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Front Line Vol 24, Issue 19. May 19 – 1 June 2007

COVER STORY

Dalit power

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
in Lucknow

Dalit-Brahmin `bhaichara' delivers Uttar Pradesh to Mayawati, who is looking to

replicate the experiment in other northern States.
PAWAN KUMAR/REUTERS

Mayawati taking oath as Chief Minister in Lucknow on May 13.

THE celebratory crowds that streamed into Lucknow on May 13, the day Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati took over as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh,
heading the first single-party government in the State since 1991, were not only massive
but also presented a unique study in sociological terms.

This flow of humanity into the capital from all over the State was indeed a reflection of
the social combination that has taken the BSP to unprecedented electoral success. The
vast m ajority were Dalits, the BSP's core support base. The new followers of
Mayawati's leadership, Brahmins, also formed a significant segment.

Members of both communities were united in celebration and yet there were
conspicuous contrasts between them. Most Dalits were dressed in old and frayed

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clothes, whereas the Brahmins, on the whole, were in newer and better attire. Most of
the Dalit groups were perceptibly from a rural background, while the Brahmins
displayed the trappings of urban exposure. Representatives of the BSP's traditional vote
base looked robust and rugged, whereas the neo-converts had a softer appearance. In
short, they presented a combination of the highest and the lowest in the socio-economic
hierarchy of Uttar Pradesh.

A group of Dalits had come from Karchana in Allahabad district "to take part in
Behenji's swearing-in ceremony" and "celebrate their own victory against the Thakur-
dominated Samajwadi Party [S.P.] in their area". They were indeed aware of the
dissimilarity between them and the rising Brahmin support base of the party. But their
perception of the differences and their interpretation of the new socio-political
collaboration had dimensions beyond the conventional. The leader of the group, a
sexagenarian activist who has been with the BSP right from the mid-1980s when Kanshi
Ram started the party, told Frontline that for members like him the day, literally, had
epic proportions. "It is not merely because the party has won a majority on its own but
because the elections and the swearing-in ceremony overturned a rigid Brahminical
socio-cultural custom that persisted for centuries, right from the period of mythical
history," he said.

He went on to say that Brahmins as the priestly community had consistently refused to
anoint any of the lower castes into dignified positions of power or spiritual supremacy.
"Mythology says sage Vasistha was opposed to according Brahmarishi status to
Vishwamitra and history has recorded how Brahmin priests across the length and
breadth of the country refused to perform Raj Tilak [accession of power] ceremonies for
Shivaji just because he was a Maratha. Shivaji was ultimately compelled to kidnap a
group of priests from Varanasi, hold them at knifepoint and get his Raj Tilak done."

"Today we are witnessing the Raj Tilak of a Dalit, and that too of a woman, virtually
conducted by hundreds of thousands of Brahmins," he said.

The group refused to say whether this line of thought was consciously being propagated
within the BSP following the election victory. Whatever the fact, their interpretation,
rating the 2007 results as epoch-making deliverance of lower castes from historical
subjugation, points to the hopes and expectations of the BSP's core supporters from the
"party's own government".

Talking to Frontline, senior BSP leader Sukhdev Singh Rajbhar, who has been part of
the party organisation from the early stages, admitted that hopes and expectations were
high because the party now had a majority on its own. But he added that the core Dalit
base realised that this victory was only one big step in the struggle of the marginalised
sections to assert their rights and empower themselves.

He said: "They have grown up with the BSP from the state of being nobodies, who
could not even exercise their franchise, to the point of getting a Chief Minister on the
strength of their own party. Clearly, their social, political and cultural standing has
improved and they know this will improve further in due course."

2
 RAJESH KUMAR SINGH/AP

A show of hands in support of her at an election rally in Allahabad.

The point the veteran leader apparently made was that the new hopes and aspirations
would not manifest themselves as demands immediately. Hence, the leadership may not
have to address the issue in haste.

Balancing act

Mayawati's first actions after assuming office, including the constitution of the Ministry,
indicate that the BSP leadership is moving forward in the manner that Rajbhar
suggested. Almost all her actions have been characterised by a need to retain the party's
Dalit base and reassure its new support base of Brahmins and other higher castes such
as Banias, so as to consolidate their support. Mayawati has made it clear that the
principal focus of the government would be the welfare of sarva samaj (entire society)
and not particularly Dalit samaj or bahujan samaj.

This balancing act is reflected in the caste composition of the Ministry too. The list of
Cabinet Ministers includes eight Dalits, four Brahmins, four members of the Other
Backward Classes (OBCs) and one each from the Muslim, Baniya, Thakur and
Bhumihar communities. The Ministers of State with independent charge include 11
Dalits, seven OBC members and four each of the Brahmin, Thakur and Muslim
communities.

Some of the Brahmin legislators of the BSP said the Ministry formation exercise came
as a great relief. "Though all of us joined the BSP to win the elections and become
MLAs [Members of the Legislative Assembly], there was no certainty on the level of
accommodation we would get in the government. Apprehensions on this count
increased when the party got a majority on its own. But Behenji has removed all the
tension by the even-handed exercise," one of them said. Clearly, Brahmins are second
only to Dalits in the Ministry in number as well as importance. The OBC members,

3
though numerically stronger as a group, belong to different castes, many of which
compete with one another for social, economic and political supremacy.

According to veteran political analyst Hariraj Singh Tyagi, a long-time associate of the
legendary Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, who asserted the importance of caste as
a factor in Indian politics, the composition of the Ministry and the projection of sarva
samaj make it clear that Mayawati's short- and medium-term aim is to enhance her
appeal among Brahmins.

"The Chief Minister," Tyagi said, "is making a blatant appeal to the community through
these steps." He felt that this was in keeping with the tactics traditionally followed by
the BSP and the S.P. He said: "This tactic of openly addressing caste identities and their
interests is the fundamental difference between the political practice of parties such as
the BSP and the S.P. and the Congress-type of caste politics, which seeks to address
caste identities in a camouflaged manner." Tyagi added that many academic studies,
including those by scholars Paul Brass and Kanchan Chandra, had pointed to this
phenomenon.

Bhaichara in other States

A number of senior BSP leaders told Frontline that the importance being given to
Brahmins in the government is not only a form of thanksgiving but also a prospective
initiative for replicating the social combination in other northern States.
K. BHAGYA PRAKASH

BSP supporters celebrate in Bangalore.

A Cabinet Minister said: "Both Behenji and Satish Chandra Mishra, the virtual number
two in the party, believe that the Dalit-Brahmin bhaichara experiment can be replicated
at least in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and parts of Punjab with minor variations." The
leadership, the Minister pointed out, need not be with Dalits in each State. The aim is to

4
advance the central idea of a Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim combination. He added that the top
leaders felt that Dalits were, as a community, moving away from the mainstream parties
and the BSP had the potential to intervene and take up a leadership role.

Political analysts like Tyagi say that while the projection appears good on paper,
Mayawati and her associates have a long way to go before getting anywhere close to
realising the objective. To start with, Tyagi pointed out, neither the Congress nor the
BJP in all the three targeted States (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab) suffered
from a dearth of political leadership. "In Uttar Pradesh, the leadership of both parties
had created a vacuum, especially among Brahmins, and the BSP could fill it. The other
States, as things stand now, do not offer a similar opportunity."

According to an upper caste BSP MLA who had switched from the BJP, Brahmins in
Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were not yet ready to accept Dalit leadership, both
socially and politically. He said: "Brahmins of Uttar Pradesh were compelled to [accept
Dalit leadership] by the persistent rise of OBC and Dalit assertion, but Rajasthan and
Madhya Pradesh have not reached that stage."

Former Maharashtra Governor P.C. Alexander is a close observer of north Indian

politics. In his view, the BSP can hope to make a larger impact at the national level, or
at least in north India, only by providing good governance in Uttar Pradesh. Some of the
early actions of Mayawati, such as the induction of 10 members with criminal
antecedents into the Ministry and the mass transfer of over 250 bureaucrats, do not fit
the standard mentioned by the former bureaucrat and Governor. Large sections of the
BJP and the Congress, especially in Uttar Pradesh, are wary of the organisational
tenacity of the BSP. These sections, which have been at the receiving end of the BSP's
organisational piercing, fear that the Dalit party may well repeat Uttar Pradesh in the
targeted States.

The perspectives on the BSP's prospective initiatives in other States may differ, but
there is general agreement in the political class and the bureaucracy that the government
will face a tough predicament when the socio-economic agendas of Dalits clash with
those of the new upper caste support base. There are stark differences in the socio-
economic situation of these communities and these could well trigger fierce differences
in terms of priorities. The BSP has 44 crorepati MLAs, and it is anybody's guess
whether their socio-economic priorities would fit in with the politics of empowering the
weaker sections.

According to the estimation of a number of non-government agencies involved in social

development work, the land-holding population among Dalits is less than 8 per cent,
while among the upper castes it is close to 65 per cent. These estimates also have it that
55 per cent of the Dalit population is employed in the unorganised sector and 32 per
cent is composed of agricultural labourers. Nearly 33 per cent of the Dalit population is
illiterate and only 12 per cent has education above the secondary level. Less than 10 per
cent of the upper caste population is illiterate and more than 50 per cent has education
above the secondary level.

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Clearly, the imposing political and social voice that Dalit communities have acquired in
the past two decades under the BSP's leadership is yet to translate into concrete socio-
economic development. The new expectations and aspirations of Dalits about their own
government could well be in bridging this gap.

The biggest question in this context is whether the BSP's political leadership, especially
Mayawati, has the skills to live up to these hopes and to manage the contradictions that
the conflicting priorities are bound to throw up.

Mayawati has expressed the confidence that she will be able to take sarva samaj
together. "If I can get them to vote together, I can also advance their interests together,"
she says.

But, as many a politician would vouchsafe, living up to the expectations of the

electorate and providing good governance is much more difficult than raising the hopes
of people and winning elections.

COVER STORY

Focus on sarva samaj

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

Interview with Chief Minister Mayawati.

SUBIR ROY

Mayawati and S.C. Mishra BSP general secretary, at a rally in Lucknow.

CLOSE associates aver that when Mayawati sets her mind on something she
pursues it single-mindedly. They cite as an example the way in which the Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP) chief worked out a plan for the 2007 elections nearly two years
ago and followed it up with its systematic implementation. Excerpts from an
interview with Mayawati a day after she took over as Chief Minister:

In your remarks after taking over, you said improving law and order would
be one of your priorities. You also suggested a reservation scheme for the
economically deprived among the upper castes. What are the other
priorities?

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Development of Uttar Pradesh and making it an uttam pradesh [ideal State] would
be the other priority. For that I have to check the financial situation of the State
first. After that we will evolve a comprehensive action plan for the development of
the State. My officers have started the evaluation process and you can see the
development plan in the near future.

Kanshi Ramji repeatedly said during the formative years of the party that
Dalit samaj (Dalit society) or bahujan samaj should develop in four areas,
namely, agriculture, trade and industry, politics, and government...

[Interrupts] We are not pursuing a bahujan samaj agenda now. Now the principal
focus will be the welfare of sarva samaj. Of course, my government will have
special programmes for uplifting the weaker sections, but at the same time, there
will also be a focus on the economically backward sections among the upper caste
communities.

What is the kind of Uttar Pradesh you want to see?

I would like to see an Uttar Pradesh that the common man of the State wants to
see, a State where the people can lead a peaceful life and improve their socio-
economic status.

There is a perception that conflict exists between the socio-economic

interests of the various communities of the sarva samaj you have brought
together. What difficulties do you perceive in handling this?

I do not think I will have any difficulties in handling this. If I could get the sarva
samaj to vote unitedly for me, why can I not advance their socio-economic interests
together? I am certain I can do that.

Specifically, there is a vast difference between the land holdings of Dalits

and Brahmins. How can their socio-economic interests...

[Interrupts] The sarva samaj development plan will take everything into
consideration and we will provide a good, model government.

Will land reforms be part of the agenda of this government?

See, I have just taken over as the Chief Minister. We are looking into the financial
situation that the State is in at present. We shall think about all this once our
evaluation process is over.

What is the difference that you perceive between your three earlier stints
and the present one?

I can fulfil the tasks I have set for myself and the government relatively easily this
time since the BSP has a majority on its own.

Earlier, I had the limitation of having to depend on others for support.

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Will the BSP having a majority on its own generate greater hopes in the
bahujan samaj?

The mandate that I have got in this election is to advance sarva samaj-oriented
development and the government will stick to that.

COVER STORY

Winning formula

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

The BSP dramatically altered its traditional anti-Brahmin, anti-upper caste

positions over the past two years.
AKHILESH KUMAR

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav addressing a meeting on the

last day of campaigning for the final phase of the elections, at Maniram in
Gorakhpur.

"THE Elephant marched on to victory kicking the Cycle out of the way, trampling the
Lotus under its feet and wiping out the very existence of the Hand that tried to stop
it." A day after the Uttar Pradesh election results were announced a group of
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers were singing a Hindi song with words to this
effect on the street outside the house of their leader Mayawati in Lucknow. The
motifs referred to were, obviously, the election symbols of various parties. The
meaning was simple. The BSP's "Elephant" had kicked the "Cycle"-borne Samajwadi
Party (S.P.), crushed the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) "Lotus" and wiped out the
Congress' "Hand".

As with many declarations made by BSP activists and leaders during the campaign,
this too had elements of the metaphorical but was in essence a statement of fact.
An oft-repeated assertion in BSP circles during the campaign was that "Behenji
[Mayawati] is miles ahead in the pace of electioneering as well as in the impact it is
having among the electorate." As the results proved, despite its figurative
dimensions the statement was indeed factual.

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The BSP not only raced ahead of its political opponents, winning 206 of the 402
seats that went to the polls (election in one seat was postponed), but also became
the first party since 1991 to come to power on its own in Uttar Pradesh. Its
principal opponent, the S.P. was reduced to 97 seats, while the two national parties,
the Congress and the BJP, which won 22 and 50 seats respectively, were humbled.
In terms of vote share, too, the BSP became the first party since 1996 to garner
more than 30 per cent of the votes polled. It got 30.45 per cent, the S.P. 26.14 per
cent, the BJP 17 per cent and the Congress 8.47 per cent.

Both conceptual and organisational factors contributed to the BSP's spectacular

success. To start with, the BSP had the most meticulous and well thought out
electioneering plan, which was conceived and set in motion two years ago. In as
many as 150 seats, the party announced its candidates more than a year ago. The
party had built a strong organisational machinery extending to the remotest villages
and this helped advance the plan systematically.

The early start and the strong organisational machinery helped make the party the
rallying point of popular sentiments against the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led S.P.
government. Another factor that supplemented the BSP's plan was the Election
Commission's orderly conduct of the seven-phased poll process. The violence-free
polls helped the BSP's Dalit base to vote in large numbers. But the overarching
factor was the Dalit-Brahmin combination that the party leadership sewed up in
most parts of the State over the past two years.

Sea change

This social alliance was built up with the basic objective of strengthening the party
in the 2007 elections. The BSP dramatically altered its traditional and trenchant
anti-Brahmin, anti-upper caste political position over the past two years. The party
leadership, including Mayawati and Satish Chandra Mishra, the party's Brahmin
face, worked persistently on the theme and set up Dalit-Brahmin bhaichara (Dalit-
Brahmin brotherhood) committees across the State.

AKHILESH KUMAR

Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi
and other party leaders at an election meeting in Gorakhpur. The BJP was
the main loser in the election, in terms of seats and vote share.

The electoral calculation involved a simple arithmetical estimate about the caste
composition of the State. Informal estimates show that Dalits constitute about 23
per cent of the voters, Brahmins about 10 per cent and Muslims about 16 per cent.

9
Dalit and Brahmin votes add up to 33 per cent, and with a section of the Muslim
vote the party would rustle up an unbeatable vote share, so went the calculation.

Throughout the seven-phased polls it was clear to political observers and opinion
pollsters alike that the BSP had emerged as the frontrunner on account of this
social combination. However, most observers and every pollster failed to gauge the
extent and reach of this potential. On the other hand, the BSP leadership's claims
about pulling together a vote share of over 33 per cent were also seen as far-
fetched. As the results, especially in terms of vote share, demonstrated, the BSP
leadership's calculation did not work out uniformly across the State and fell short of
the 33 per cent mark. The reality was a 30.45 per cent vote share, which was good
enough to give the party a simple majority.

The fact that the BSP has got a majority on its own signifies the most concrete
consolidation of a phenomenon broadly referred to as "Tamilnaduisation" of Uttar
Pradesh politics. It involves the marginalisation of the mainstream parties and the
strengthening of regional forces. This process began in 1993, gathered momentum
in 1998 and has, perhaps, peaked in 2007.

A close look at the campaign and the results underscores this. The main thrust of
the BSP's campaign, as also of the two other opposition parties, the Congress and
the BJP, was to attack the governance record of the S.P. The aim was to tap the
anti-incumbency vote. However, this cumulative anti-government campaign did not
result in the S.P. losing its vote share. In fact, the party improved on it marginally
to 26.14 per cent from 25.37 per cent in 2002. In terms of vote share, the BJP is
the biggest loser, slumping to 17 per cent from 20.08 per cent in 2002. The
Congress' share, too, saw a marginal change, down to 8.47 per cent from 8.96 per
cent in 2002. The BSP's overall gain from 2002 was a whopping 7.39 percentage
points; it had a vote share of 23.06 per cent in 2002. But, evidently, this gain was
not made by depleting its main opponent, the S.P., but by chipping away at the
support bases of the other opposition parties.

Both the BSP and the S.P. have been at this "political chipping game" since 1998.
Both parties advanced a formula that sought to accentuate the core caste support
of each with permutations and combinations from other castes so as to enhance
their respective vote share.

The S.P. has, over the past decade, promoted Amar Singh, its general secretary, as
a Thakur leader and given the party ticket to a number of Thakur candidates, thus
weaning away a chunk of the upper caste community's vote from the BJP. The core
vote of the S.P. plus the Thakur vote brought in by an individual candidate ensured
victory for the party in many seats that it would not have otherwise won. The BSP
employed the same strategy,with Brahmin candidates.

Vote share and seats

The net result of this strategising has been the constant increase in vote share and
number of seats for the S.P. and the BSP in the past one decade and the systematic
fall in the number of seats and vote share of the primary upper caste party, the BJP.
The Congress, too, has steadily lost seats though it has managed to hold on to a
fixed low vote share.

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Between 1996 and 2007, the increases in the number of seats and the vote share
of the BSP have been as follows: In the 1996 Assembly polls, it had 67 seats and
19.64 per cent of the vote; in 2002, 98 seats and 23.06 per cent of the vote; and in
2007, 206 seats and 30.45 per cent of the vote.

The S.P.'s vote share, too, has increased - from 21.80 per cent in 1996 to 25.37 per
cent in 2002 and 26.14 per cent in 2007 - though the number of seats has not kept
pace with this increase. It won 110 seats in 1996 and 143 in 2002, and now it has
97.

MANPREET ROMANA/AFP

Rahul Gandhi leading the Congress campaign in Rae Bareli. The Congress
failed to make any headway yet again in the State.

The BJP has experienced a steady decline. It won 174 seats in 1996, 88 in 2002
and 50 in 2007. The vote share, too, plummeted correspondingly from 32.52 per
cent in 1996 to 20.08 per cent in 2002 and 17 per cent in 2007.

The Congress' numbers came down from 33 in 1996 to 26 in 2002 and 22 in 2007.
Its vote share has hovered around 8.5 per cent - 8.35 per cent in 1996, 8.96 per
cent in 2002 and 8.47 per cent in 2007.

These figures establish that the BSP's spectacular rise in 2007 was made possible
essentially by advancing the process of marginalisation of the national parties by
the unequivocal pursuit of the Dalit-Brahmin bhaichara socio-political slogan, which,
in turn, was followed up by the fielding of as many as 86 Brahmin candidates. Fifty-
one of them won. Besides them, the BSP's tally of 206 members includes 62 Dalits,
24 Muslims, 18 Thakurs and 51 members of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

The BSP's Brahmin candidates helped the party capture seats that were considered
bastions of parties such as the BJP and the S.P. Such seats include Debai in
Bulandshahar district, where its candidate Bhagwan Sharma humbled Rajveer
Singh, son of former BJP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, and Karchana in Allahabad,
where Kalector Pandey defeated the S.P.'s Ujjawal Raman Singh, son of Lok Sabha

11
member Reoti Raman Singh. The BJP had held Debai in all the elections since 1993
and the S.P. had held Karchana from 1996.

The BSP victories in these constituencies are significant on account of other factors
too. The BJP used to project Debai, which has a predominant OBC Lodh population,
as testimony to its own brand of social engineering. Similarly, the S.P. used to
present Karchana as proof of its appropriation of Thakur votes. The BSP gains in
both seats show that the Dalit-Brahmin bhaichara is capable of taking on other
caste combinations.

But the BSP was not able to advance its social combination to win a seat like
Haidergarh in Barabanki district, a constituency with a massive upper caste
population. Here, the S.P.'s Thakur candidate Arvind Singh Gope pushed the BSP's
Brahmin candidate Ashutosh Awasthi to the third spot, asserting the supremacy of
the Yadav-Thakur-Muslim combine. That the seat was held in 2002 by the current
BJP president and then Chief Minister Rajnath Singh adds value to the S.P. victory.

These specific election results as well as the overall picture that has emerged
indicate that the political battle in Uttar Pradesh is essentially between the BSP and
S.P. A closer look at the results also shows that the S.P. is the number two party in
as many 172 seats, of which it lost 52 by less than 5,000 votes. The party is third
in 68 seats. The BSP is number two in 107 seats, of which it lost 47 by less than
5,000 votes. The BSP is third in 59 seats. In the runner-up positions, too, the BJP
and the Congress fare poorly. The BJP is second only in 72 seats, while the
Congress has that position only in 15 seats.

Hindutva loses shine

The results show that the BJP's Hindutva agenda has little appeal among the
masses. They also show that the party's own social engineering strategy, of keeping
its core upper caste vote base and attracting OBC communities, has not worked
well. The strategy projected OBC leader Kalyan Singh as the unquestioned leader of
the party. But Kalyan Singh's own track record of going out and returning to the
party and the party's failure to make any headway on the Ram mandir construction
despite being in power at the Centre for six years seem to have resulted in the
party losing credibility among voters in general, and OBC voters in particular.

As for the Congress, it tried to remind the voters about the halcyon days when the
Nehru-Gandhi family held sway over Uttar Pradesh politics and assert that the
Congress practised caste-free politics at that time. The party, especially its lead
campaigner Rahul Gandhi, promised a return to those days. The campaign failed to
evoke mass appeal because no one among the upper castes, Dalits and Muslims
believed it.

As BSP leader Babu Singh Khushwaha pointed out, the Congress, during its heyday,
advanced a caste-based umbrella led by the upper castes, and reminding Dalits
about that regime was indeed counterproductive. The upper castes, especially
Brahmins, knew that the party did not have the strength to come anywhere near
power and decided to accept the leadership of a Dalit leader. Large sections of
Muslims followed suit.

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It is clear that the socio-political agendas of the Congress and the BJP were
perceived by the majority of the electorate as anachronistic in spite of the changes,
largely cosmetic, that the parties made by projecting new leaders and advancing
seemingly new campaign techniques such as roadshows. It is also clear that the
leadership of a political novice like Rahul Gandhi is not what the Uttar Pradesh
electorate is looking forward to, though crowds flocked to see and hear him.

The single most important message of the 2007 elections is that the BSP and the
S.P., with their solid and steadfast Dalit and Yadav caste bases respectively, are in a
position to advance effectively the "core caste-plus" game and chip away at the
support base of the national parties. Such a possibility would only accentuate the
`Tamilnaduisation' of Uttar Pradesh politics, and that is a disturbing message for
the two national parties.

COVER STORY

Wrong again

VIDYA SUBRAHMANIAM

Opinion polls and exit polls go wrong. A journalist with her ear to the
ground can perhaps detect sounds not heard by the surveyor.
RAJESH KUMAR SINGH/AP

Journalists in the field spoke of Dalits in remote villages trooping out to

cast their votes, in many cases for the first time since Independence.

I am late by half an hour for Mayawati's rally in Sultanpur. Yet, no harm done. The
ground is just filling up and there is time for a quick snack at the nearby dhaba. As
the car reverses, my driver Sunil, a Thakur by birth but nonetheless an ardent fan
of Mayawati, points to a most astonishing sight. Thousands and thousands of
women, babies tucked under their arms, are trudging on foot to the rally ground.
By the time we return, the venue is overflowing with people, the rush of women we
saw making up nearly half the audience.

The gentle morning sun grows fierce but there is no sign yet of the Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP) supremo. Through the five hours that follow, the crowds sit motionless,
not taking a break, not even asking for water. I ask a local intelligence officer, who
is quietly watching over the crowd, to estimate its strength. Fifteen thousand, he

13
says, adding, "But it is not just the numbers. Look at the quality of the people.
They are not curious onlookers. They are voters."

Indeed so. The audience listens in rapt attention as a score of lesser functionaries
make speeches extolling Mayawati and her multi-caste social engineering
experiment. Sarvajan (all-caste) unity is also the theme of a qawwali rendered in a
mix of Bhojpuri and Awadhi. The only time the large assemblage of men and
women stirs is when slogans are raised at the end of a speech: "Behen Mayawati
zindabad, Sarvajan zindabad," they shout after the speaker.

Mayawati's arrival breaks the discipline, but only momentarily. Men and women
rushing forward for a glimpse of their leader are motioned back to their seats by
volunteers of the Bahujan Samaj Force, a paramilitary-like organisation in charge of
security and crowd control at Mayawati's rallies.

The BSP chief is not the best of orators. Her tone is monotonous, her speech
without humour and without the flourishes of her rivals. It does not help that she
reads out from a prepared text. But her listeners hang on to every word. She tells
them the BSP is now a party of all castes, all religions, even as she matter-of-factly
provides the caste and denominational break-up of her candidates: 139 from the
forward castes, 110 from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 93 from the
Scheduled Castes and 61 Muslims.

"Haathi nahi Ganesh hai, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh hai" (it is not elephant but it is
Ganesh, it is the Hindu triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh), she declares to
thundering ovation. This is followed by a message especially addressed to her core
constituency - Dalits, who know just what is at stake in this election.

Mayawati's list of dos and don'ts for voting day misses no detail. "Keep a fast for a
day," she tells the women, urging them not to light the chulha (stove) until they
have finished exercising their franchise. The menfolk are advised not to fall prey to
distractions. "People will try to divert your attention. They will say one of your
fellow Dalits has had an accident. Even assuming this is true, first cast your vote
and then attend to your friend," she says, adding, "And yes, you'll find leaflets
distributed in my name, asking you not to vote for x or y candidate. Pay no
attention. This is a ploy to prevent you from voting."

As she winds up her speech with a full-throated cry of "Jai Bhim", the gathering,
too, rises to its feet, filling the four corners of the pandal with deafening shouts of
"Jai Bhim".

The rally is educative. The day before, travelling between Lucknow and Barabanki, I
had heard Rahul Gandhi and Lal Krishna Advani. Rahul attracted rapturous but
inattentive crowds. They wanted to see the celebrated Gandhi heir, not hear him.
Virtually the same lot turned up to hear Advani. This time they were visibly restless.
What caught their fancy was a foreign television crew filming the rally.

Advani spoke on the strengths of Indian democracy, dwelling at length on United

States President George Bush's doubt-filled first election. The crowds were waving
to the camera. Exasperated, Advani remarked: "I suppose now you will all clap for
the camera." And, indeed, they clapped for the camera, much to the BJP leader's
chagrin.

14
Clearly, as the local intelligence man in Sultanpur put it, the quality of people
turning up to hear Mayawati is vastly superior. They are not rally-hoppers. They are
voters. For me, searching for pointers to which way the vote would go, Mayawati's
captive audience is a valuable clue. But there are other indicators.

In Lucknow, where I start my journey, local journalists breathlessly talk about an

election that has not been this free and fair in decades. They eulogise the Election
Commission of India for making this possible and speak of Dalits in the remotest
villages trooping out to cast their votes - in many cases for the first time since
Independence. "This is a miracle," they say.

As I travel onward from Sultanpur, I hear reports of unprecedented crowds at

Mayawati's rallies. In Ghazipur, I miss the lady by a whisker but hear the local
people gush about the 50,000-strong turnout at her rally. For me this is crucial
piece of evidence. At election time a crowd of 10,000 is rare; 50,000 is unheard of.

Silent but passionate

The Dalit vote is typically silent. Yet the passion of this vote is difficult to miss. The
motivation is visible in the rallies and in the queues outside polling booths. The
overall voter turnout has dipped, thanks to the ECI's hawk-like watch over the
process, yet this appears to have only helped consolidate the Dalit vote.

However, as important as the Dalit consolidation is the emergence of the Dalit-plus

vote. This is not so strikingly visible and, indeed, there is enough in the poll arena
to trip up the analyst. Add to a total of 117 parties 2,000-odd independent
candidates and what emerges is a picture so fragmented that even the keenest
mind cannot make sense of it. The crafty U.P. voter is a further problem. Stop at
the village kasba (market square) and one can hear as many opinions as there are
people.

A favourite answer is "sab maidan mein hain" (everybody is in the race). That is not
much help, so one bombards them with questions: Who makes the best Chief
Minister? What is the main issue in the election? Who ran the best government in
recent times? Which are the biggies in the contest?

15
 AKHILESH KUMAR

As important as the Dalit consolidation is the emergence of the Dalit-plus

vote. Here, women voters queue up at a polling booth in Varanasi.

The answers are the same - here and elsewhere. Mayawati is the best Chief
Minister; she ran the best government; she cracked down on thuggery, the main
issue in the election; the contest is between "the BSP and another party". And
finally, "Oh yes, there is a strong undercurrent of support for the elephant - across
castes in this village, in other villages and throughout the State."

Before I return to Delhi, I cross-check my broad findings with officials in the

Lucknow bureaucracy. If anything, they are more optimistic: the BSP could be
heading for a majority. Yet back home on May 1, I am greeted by a profusion of
exit and opinion polls, all of which forecast a hung Assembly.

The opinion and exit polls place the BSP in a broad range between 120 and 155
seats; the Samajwadi Party (S.P.) between 91 and 110 seats; and the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) between 90 and 125 seats. The BJP is positioned a close second
to the BSP though on the election trail I detected the party only in a few urban
pockets. Could I have gone wrong? Unlikely.

In 2002, the BSP won 98 seats for a vote share of 23.06 per cent. This time
arithmetic and chemistry were on its side. That the BSP's Dalit vote had
consolidated was not in dispute. That it was getting a fair share of votes from other
social groups was also not in dispute. On the other hand, the BSP's rivals had to
guard their flanks. Put all this together and you got a vote share that was way
beyond anything the BSP's immediate competition seemed able to muster.

Yet what can a hack, armed with only a notepad, do in the face of overwhelming
counter-evidence from reputed poll surveyors? In my final round-up for The Hindu
(May 3), I scale back the BSP's seats to 180. As polling comes to an end on May 8,
so does the race to call the election.

16
The final figures vary. One TV channel predicts a dead heat between the BSP, the
S.P. and the BJP (117-127 for the BSP; 113-123 for the S.P.; and 108-118 for the
BJP). A rival channel is more realistic in its assessment (152-168 for the BSP; 99-
111 for the S.P.; and 80-90 for the BJP).

There are other pollsters in the market, each with their own figures. The overall
seat range: the BSP between 116 and 168; the BJP between 80 and 124; and the
S.P. between 96 and 123. The actual result is a vindication of the old-fashioned
journalist: 206 to the BSP, 97 to the S.P. and 50 to the BJP.

Why did the opinion and exit polls go wrong and why did the ordinary journalist get
closer to the actual result? Writing in Indian Express, political scientist Yogendra
Yadav was honest enough to admit that "none of the polls, including ours, came
close to suggesting a clear majority for the BSP".

Yadav, who anchored the opinion and exit polls on behalf of CNN-IBN, Indian
Express and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), noted
further: "This was a clear instance of the triumph of old-style political journalism
over the new-fangled number crunching. Political reporters may not have talked
about a clear majority for the BSP, but they did capture the hawa in a way that the
opinion and exit polls did not." Yadav cited three reasons for the failure of the exit
and opinion polls: underestimation of BSP votes and overestimation of BJP votes in
the exit polls; BSP voters' reluctance to speak up, which made for a response bias;
and a skewed vote-seat equation in favour of the BSP.

Yadav said in conclusion: "By recognising this failure as failure, we begin to admit
that election forecasting in India has a long way to go; that there is a big gap
between what polls promise and are expected to deliver on the one hand and what
they are capable of doing on the other. This allows us to acknowledge that the art
of polling and forecasting has not seen any major methodological innovations since
the path-breaking research by Prannoy Roy and the India Today-MARG team in the
1980s."

What can one say to this except that election forecasting is different from market
surveys. A journalist with her ear to the ground can perhaps detect sounds not heard by
the savvy surveyor who, though equipped with sophisticated tools, may not have the
instincts needed to interpret political signals.

COVER STORY

What next?

ZOYA HASAN

Further expansion of the BSP's influence in the other northern States will
depend crucially on its performance in office.

17
 RAJESH KUMAR SINGH/AP

AT AN ELECTION rally of the BSP. The political tendency in Uttar Pradesh is

to make use of mass mobilisation as a means of achieving power and not
as an instrument for transformation and social improvement.

THE stunning victory of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh, the
country's most populous and decisive State, is undoubtedly an extraordinary event
in the history of Indian democracy. U.P. is not just any other State.With 80
Members of Parliament and 403 Members of the Legislative Assembly, it accounts
for 16 per cent of the country's population and has a significant say in the
formation of the government at the Centre. Polling over 30 per cent of the vote, the
BSP won a clear majority by projecting itself as the only viable alternative to the
Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party's (S.P.) misrule and by turning caste politics
on its head to create a new social alliance, of the underprivileged, of historic s
ignificance. By focussing on law and order and the need for a law-governed polity,
Mayawati succeeded in blending the need for law with the yearning for social justice
within this framework. This is the first time a Dalit leader has won an absolute
majority in any State. The last time a party got a majority of its own in U.P. was in
1991 when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 221 out of the 425 seats the State
had before Uttranchal (now Uttarkhand) was carved out of it. The BJP victory was
built on a highly divisive and communal campaign against the backdrop of the Ram
Janmabhoomi movement.

The past two decades have witnessed profound social and political changes in U.P.
Two major kinds of mass mobilisation, epitomised by backward caste politics and

18
cultural nationalism, managed to displace the Congress coalition from its position of
dominance. The S.P. and the BSP, representing the marginalised sections of society,
emerged as the principal power blocs to replace "upper caste" domination. Both in
their own ways spoke for the underclasses and their aspirations; their simultaneous
rise to prominence acquired the dimensions of a silent social revolution. Taking
advantage of the first-past-the-post-system or the winner-takes-all phenomenon,
both parties increased their support base, which catapulted them to the control of
the government. Between 1993 and 1997, the BSP leveraged itself into a governing
position three times in spite of its limited base: as a coalition partner with the S.P.;
as a minority government supported from outside by the BJP in 1995; and as a
coalition government with the BJP in 1995. In these three stints, Mayawati pursued
an aggressive Dalit agenda. If the 1990s saw political power shift from the upper
castes to backward castes, today the balance of power has shifted even more
dramatically, with Dalits posing a formidable challenge to backward caste power.

Dalit-led coalition

But, ironically, Dalit hegemony can be achieved only if the Dalit-led party can reach
out to non-Dalits as the numerical support of Dalits is simply not sufficient to win a
political majority. Critical to the BSP's electoral success this time is the substantial
increase in the proportion of non-Dalit votes, which, according to the Indian
Express-CNN-IBN-CSDS post-poll survey data, went up from two-fifths to nearly
half of the BSP's votes. This major increase in vote share has come about through
the reinvention of the party as a multi-caste coalition. For the last several years,
the BSP has worked to expand its social base with the help of the slogan of "sarva
samaj", or a society that includes all sections. And this was topped up by a series of
astute alliances that helped the party to magnify its support base and engender a
swing of nearly 7.4 per cent in its favour.

Since the dissolution of the Congress-led social coalition in the late 1980s, this is
the first such attempt to unify a multiplicity of groups in the political arena.
However, this coalition is quite different from the Congress's rainbow coalition in the
years immediately after Independence, which was under upper caste leadership
while the leadership of the BSP's coalition is with Dalits.

The bulk of the BSP's support has come not from the high-profile upper castes but
from the lower Other Backward Classes (OBCs); in addition, it has got 17 per cent
votes from Muslims. The class factor is an important feature of its social base - the
poor of all communities have tended to tilt towards the capacious elephant symbol.
Even though the BSP may have rebuilt the Congress-style rainbow coalition and has
clearly succeeded in garnering the support of non-Dalit voters, the BSP's victory
does not signal a fundamental break with the politics of identity. Voting patterns do
not indicate that people have risen above caste identities given that both the BSP
and S.P. make appeals principally on the basis of caste identity, albeit as an
instrument of political inclusion. The BSP's core support remains caste-based and
draws largely from Dalits - its vote share among them (70 per cent) is one of the
highest recorded for any large social group in any State. The CSDS (Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies) data shows that both the S.P. and the BSP have held
on to their core caste support, that is, Yadavs and Dalits respectively, which
suggests that the two parties continue to be the automatic choice of most Yadavs
and Dalits in the State. Moreover, the S.P.'s vote share has remained the same. Not
surprisingly, the champions of identity politics, the S.P. and the BSP, were able to

19
retain or add to their vote share, while the Congress, which subscribes to a please-
all approach and talks of inclusion, failed to make any headway.

Although the share of Dalits in the total population of the State is quite high in
Tamil Nadu and Punjab, in fact higher than in U.P., and the upper castes are much
more salient in the population and vastly more significant in U.P. than in any other
State, it is only in this State that Dalit numbers have been translated into
autonomous political power.

The focus of attention so far has been on the process and strategy of mass
mobilisation, especially when the party has been in power, and not on the tangible
benefits for the poor and oppressed that provide the bulk of support for these
parties. Although the relationship between social power and the interests a ruling
party pursues is complex, the critical issue today is the role and consequence of
policies of economic and social development, which provide greater space and
autonomy to Dalits, for enhancing human capabilities and well-being.

Much of the justification for autonomous political power for Dalits, for instance,
revolves around the need for marginalised groups to have a voice and presence
within the government, which will otherwise get submerged. Thus far, there is little
evidence to indicate a significant improvement in the social indicators of human
development of these groups. There has been some improvement in the well-being
of all social groups, but the rate of progress has been inadequate over the period of
mass mobilisation and during the period that lower caste parties have been in
power. Dalits continue to be the most deprived of the social groups; they have the
lowest level of consumption and the highest level of poverty and remain at the
bottom of the occupational ladder, with the lowest share in salaried jobs and the
highest share in casual labour.

Past records of lower caste parties in government indicate that the acquisition of
power was rarely translated into tangible redistributive policies or programmes that
addressed the vital concerns of the disadvantaged. Despite movements to mobilise
Dalits and backward classes for the last two decades, there is no major increase in
public investment in infrastructure, health and education.

During the period that the BSP has been in power, it has not put forward a
transformative agenda for U.P.'s development, except the Ambedkar Village
Programme and a small number of social welfare schemes that were not large or
substantial enough to make a genuine difference. It did not initiate any major
programmes or any real strategy to alleviate the poverty of Dalits despite the fact
that they continue to suffer from the worst social indicators of well-being. The main
emphasis was on reservation, which is legitimate given that Dalits continue to be
grossly under-represented in government services, except at the lowest level.

20
 JITENDRA PRAKASH/REUTERS

A Child Worker at a brick kiln in Tharvai, a village 35 km from Allahabad.

Basic standards of human development can be raised only through policies,
programmes and political action that give meaning to social dignity and a
better material life for all the deprived groups that Mayawati now
represents.

At the same time, there is evidence to indicate that disparities between groups and
within groups may have increased in these years. Despite some improvement in
socio-economic conditions, Dalits are more disproportionately represented among
the deprived than was the case earlier. Arguably, the disparities in well-being have
to be located in the differences in approach and in the programmatic weaknesses of
the mass mobilisation in U.P., which has focussed essentially on capturing power
and making symbolic gains. Mass mobilisation has not given lower castes the
leverage and political advantage that they have gained in southern India, for
instance.

In Tamil Nadu, mass mobilisation was broad-based enough to create a space for
social policies for the well-being of the deprived and the excluded as a whole.
Moreover, there have been specific interventions for improving the health and the
nutritional and educational levels of the poor, including poor Dalits and the OBCs.
Direct interventions by the State government in these areas have yielded positive
results. Though the Dravidian parties made no serious effort at structural reform,
they advocated a set of social welfare policies, which, combined with the almost 70
per cent reservations for the lower castes in education and government, satisfied
popular aspirations. Social welfare programmes ranged from massive urban housing
development for the lower middle classes to rural programmes for building village
roads, constructing school buildings, providing drinking water, installing one electric
light connection in every hut, and the free midday meal scheme, all of which has
given substance to the policy of redistribution. There is no evidence that U.P.
governments have been proactive in any of these areas of public concern.

On the other hand, the fierce competition for the vote in U.P. under conditions of
acute deprivation and underdevelopment has generated a politics that is averse to
structuring and regulating power to serve social ends or to sustain a larger sense of
purpose. As a consequence, disadvantaged groups and their parties, much like the
dominant groups before them, tend to look upon political power as basically a
vehicle for serving sectional claims. The tendency is to make use of mass
mobilisation as a means of achieving power and not as an instrument for
transformation and social improvement. Further, the emergence of broader social
solidarities is impeded by the absence of non-electoral social mobilisation and public
action. There is very little ground-level mobilisation outside the party system, which

21
could push the government and political leaders to adopt more responsive
strategies towards their constituents, and very few initiatives for policy reform such
as the struggle for the Right to Information in Rajasthan or the Right to Education
campaign in Madhya Pradesh. Such a public discourse is virtually absent in U.P. And
when it exists, it is frequently used to serve particular interests.

The electoral victory of the BSP is U.P.-specific but its consequences are unlikely to
be limited to the State. Even though the creation of a larger social alliance under
Dalit leadership may not be replicable in other States, the BSP holds considerable
appeal for the disadvantaged, disenchanted voters in neighbouring States,
especially in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. But further expansion of its
influence will depend crucially on the performance of the BSP in office in U.P.,
especially because it has an absolute majority and because Mayawati runs a tightly
knit party with complete control over the organisation. The challenge for the BSP
will be to signal through its politics and policies that it can break with the past not
just in terms of constructing a multi-caste coalition of voters and their
representatives but also in building a truly inclusive society on the basis of equal
opportunities.

The challenge will be to come up with social policies to create opportunities for
economic growth but to do so in manner that is just and addresses the multiple
disadvantages that mark contemporary U.P. Unless the BSP articulates a radical
programme of redistribution, as opposed to a patronage-driven one, which
addresses the primary contradictions of U.P. society, it will be difficult for Mayawati
to sustain the inclusive coalition she has built. The revival of the State's economy
and the raising of basic standards of human and social development will be its
benchmark of survival. It can only do so through public policies, programmes and
political action that give meaning to social dignity and a better material life for all
the deprived groups that Mayawati now represents.

Zoya Hasan is Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and currently Member
of the National Commission for Minorities.

22
Yahoo 6th June 2007

Group eyes lower India caste system spot

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press WriterMon Jun 4, 12:42 PM ET

For a week, angry throngs from one of India's lower castes blocked roads with burning
barricades, stoned police and clashed with rival castes to make a single, simple point: They
want to be even lower.

With 25 people dead, the unrest spread to the fringes of New Delhi on Monday as thousands of
Gujjars, a class of farmers and shepherds, pressed their demand to be officially shunted to the
lowest rung of India's hereditary caste system so they can get government jobs and university
spots reserved for such groups.

"I am farmer and I am poor," Rajesh Gurjjar, 26, said after police chased him off a main street in
this New Delhi suburb, his thin T-shirt shirt soaked with sweat. "I want a government job. It pays
more. The office is cool in summer. The fields are too hot."

To put it another way, the fastest way up India's economic ladder now is a quick step down its
age-old social ladder.

While caste violence is not new, many see a paradox in the Gujjars' struggle. The political
importance of the caste system is growing even as the rise of an urbanized and educated
middle class has weakened its grip socially, making it more acceptable for a group to try to fight
its way down instead of pushing its way up.

"This isn't a case of a group agitating for the primacy or superiority of their caste. It has nothing
to do with a claim of caste loyalty according to the Hindu world view or religious scriptures," said
Parvan K. Varma, author of "Being Indian," a book about Indian society.

"This is the use of caste as political negotiating currency. It's about a finite cake and a caste
community attempting to get a piece," he said.

The politics were clear late Monday when Gujjar leaders called off their protests after officials
agreed to look into their demands.

The move immediately drew threats from leaders of a rival caste, the Meena, who are classified
among the lowest castes and don't want more competitors for reserved jobs and school spots.
During the unrest, clashes between Meenas and Gujjars killed at least four people.

The origins and inner workings of the caste system are the subject of much debate. The system
divides people into four broad groups, with the priestly caste at the top. There are hundreds of
sub-castes within each group, most of them drawn along occupational lines.

23
While the caste system is part of Hinduism, there are also caste-like divisions among Muslims,
who account for 13 percent of India's 1.1 billion people, and Christians, who make up 2.4
percent.

Although the system was outlawed after independence from Britain in 1947, its influence
remains powerful and the government has sought to redress discrimination against those on the
lower rungs by setting quotas for government jobs and university spots.

Rather than weaken caste affiliations, the result has been a fracturing of politics along caste
lines as lower groups vie for a share of the quotas.

Further complicating matters is that caste has never been as rigid a system as imagined in the
West — there is, over generations, movement within subgroups, sociologists say — and
determining who gets access to the quotas has long been an issue of red-hot contention.

There have been repeated protests the past year over a government plan to reserve more than
a quarter of the spots at India's top professional schools for the 3,743 castes and sub-castes,
Gujjars among them, classified in the second-to-lowest category, the "Other Backward Classes."

That plan was suspended in March by a Supreme Court ruling that presaged the Gujjar
protests.

"No where in the world do castes queue up to be branded as backward. No where in the world
is there a competition to become backward," the court said.

Less controversial have been the decades-old quotas for those on the lowest rung of the caste
system — the "Scheduled Castes and Tribes," a group that include the "dalits," once known as
"untouchables."

India's 160 million dalits have no caste, and for centuries have been viewed as "pollutants."
Many are forced to live in separate villages, forbidden from drawing water at wells used by other
Hindus and often subjected to violent abuse.

It is this group the Gujjars want to join.

"Our people have not benefited from India's economic growth. Most Gujjars are herders. They
live in huts on the hills. This is a matter of survival," said Bharat Tanwar, 30, who took part in a
peaceful protest in New Delhi on Friday.

That may be true for most Gujjars, although not for Tanwar — he's a textile engineer.

"But I did not go to a top university, I cannot make so much money," he said. "I want my son to
go to a top engineering school, to work with computers."

24