November 9, 2011, 9:00 AM IST
Politics Journal: Dalits, Mayawati, Rahul and the Battle for Uttar Pradesh
By Jyoti Malhotra
Last week, Rahul Gandhi travelled to a corner of eastern Uttar Pradesh
to get a feel of the "hawa" — the direction of the wind — on the eve
of launching the Congress party's campaign for state elections that
will be held in the next few months.
With roughly 170 million people, making it India's most populous
state, Uttar Pradesh and its state assembly of 403 seats has often
been viewed as a bellwether for which party will rule all of India.
But for more than 20 years, Congress has been lost in Uttar Pradesh's
political wilderness, as caste and identity politics held sway. Now,
smelling criticism of the Chief Minister Kumari Mayawati's four-year
tenure, and of her Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress is pulling out all
the stops.
That is why Mr. Gandhi, a Congress general secretary who commands
instant name recognition by virtue of being a member of the
Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, has been slated as the party's star campaigner.
The trip to eastern Uttar Pradesh, said a Congress official, was a
signal both to the state Congress leadership as well as to party
leaders in the federal government that Congress is serious about
putting up a fight against Ms. Mayawati.
"The party has divided UP into 10 zones, allocating each to key party
leaders. Rahul-ji has made it clear that since they wield power in the
federal government, they must also have connections on the ground,
which means that they have to deliver by improving the party's
prospects," the Congress official said. "Today, we only have 22 seats
in UP, but if we fight hard we should get between 80 to 100."
The official acknowledged that Congress was still severely hampered by
a lack of good, provincial leaders. Then there is the matter of caste,
an extremely powerful tool in an era of caste-identity politics which
Ms. Mayawati, a Dalit leader, has exploited brilliantly in the past.
Congress, the official said, is now trying to recover lost political
ground by creating alliances between Dalits, Muslims and upper-caste
Brahmins, as it once did in its heyday. "We certainly won't win the
election, but we must at least show the people that we are a credible
alternative," the Congress official added.
That is why Mr. Gandhi, on his visit, paid obeisance at the Varanasi
temple of Sant Ravidas, a beloved saint of the Jatav sub-caste within
the Dalit community. In Harsinghpur village, in nearby Mirzapur
district, he met Hindu and Muslim weavers, also considered to be part
of the low-caste pantheon, as well as the widow of a man whom locals
said had jumped into the flowing Ganga nearby in order to escape from
policemen demanding bribes.
As part of its broad strategy to woo Dalits, the Congress-led
government in Delhi last week made it mandatory for departments to
procure at least 4% of their goods annually from Dalit and
tribal-owned small-scale industries.
"We welcome this initiative. Everybody has been talking about
inclusive growth for such a long time, this is the first step," said
Milind Kamble, president of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry.
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It may be politically driven, but Chandrabhan Prasad, Dalit writer and
intellectual, said that wasn't the point.
"Politics is about governance and the right to rule. If people say
this is a conspiracy to woo Dalits on the eve of the elections in
Uttar Pradesh, I say, this is a good conspiracy," he told India Real
Time. "After all, democracy is all about give and take. This milestone
decision will do more for the Dalit community than reservations and
quotas have done for us since independence."
Several Dalit political scientists agreed that the Congress party's
move to purchase Dalit goods was shrewd, if limited. It reflects a
changing perception of the community, from one needing perpetual
handouts to one willing to participate in the market economy, noted D.
Shyam Babu, a Dalit political scientist.
Ambika Soni, information and broadcasting minister in the federal
government, said in an interview that Congress is confident of making
an impact in the state.
"I think things are changing on the ground. Mayawati will not do as
well as before," she said. "Just look at her track record. The UP
polls will be a big surprise."
BSP leader Ambeth Rajan dismissed Congress's efforts and laughed off
the prospect of a serious challenge.
"We will sweep the polls, you will see. Rahul only has potential,
nobody has seen what kind of a leader he actually is," Mr. Rajan told
India Real Time. "He has only won his own election so far, the party
has not benefitted from him so far. In fact, the Congress doesn't even
have good candidates in UP."
Still, a different BSP leader acknowledged that the reality on the
ground was "far more fluid" than any party would admit. He said
nonetheless that the BSP would win the elections, not only because the
Congress was still not a real alternative but because Dalits still
feared the return of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav
because of the inter-caste violence unleashed during his earlier
tenure.
Ultimately, the question may be best posed not as whether Congress can
win but how tightly Ms. Mayawati can hold onto her core Dalit
constituency now and in the years ahead.
Surinder Jodhka, political analyst and professor of Dalit studies at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, told India Real Time that the biggest
challenge to Dalit leaders like Ms. Mayawati is the growing divisions
within the Dalit community itself.
"Mayawati is a very smart politician, other politicians in UP are not
as smart as her," he said. "However, as a result of the dynamics of
the reservation system, several sub-castes within the Dalits are
moving away from her. This is a challenge. Question is, can opposition
parties like the Congress take advantage?"
Jyoti Malhotra is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi. She
writes for India's Business Standard daily and for Pakistan's Express
Tribune.
Follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime.
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