sangh
Parivar."
ADVANTAGE CONGRESS
In Pande's reckoning, it is the Congress that has most to gain in UP
now. This might sound strange. In all these years, the party has had a
patchy record in attracting Yadav favour, and none of the party's
Yadav leaders—Chandrajit Yadav, Shyamlal Yadav, Balram Singh Yadav,
Ram Naresh Yadav and Laxmikant Yadav—could ever get beyond their own
local spheres of influence. Certainly, they were not seen as 'Yadav
leaders' in the sense of identity politics. There is a historical
reason. After Choudhary Charan Singh formed a coalition of peasant
communities in the state in the 1970s, the Congress lacked even
symbolic Yadav presence. And once Mulayam emerged as Charan Singh's
successor in the 1980s, he attracted Ghosis, Kamarias and other
Yadavs.Yet, Hindi-belt politics has taken such a dramatic turn, that
for the first time since Independence, the Congress, more than any
other party, seems to have emerged as the best bet for tactical voters
in the country's largest state.
"There are times when there is a sea change in politics," as the
89-year-old Narottam Singh Yadav puts it, on the SP's growing
desperation, "It then does not matter what you say or what you do."
This is a lesson that Mulayam Singh Yadav might have to learn the hard
way.
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