Aditi Phadnis: What happened in Uttar Pradesh?

Dominant parties such as the BSP and Samajwadi Party were swept aside, while Mayawati's BSP was deserted

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) we now know has won 71 seats in Uttar Pradesh. It has got 41 per cent of the vote in the state. If you add to this the vote (and seat) share of pre poll ally, Apna Dal, the National Democratic Alliance has effectively got 73 seats and 43.3 per cent of the vote. With 22.2 per cent of the vote, the Samajwadi Party (SP) is a distant second with just five seats. And the other dominant party in UP, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has got 19.6 per cent of the vote but not a single seat. The Congress with 7.5 per cent of the vote has managed to get two seats.
 

So what's going on? A party with 19 per cent of the vote gets no seat but one with 7.5 per cent gets two seats? And how did Mayawati slide down so badly? Who deserted her? Why? Is the desertion permanent?

Obviously the answers to all these questions need detailed research. But anecdotal evidence suggests that Mayawati did not fully gauge the undercurrent of resentment in her own community against their Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and Members of Parliament (MPs). This was exacerbated by the behaviour of BSP MPs and MLAs when Dalits were faced either with oppression from local police or when faced with a communal situation.

Dalit activists say it is the Congress that used to specialise in the "Muslims in danger" card to rally the Muslim vote behind it, by creating communal situations and then rushing to the aid of Muslims. In recent months, that strategy has been appropriated by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in relation to the Dalits. In Muzaffarnagar, for instance, where the Mulayam Singh Yadav-Akhilesh Yadav government's largesse to Muslims - allowances for Muslim girls, turfing out Dalits from encroached Wakf land and so on - has not gone unnoticed, there was an undercurrent of hostility to Muslims among the Dalits. And when the Dalits were targeted by the Muslims, they got very little succour from their elected representatives - the BSP MLA or MP.

Said Dalit activist Ramkumar: "If there was anger against the Akhilesh Yadav government among Dalits, for allowing the administration to do what it liked, there was also anger against Mayawati. Dalits began to ask why they should continue to be taken for granted even by Mayawati, if no one was helping them when they got into trouble".

It was the BJP which played on this feeling, especially Amit Shah, the general secretary charged with the responsibility of winning Uttar Pradesh for Narendra Modi. Shah had numerous meetings with Dalit leaders. No leader was thought to small to meet him. Money, favour, largesse and promises of more - it was all distributed with a lavish hand, says Ramkumar.

What changed the Dalit view of Modi, especially the younger Dalits was his declaration from Lucknow in his rally that the "next decade will the decade of the Dalit and the Backward class". Where Mayawati failed to do expectation management of the Dalits, although she has been the chief minister four times, the BJP managed to tap this latent resentment and capitalised on it.

There have been numerous clashes between Dalits and Muslims in all parts of Uttar Pradesh. These have been local face-offs: where Dalits have been prevented from taking out processions on anniversaries of Dalit icons like Guru Ravidass; even small issues such as taking wedding processions (baraat) through Muslim areas have caused tensions. "At small tea shops, now Dalits are telling each other: Now that Modi has come, he will put Muslims in their place" reports Ramkumar.

The BJP could not have got such a large number of seats in Uttar Pradesh if caste and class had not been breached. Dalits, too, are attracted by the promise of jobs and reservations. Modi has been careful not ever to mention the "R" word - reservation - in any of his rallies. He has only talked of development to the point where some day reservation will not be necessary. He has raised the issue of caste only peripherally. But disenchanted and let down by caste leaders, many Dalits now see a backward caste leader - a "teli" like Modi - as their salvation. This cannot be a permanent state of mind. But if Mayawati cannot get her support base back, and loses the support of the upper castes as well, Uttar Pradesh will be on the cusp of a new caste consciousness and a new form of Hindu social engineering.