By Kabir Khan
Election 2012 has restored the secular agenda to the long-suffering Uttar Pradesh
With the first round of UP Assembly elections the secular political agenda, which had been sidelined by BJP’s divisive politics, has been restored. God be thanked.
No serious attempt was made to disrupt peace, no severed heads of cows were thrown into temples to anger Hindus enough to vote for BJP. Perhaps the failure of such attempts in two elections in Delhi had wisened the strategic planners.
The credit should go to the people who had sent clear signals that they would not entertain violent, malicious agenda and would want a government that did not try to survive by dividing people.
As the BJP is accountable for banishing the secular agenda from UP (and, subsequently, India) the honour for defending the secular Constitution goes largely to Samajwadi Party, which has fought valiantly over the years for its protection.
If there is a single most visible face for maligning secularism in the eyes of the people, it is L K Advani’s and the most visible face for secularism is, of course, Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The first phase shows that people want UP to be secular and progressive, not divided against itself and bleeding permanently from self-inflicted wounds.
That Uttar Pradesh needs heeling, and the suffering people want such healing to begin as quickly as possible, was evident from the highest turnover at polling booths, which was between 62 and 64 percent, an all-time record.
The anti-incumbency phenomenon has begun to play itself out. This play is going to gain momentum in the coming rounds.
Continuing cases of atrocities against Dalits in Uttar Pradesh have undermined BSP’s standing with Dalits as well as the perceived distance between her and her caste group. Surrounded by her securitymen, Mayawati had for long been cut off from her main support base.
Her latest faux pas came at a rally on February 6 when she reportedly called a Dalit woman “paltu kutiya” (domesticated bitch). The woman, a Nishad (a kin group of Mayawati’s Jatavs), was trying to tell her that the police were not registering her FIR against the alleged murderers of her son. Naturally, such incidents would only widen the gap between her and her support base.
The resurgence of secular agenda singlehandedly unleashed by SP has created sufficient space for a party like Congress also, which is not anti-secular like BJP, but is not prepared to stand up and be counted for the secular Constitution.
Much of the trouble in UP has been created by the indecisiveness and moral apathy of Congress party. Yet, simply by not being the exact copy of BJP it is going to be benefited to some extent by the resurgence of the secular agenda.
The change in UP’s political environment has many causes behind it, one of them being the slow realisation by upper castes that the politics of hate and violence, and the growth of BJP’s stature, has drastically altered the inter-religious equations built over the centuries with great care.
Its replacement with the divisive agenda had not only marginalised secular parties like SP and Congress, but also seriously eroded the standing and influence of upper castes. The last few years have clearly marked the gradual decline and disempowerment of the upper castes, a situation which has alarmed them. They had to turn away from BJP, and also from Mayawati, who is seen as the future ally of BJP.
On a less clearly visible plane the non-Dalit castes’ alienation from Mayawati has also come because of her subtle neo-Buddhist agenda as reflected in her monuments. Non-Dalits have read an ominous message in those monuments and have begun to distance themselves from BSP.
This impression has been reinforced by Mayawati’s constant companions at public functions, the ochre-robed Buddhist monks.
For the last five years she has been impervious to public mood and the general anger against the wastage of huge government funds over senseless monuments. However, as the Assembly elections began to draw close she started trying to accommodate public sentiment, albeit grudgingly, and by way of tokenism. That certainly proved insufficient.
Interestingly, a couple of days before the first round of polls she got herself photographed sitting on a sofa, a Ganesha statue by her side and no ochre-robed monk in sight. That gesture could be too weak to reassure the fearful voter.
At this moment the only point that can be made with certitude, and without fear of contradiction, is that in UP the secular agenda has been revived almost single handedly by Mulayam Singh Yadav. Besides SP some others too would benefit from it, by default.
(Khan is a social activist. He can be reached at [email protected])