Kanchan Basu
Uttar Pradesh elections of 2022 are the most important Assembly elections in living memory. The poll outcome in India’s weightiest State will be a crucial metric of public sentiment ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Uttar Pradesh invites attention not merely because of its size but right now because of its centrality to the Hindutva project, and equally importantly, the Opposition taking shape against it. The landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2017 Assembly elections created the conditions for the establishment of a communal-authoritarian regime in Uttar Pradesh. The new political dominance was reflected in the increasing mainstreaming of Hindutva in Uttar Pradesh’s public arena. The huge legislative majority enabled the BJP to advance its political agenda virtually unopposed. Most Opposition parties during this period were not visible on the streets against BJP government (with the exception of the Congress which led several public protests). The Opposition parties came to life only in the last few months with the farmers’ movement and Lakhimpur Kheri incident proving to be the spring board for launching their respective campaigns.
Identity politics has been at the centre of Uttar Pradesh politics for the last three decades. After 2014, Hindu communalism gained momentum at the expense of caste politics which was weakened by the BJP’s campaign of uniting voters across caste lines by building a wide-ranging Hindu coalition. This was made possible because the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) intervened to garner the support of non-Yadav Other Backward Classes and non-Jatav Dalit communities by assuring them that they would no longer be neglected as they had been under the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) governments. But the tables have turned as those very groups that helped BJP to gain ‘Power’ in Uttar Pradesh are now disgruntled that they have not got their share of ‘Power’. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s three Other Backward Classes (OBC) Ministers have jumped ship, along with a steady trickle of other OBC leaders heading out, citing the same mantra in their resignation letters – neglect of Backwards, Dalits, Farmers and Unemployed Youth. As early as 2019, more than 100 BJP MLAs, mostly belonging to Backward Castes, had staged a ‘Dharna’ (agitation) inside the Vidhan Sabha and shouted slogans against their own government. It was only after the senior party leadership intervened and gave them assurances that they could be pacified. These lines are contours of a much larger story which appears to be taking shape beyond the State elections that begin in 10 February. The exit of influential OBC leaders and Jat anger in western Uttar Pradesh against the BJP following the yearlong ‘Farmer’s Agitation’ indicate the difficulties of seeing groups as permanent majorities and minorities. In democratic politics, categories of majority and minority are not fixed – there is no pre-existing Hindu majority that will always vote en bloc against an imagined enemy – the Muslim minority. Shifting electoral majorities do not coincide with persistent social cleavages. Indeed, democratic politics offers the possibility of redefining who belongs to a majority and whom to a minority across multiple arenas. The substantive shift in political discourse in this election has been encouraged by a surge of protests in the last two years. The anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests, the Farmers’ movement, the student agitation despite the brutal police crackdown and the thousands of people regularly taking to the streets demanding jobs have pushed this shift. What is striking about these protests is that they were not organized by political parties and that people are willing to take to the streets despite concerted efforts to stop them, but also, above all, they are concerned with the everyday issues of life. The discontent brewing and growing across the State is propelling the shift towards the material conditions of life. This has shaped opposition against the BJP especially with regard to the crucial issue of jobs as the State has failed to provide employment.
A generation has gone by since ‘Mandal’, and now OBC youngsters empowered by its fruits, have logically longed for more. The 2010 economic slowdown soured many dreams, but in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a significant OBC section found a hero. OBCs made their presence felt in the 2014 election. There was a record turnout of 68 per cent of 18 to 25 year olds who represented 25 per cent of voters – higher than the national average. The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) records that 34.4 per cent of them supported Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which was three percentage points above the overall support for the party. It appeared they were willing to give up the hard-earned material benefits of ‘Social Justice’ for the emotional succor of ‘Accommodation’ under the saffron umbrella. Narendra Modi, and then Yogi Adityanath, had been able to fold everyone into the ‘Kamandalu’. Jat BJP leaders, who felt ignored during the past five years of the Yogi Adityanath regime, have suddenly found a voice. The BJP’s Jat face from Haryana was unceremoniously dumped from the national executive of the party in December, 2021 after the extended support to the ‘Farm Laws’.
In Loni rally in Ghaziabad, Amit Shah invoked Gurjar icons Rampyari Gurjari and Mihir Bhoj and claimed it was a Gurjar who made invader Timur pack in his bags. The incumbent BJP MLA Nand Kishore Gurjar is facing a tough contest from another Gurjar heavyweight Madan Bhaiyya from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Haji Aqil in a constituency dominated by Muslims, Gurjars and Jats. In a surprise move, Samajwadi Party (SP)-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance has given tickets to 12 Gurjar candidates, the most among the leading parties. The community is said to vote for the candidates of its caste, irrespective of party affiliation.
Observers said there were no surprises left in the BJP’s arsenal. The party is concerned about the eroding Jat and Gurjar vote bank and is not being to find a suitable replacement for those crucial votes. The downturn in the economy since 2016 has led to desperation in Uttar Pradesh; while not shown on television or most newspapers, a rapid fall in living standards has led to a churn being triggered off. Uttar Pradesh may have been BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh – a term to describe backwardness) but it has done successively worse and that has added to the misery. Labour force data has established the U.P.’s total working-age population has increased by over 2 crore over the past five years, but the total number of people with jobs shrunk by over 16 lakh. Youth unemployment has increased five times since 2012. The Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of UP grew at a compound growth rate of only 1.95 per cent over 2017-21. In contrast, the rate was 6.92 per cent over 2012-17 during the previous State Government. Inflation, especially food inflation, has hurt the poorest who form the bulk of UP’s population. NITI Aayog’s first Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index ratings have U.P. in the bottom three, with 37.79 per cent being poor, far higher than the national average. The Aayog’s Health Index showed UP to be continuing to be the worst performer. This was for data before the novel Corona virus pandemic struck. The State of affairs of pandemic management in the State was made clear by bodies seen afloat in Ganga, later buried in shallow graves on the river banks. Goods and Services Tax (GST) and then the mishandling of COVID-19 have disproportionately affected the informal economy, which for a State like UP is in effect its only economy. There was no relief as far as the crisis in agriculture was concerned and farmers in UP became more anxious with the enactment of the new farm laws; this is why the farmers’ agitation has been able to strike a deep chord in the State. Unease with a Chief Minister running a caste-conscious administration got full expression. The failing economy has fuelled the feel-bad sentiment in the State. More to the point, voters do not seem to be terribly excited about their experience of living under a Hindu Rashtra in Uttar Pradesh. But still, what is not clear is to what extent the popular discontent will impact elections and translate into votes against the ruling dispensation. People have paid the economic price for the Government’s neglect of their basic needs. Will the ruling party pay the political price for the discontent of millions of poor workers who had to trek back home after the pandemic and lockdown, the appalling shortage of public health facilities, and massive unemployment in one of the most crucial States of the Union?
Last year, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, crimes against them in UP constituted 25 per cent of all crimes recorded against Dalits in India. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has gone into virtual silent mode and this has allowed the Samajwadi Party (SP) to try and extend its reach and construct a broader coalition encompassing Dalits too in a way Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Lalu Prasad Yadav managed to in Bihar in the early 1990s. The refusal of the BJP to conduct a caste census or declare the numbers of the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) conducted in 2011, has provoked more anger among numerically smaller castes and their leaders, who had so far subsumed themselves in the Hindutva tent. This has been exacerbated by upper caste dominance which has played out in five years. In 2017, the Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow consisted of 44.3 per cent upper caste MLAs, their highest share in the State’s Assembly since 1980.
These are noises which will haunt whoever comes to power in March. Uttar Pradesh is on the cusp of change. There seems to be a clamour for real change, real power and empowerment. Backwards not being content with playing ‘Kevat’ or ‘Shabari’ to Bhagwan Ram on a saffron stage, but wanting to write their own epic. Like Farmers’ stir provided a road-map to all sections of society by making sure they do not get steam-rolled, voices gathering in India’s most populated State, may provide a grammar and a vocabulary to resist the national discourse in place since 2014. It is significance of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, not necessarily its result.