Caste Is The Vote

IT is my faith, my religious duty to vote for the BJP," declares Rajendra Kumar Goswami with disarming candour, seated on a wooden bench outside his modest foodgrain shop near the Barabanki bus-stop. "Casteism is a danger to Hinduism...the BJP is the answer," he adds. Ravi Shankar Tewari at a Rudauli teastall, Ashok Mishra in Kanpur—all are emphatic in their support for the BJP. But talk to the Muslims, Yadavs, Dalits, and they are guarded in their response—they don't spell out their electoral preferences quite so easily. For itinerant observers, it's exceedingly tempting to give weightage to the five who were emphatic in their support for the BJP,as against the 50 who hemmed and hawed and didn't show their hand. But this is elementary caste behaviour in the Hindi heartland—the upper castes are vocal in their electoral support. The lower castes and the minorities are less so.

This is one of the lessons we learnt as we travelled through the Hindi heartland in Uttar Pradesh. The noise and excitement associated with electioneering were missing. Posters, banners and hoardings were tucked away in party offices, not displayed on the streets and bazaars. In Qaiserganj and adjoining Bahraich, just a handful of people huddled together in party offices. In Kanpur, where the police had conducted an eight-hour operation to remove posters and banners at the Election Commission's behest, there was no sign of a vibrant campaign. Subhashini Ali, the CPI(M) candidate, was asleep when we visited her office at 4 pm. "The stringent conditions imposed by the EC have dampened our enthusiasm," a Congress activist stated. "It's not good for democracy."

 Given the inglorious record of communal riots in UP, we expected some degree of intense communal activity. This was not so. Such polarisation may take place in riot-prone cities like Kanpur, but the principal preoccupation is with caste, not religion. People talk of socio-economic empowerment and of castewise representation, of quotas, local bodies and programmes. Mandal rather than mandir tops the political agenda in UP. You can sense the deep caste schisms and rivalries, sharpened by Mandal. It's hard to imagine how this divide is ever going to be bridged; every party is trying to create or enlarge its constituency among various castes and sub-castes. Nobody in this backward state talks about illiteracy, massive urban unemployment, land reforms or rural development.

"Communalism is not an issue this time," said a senior state bureaucrat. "The communalists have no goods to sell in the market." Traditional cross-community linkages, we were told, are intact in the hinterland. The impact of Ayodhya seems much less pronounced in the areas we visited. In other words, we found no significant upsurge in the BJP's favour. Yet there is no denying its presence across the state—in the 1993-95 polls, the BJP had consolidated its dramatic gains in the 1989 and 1991 Lok Sabha polls. Its leaders draw comfort from disciplined cadres committed to the Hindutva worldview. Moreover, they are confident of consolidating the upper caste vote—Brahmins exceed 15 per cent of the population in 34 out of the 85 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The Rajputs are more ambivalent because of their loyalty to V.P. Singh, but not everywhere. In most constituencies they are sure to vote in increasing numbers for the BJP. And the BJP, having wrested control of the influential Kurmi Mahasabha, has gained a firm foothold in the Kurmi territory in central UP. Much the same has happened in Bihar where the Kurmis, led by Nitish Kumar, are a significant component of the BJP-Samata combination. Thus, the BJP's support base is not confined to the Brahmins, Rajputs, Banias and Kayasths. It includes the Kurmis, Gujjars and Lodhs in western districts. After all, in the '91 Lok Sabha and the '93 assembly polls, the Kurmis helped the BJP win in Bareilly, Sitapur, Shahjahanpur, Pilibhit and Hardoi. Such facts alone acquire salience in the complex caste arithmetic. More so if the Muslim vote is split between the Bahujan Samaj Party and the National Front-Left combine.

EVERY single Brahmin we met was loyal to the BJP. "The BJP is a defender of the Hindu faith," said a school teacher in Bara-banki. At a roadside tea shop off Kanpur, the BJP was seen to be ideologically equipped to combat the divisive forces. In Kishore-ganj, where the Brahmins dominate the 35 per cent upper caste voters, the consensus was in the BJP's favour though its candidate may still not win because of the large Muslim (mostly Momins) and OBC population. "The BJP is the answer to the onslaught of the Mayawatis," declared a Brahmin shopkeeper. "How can we tolerate a Harijanised administration?" asked an angry postal official.

These are symptoms of a deeper malaise. Equally, they are pointers to which way the wind is blowing. Yet, they don't reveal the whole story. The picture here is much less clear than in Bihar where Laloo Prasad Yadav has masterminded an extraordinary Dalit-Muslim-OBC coalition. Such a coalition has paid rich dividends, though its future efficacy rests on a wide range of factors, including the political will to translate poll promises into practice. The important theme in Bihar today is not its chronic poverty and backwardness but the empowerment of the lower castes. The real story, which is yet to be unfolded, is the dexterous manner in which Laloo has undermined the traditional Congress base and has thus removed his chief rival from the electoral fray. He has also weakened the political hegemony of the Brahmins and the Bhumihars and, at the same time, dimmed the BJP's prospects.

The battlelines in UP are less clearly demarcated. For one, the caste arithmetics are different. The upper castes are a much larger group and have greater control over the rural and urban levers of power. The complex caste divides in the political domain are also more apparent. That's why former chief minister Kalyan Singh could create fissures amongst the Yadavs, and the Kurmi Mahasabha could plot a trajectory independent of the Yadavs.

Finally, the Bihar political landscape is dominated by the Dalit-Muslim-OBC combine; similar endeavours in UP have not clicked. The fragile SP-BSP alliance collapsed for a variety of reasons, though the main difficulty was that each party tried to cut into the other's caste base. So that in the local bodies' polls, as in Etawah, the BSP marshalled all its resources to defeat the SP man.

As the countdown began, people in Lucknow wondered whether the BJP would draw mileage out of this situation. One thing is clear. Although the Third Force has expanded due to the recent democratic upsurge, its appeal amongst the Dalits has greatly diminished. Nobody bemoans this fact more than the Muslims. Having hitched their fortunes with Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram, they seem confused now. "We feel let down by this tragic parting of ways," said a professor at the Aligarh Muslim University. Asked who she would vote for, a burqa-clad woman in Nakhaas retorted: "How do I know? You tell me, Kanshi Ram is a spoiler. He is aiding and abetting the BJP cause." In the end she may be proven right.

SUCH reactions are crucial in gauging the mood in Muslim circles. But the 'Muslim dilemma', as it's described in university and journalist circles, is a figment of the imagination. One can hear murmurings in some quarters, but no clear pattern of alignment has emerged. Most educated Muslims eschew serious political talk, though they unequivocally condemn the Congress. The Muslim divine we spoke to remained non-committal. At the Dewa Sharief shrine in Barabanki, we were politely told not to discuss politics. The only person who spoke to us said he would vote BJP. Why? Because the Congress had let them down. "We want to make peace with the most powerful force in UP," he declared.

Making peace with the BJP is hardly anybody's agenda. If anything, the prime concern everywhere is to defeat the BJP even if it means backing the Congress in places. As the campaign gathers steam, the consensus among community leaders, some of whom still exercise influence, would veer around Mulayam Singh Yadav. Not because they are necessarily averse to Kanshi Ram, but because they don't see the BSP as a 'winner'. This was told to us in Qaiserganj where the elders meet every evening to take stock of day-to-day developments, and in the predominantly Shia locality of Sheesh Mahal in Lucknow, Kalb-e-Sadiq, the influential Shia leader, has already hitched his fortunes with Mulayam Singh.

This is a disturbing element in the BJP's strategy. If the 'Muslim vote' is not split between the BSP and the SP, it may not be easy for the BJP to recover lost ground in UP. Hence, strenuous efforts are under way to project the party's secular image. Its leader in Bahraich took pains to explain that the BJP was not against the minorities. He dwelt on cordial Hindu-Muslim relations and on composite cultural and religious traditions in the area.

"All this is an eyewash," said the poll manager of Arif Mohammed Khan, the high-profile independent candidate in Bahraich. Most Muslims in Bahraich, Kanpur and Lucknow pay no heed to the BJP's secular rhetoric. Mulayam would hope this is so. With the erosion of his own caste-based coalition, he can't just rely on the nearly 24 per cent OBC voters. More so because they are so hopelessly divided. The 7.6 per cent Yadav vote is not good enough. What he needs is to mobilise the Muslims, who account for nearly 14.5 per cent of UP's population. Then, the Third Force may well taste victory without the BSP. "That may well be our finest hour," observed an Urdu newspaper editor in Badaun.

What if it does so? This brings us to the significance of these elections in UP and their national impact. With 85 seats in the Lok Sabha, the state occupies a vantage point in shaping future alignments at the Centre. People are sensitive to this reality. "In the final analysis," declared a banker in Kanpur, "the UP voter will leave an imprint on the Indian nation's emerging personality." Interest is, of course, centered on the SP and the BSP, their unlovely struggle to take advantage of caste polarities, and on Muslim disenchantment with the Congress. For, this election would decide the Dalit-Muslim-OBC combine's future. And it may yet have a longer lease of life than the BJP's attempt at Hindu consolidation.

The future of the Congress also rests in UP, the familiar turf of leading figures during the freedom struggle and of successive prime ministers from Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi. Can the Congress check the deep and enduring erosion in its base? Can it recover the ground it had so demonstrably lost in the 1993-95 elections?

The story is a familiar one. In the 1993-95 polls, the Congress was relegated to the rank of the third party in UP, as also in Bihar and Karnataka. Both in UP and Bihar its vote share had fallen well below the 20 per cent mark. "In these states," said a political analyst, "the Congress stands on the receiving end of the logic of the plurality system which might further hasten its decline." 

Ramesh Dikshit, the party spokesman in Lucknow, is hopeful of a recovery, though his optimism is belied by the disarray in the rank and file. There is no attempt to refurbish its image, no drive to win. Having failed to represent the people's democratic urges, the Congress in UP has lost its raison d'etre. The Muslims would rather choose, as in Bihar and Maharashtra, any party but the Congress. The Dalits and the OBCs have abandoned it and channelised their aspirations through caste-based formations. And the Brahmins have slowly but steadily shifted allegiance to the BJP. The Congress may bag a few seats in places like Pratapgarh, Amethi, Baghpat and Rampur, but its fate in UP, its main stronghold for decades, is manifestly sealed this time. It's hard to make predictions, but we were told time and time again that the party, bereft of any vision or social strategy to deal with caste cleavage, is heading for it lowest ever vote share in any Lok Sabha election.

This election will also decide the fate of the Hindutva campaign, triggered off in its most recent incarnation by the Ayodhya issue. In other words, UP matters a great deal more in the post-Ayodhya period because of the way in which the 'politics of difference', the cultural heterogeneity and the intellectual diversities will be played out. Ultimately, India's most populous state would tilt the balance in deciding whether the country remains 'secular' or not. After all, even the restrained behaviour of the BJP in the course of this campaign is a bonus for secularism.