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POLITICS-INDIA: Dalit Woman Favoured to Win Polls in Key State

Analysis by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

NEW DELHI, Apr 22 2007 (IPS) - When the results of the ongoing elections in northern Uttar Pradesh state are out on May 11 chances are high that a ‘hung’ assembly would emerge, reflective of the highly fragmented polity in India’s most populous province.

And, like the previous elections held for the Uttar Pradesh assembly in February 2002, India’s two largest political parties, the federally-ruling Congress party and its arch-rival, the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), can be expected to be once again relegated to the margins.

The main political adversaries in the province are lower caste formations – the Samajwadi Party (SP) that represents the middle and lower peasantry and has been ruling Uttar Pradesh over the last three and a half years and its rival the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that counts ‘dalits’ (so-called untouchables) among its main supporters.

In the 2002 elections the SP obtained 143 seats in the 403-member state assembly, but was unable to lead the government for a year and a half because the second largest political party, the BSP (with 98 seats) and the third largest party, the BJP (88 seats), formed an alliance to block it.

But the BSP-BJP alliance (an unlikely one because it brought together castes at either end of India’s caste hierarchy) fell apart with splits within their ranks, enabling an SP-led government to come to power in August 2003 with ‘outside’ support from the Congress (that had won 25 seats) and smaller parties and independent candidates.

Opinion polls suggest that this time the BSP is likely to emerge as the biggest beneficiary of the ongoing elections while the seats obtained by the SP may come down sharply due to strong anti-incumbency sentiments. The BJP is also expected to improve its performance.

The decline of the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh can be traced to the December 1992 demolition, by Hindu zealots, of the 16th century Babri Masjid (mosque). Disappointed Muslim supporters of the Congress – always seen as a party supporting secular values – deserted it over a feeling that the then Congress-led government at the centre sat on its hands while the demolition was going on.

The party lost further during a phase of caste-based identity politics that followed. The Muslims flocked to the SP together with a large section of those belonging to the peasant or middle-castes led by the Yadav community. Those belonging to the lowest- castes switched allegiance to the BSP while the upper-castes in the majority Hindu community became staunch supporters of the BJP, leaving the Congress high and dry.

Uttar Pradesh accounts for roughly a sixth of India’s total population of 1.1 billion. The province returns 80 out of the 543 members of the lower house of Parliament or Lok Sabha. If Uttar Pradesh had been an independent nation, it would have been the sixth most populous country in the world.

Nearly all of India’s prime ministers have come from Uttar Pradesh and it used to be said that whoever is in power in Lucknow (the state’s capital) also rules New Delhi. Uttar Pradesh is also regarded as the very heart of northern India, being home to the ancient Hindu city of Varanasi (Benares) as well as to Agra, the former capital of the Mughal empire.

The high stakes for the Congress in the Uttar Pradesh elections can be readily gauged by the fact that members of India’s most powerful political dynasty, including party president Sonia Gandhi and her 36-year-old son Rahul Gandhi, are personally campaigning in the state. While the Gandhis have been drawing large crowds political observers are unsure whether this would translate into more seats for India’s ‘grand-old-party’.

Over the last decade, however, the importance of Uttar Pradesh in national politics has diminished considerably as India entered a new era of coalition politics. The fragmentation of the polity in the state has not been on linguistic or ethnic lines but along caste and religion resulting in the rise of two strong regional leaders – Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the SP and incumbent Chief Minister, and Mayawati (one name) who leads the BSP.

According to pre-poll surveys Mayawati’s BSP now stands the best chance of emerging as the single biggest formation in the state.

“The reason why the BSP will do well is that it has been able to forge a coalition which goes beyond its traditional supporters among the low-castes and include many belonging to the upper-castes,” explains Zoya Hasan, professor of history at New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University. “The difference this time is that the coalition is being led not by the upper-castes but by representatives of the lower-castes,” she told IPS in an interview.

“The ‘dalits’ comprise roughly a fifth of the population of Uttar Pradesh and are geographically evenly spread,” points out Manini Chatterjee, political editor of the ‘Indian Express’ newspaper. She told IPS that many candidates put up by the BSP belong to the upper-castes in a strategic move made by Mayawati, India’s tallest dalit leader.

“The BSP is assured of the support of those from the lowest castes who also belong to the lowest economic class; in addition, those belonging to other castes and classes are going along with the BSP because they perceive the party’s candidates as individuals with the greatest chance of winning,” Chatterjee adds.

Hasan says she will not be surprised if upper-caste Hindus remain with the BJP, especially in urban areas and in areas where there has been communal polarisation. The BJP has opportunistically supported the BSP’s Mayawati as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on previous occasions. But whether such an alliance would again be forged is not at all certain.

“Under no circumstances would I expect the BJP to ally with the BSP this time around,” says Chandan Mitra, member of the Rajya Sabha (India’s upper house of Parliament) and editor of ‘The Pioneer’ newspaper. For the BJP, Mitra told IPS, the “real political battle” will take place in 2009 during the elections to the federal government in New Delhi. “I think it would be suicidal for the BJP to go along with the BSP this time around even if the arithmetic of the new Uttar Pradesh assembly favours the formation of such an alliance,” said the senior journalist who is close to the top BJP leadership.

Though the BSP is favoured to emerge as the single largest party, it is unlikely to obtain a majority on its own. “Gone are the days when one political party could rule the union government or a state government like the one in Uttar Pradesh,” says Chatterjee. “No single party can today represent all sections of the electorate.”

One consequence of the political uncertainty in Uttar Pradesh is that what was once one of India’s most agriculturally-prosperous provinces – through which the Ganges river flows – is at present one of the country’s most economically and socially backward regions.

Yet both the BJP and the Congress party have major stakes in at least a good showing in the present elections because it could affect their political fortunes when elections to the national parliament are held in 2009. If the BJP does not win at that time, it could well face political oblivion.

For the Congress party a victory in 2009 is crucial if it is carry forward its economic policies which are based on attracting foreign investment and increasing the pace of industrialisation that have already resulted in a steady nine percent plus annual growth rates. But there is widespread criticism that this growth has been largely confined to the elite sections of society.