Far Eastern Economic Review
One Caste, One Vote
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124022704003634675.html
By JYOTI MALHOTRA
Badaiyon, Uttar Pradesh â Across a railway bridge that doubles as a road here in the heart of India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, parliamentarian Saleem Shervani's jeep is hailed by an enthusiastic railwayman."Welcome back Saleem bhai!" he says, smiling broadly, using the common Hindi-Urdu word for "brother." Welcome to Badaiyon!"
[Mayawati] Associated Press
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati displays a crown presented to her by supporters during a public rally in Mumbai, India, in this April 8, 2009 photo. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
The railwayman, clearly Hindu, wears a bodi, a tuft of hair on the back of the head that signifies his high-caste, Brahmin origins. Other pedestrians begin to crowd around the vehicle. Mr. Shervani, a Congress Party member, rolls the window down of his air-conditioned Tata Safari jeep and shakes the hands thrust in his direction. Many belong to men with close-cropped beards that Muslims commonly wear; others, like the railwayman, have the tell-tale marks of high-caste Hindus.
Mr. Shervani's two mobile phones ring constantly. "Don't worry, Saleem bhai, we are with you, you will definitely win, inshallah," says one caller. Between blessings, requests for help from villagers ("I cannot do anything against the Election Commission's model code of conduct," he says) and unsolicited advice, Mr. Shervani goes from village to village tirelessly campaigning.
Across Uttar Pradesh, golden with wheat and interspersed with the dark green shadows of mango groves, election fever is on the rise. There is a month to go before this area of Uttar Pradesh votes; meanwhile, the wheat has to be cut, threshed and stored in local warehouses.
Mr. Shervani knows that he cannot bank on his record of having won here five times already, or the fact that he is Muslim (there are 290,000 Muslims here), to get him a majority of votes in the constituency's 1.4 million voter population. That's why his campaign is being very carefully stitched together into a coalition of several Most Backward Hindu castes such as the Mauyras, Shakhs, Khushwahas and Sainis who account for nearly 175,000 voters in the constituency, plus the base Muslim vote.
These backward groups have agreed to support Mr. Shervani's Congress Party because they are fighting the overlordship of the Yadav caste, also backward, which has ruled Uttar Pradesh for nearly 20 years but refused to share power with those below it in Hinduism's complex caste hierarchy.
Caste-based politics are not new to Uttar Pradesh, but for the last two decades they have found a new opponent: religion. In 1992, the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rode to power on the back of nationalist Hindu sentiment that favored the building of a temple to the Hindu god Ram and the destruction of the 16th century Babri mosque.
So when Varun Gandhi, grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and BJP candidate from Pilibhit constituency, was recently arrested for hate speeches in which he threatened to "cut off the arms of all those who rose against Hindus," the election campaign was galvanized on several fronts.
But don't count on the Hindu-Muslim divide to be as important as caste identification here in Uttar Pradesh or elsewhere. BJP candidate and six-time MP from Bareilly constituency Santosh Gangwar, says that Varun Gandhi's statements "were clearly not right. Many party workers may want us to defend him, but we have to conduct our politics very differently." He says the "Varun effect" will be limited in Uttar Pradesh and certainly not have a national impact like it did in 1992.
Mushirul Hasan, vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia University in Delhi, points out that "although caste and religion get intertwined very often and can complicate and confuse the picture, caste is the dominant factor in Indian politics. At the end of the day, episodic events like the Varun Gandhi comments cannot influence the mature Indian electorate, because caste solidarity is not easy to undermine."
Over the past two decades, as the political pendulum has swung back and forth in Uttar Pradesh, power has been shared between the pro-BJP upper and medium-caste Hindus, backward castes such as the Yadavs led by the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which claim to represent the lowest of the lowlies on the Hindu caste scale.
Two years ago, the Dalits (members of the lowest caste formerly known as "untouchables") rallied their political power and formed a strategic alliance with upper-caste Brahmins, which brought the BSP to power here. BSP President and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati (she goes by one name) is a charismatic and outspoken champion of the Dalits, and the main reason the BSP is in power. Other parties have been courting Mayawati and the BSP, but last month she announced that the BSP would run on its own rather than joining a larger alliance. This, she believes, will offer voters an alternative to the two national parties, Congress and BJP, and still allow her to form an alliance after the vote.
But as India goes to the polls this month, stories of massive corruption in the BSP ranks, including the alleged sale of party tickets for as much as 7.5 million rupees per ticket, has put a big dent in the party's popularity. A local man named Ramesh, a Dalit who has passed his masters and has a law degree from Bareilly, tells me his community is split over who to vote for in the coming elections. "I was asked for a bribe of 30,000 rupees when I went to apply for a job. When I asked whether this was what I got for voting for Mayawati, I was told by the BSP middleman that in that case I should go to Lucknow and complain directly to her!" he said.
Since the battle for Delhi has long been fought on the plains of Uttar Pradesh, which with 80 seats has a stranglehold on India's 545-member lower house of parliament, political parties here are being forced to come up with unique permutations that will add up the numbers.
If parties like the Congress are hoping to improve their dismal showing in the state on the back of alliances with local backward caste groups, the BSP is hoping its vote bank will stay loyal and secure. As for Uttar Pradesh's 18.5% Muslim population, they have decided to vote tactically, constituency by constituency, so as to defeat their main enemy, the BJP.
This election is vastly different from 1992 in another way. By ordering the arrest of Varun Gandhi, upper-caste in name, reputation and birthâin a state acutely sensitive to all three factorsâMayawati has unleashed the ultimate caste weapon right in the middle of the elections.
This must surely be the final irony in a state already replete with so many.
âJyoti Malhotra is a New Delhi-based freelance journalist.
One Caste, One Vote
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124022704003634675.html
By JYOTI MALHOTRA
Badaiyon, Uttar Pradesh â Across a railway bridge that doubles as a road here in the heart of India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, parliamentarian Saleem Shervani's jeep is hailed by an enthusiastic railwayman."Welcome back Saleem bhai!" he says, smiling broadly, using the common Hindi-Urdu word for "brother." Welcome to Badaiyon!"
[Mayawati] Associated Press
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati displays a crown presented to her by supporters during a public rally in Mumbai, India, in this April 8, 2009 photo. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
The railwayman, clearly Hindu, wears a bodi, a tuft of hair on the back of the head that signifies his high-caste, Brahmin origins. Other pedestrians begin to crowd around the vehicle. Mr. Shervani, a Congress Party member, rolls the window down of his air-conditioned Tata Safari jeep and shakes the hands thrust in his direction. Many belong to men with close-cropped beards that Muslims commonly wear; others, like the railwayman, have the tell-tale marks of high-caste Hindus.
Mr. Shervani's two mobile phones ring constantly. "Don't worry, Saleem bhai, we are with you, you will definitely win, inshallah," says one caller. Between blessings, requests for help from villagers ("I cannot do anything against the Election Commission's model code of conduct," he says) and unsolicited advice, Mr. Shervani goes from village to village tirelessly campaigning.
Across Uttar Pradesh, golden with wheat and interspersed with the dark green shadows of mango groves, election fever is on the rise. There is a month to go before this area of Uttar Pradesh votes; meanwhile, the wheat has to be cut, threshed and stored in local warehouses.
Mr. Shervani knows that he cannot bank on his record of having won here five times already, or the fact that he is Muslim (there are 290,000 Muslims here), to get him a majority of votes in the constituency's 1.4 million voter population. That's why his campaign is being very carefully stitched together into a coalition of several Most Backward Hindu castes such as the Mauyras, Shakhs, Khushwahas and Sainis who account for nearly 175,000 voters in the constituency, plus the base Muslim vote.
These backward groups have agreed to support Mr. Shervani's Congress Party because they are fighting the overlordship of the Yadav caste, also backward, which has ruled Uttar Pradesh for nearly 20 years but refused to share power with those below it in Hinduism's complex caste hierarchy.
Caste-based politics are not new to Uttar Pradesh, but for the last two decades they have found a new opponent: religion. In 1992, the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rode to power on the back of nationalist Hindu sentiment that favored the building of a temple to the Hindu god Ram and the destruction of the 16th century Babri mosque.
So when Varun Gandhi, grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and BJP candidate from Pilibhit constituency, was recently arrested for hate speeches in which he threatened to "cut off the arms of all those who rose against Hindus," the election campaign was galvanized on several fronts.
But don't count on the Hindu-Muslim divide to be as important as caste identification here in Uttar Pradesh or elsewhere. BJP candidate and six-time MP from Bareilly constituency Santosh Gangwar, says that Varun Gandhi's statements "were clearly not right. Many party workers may want us to defend him, but we have to conduct our politics very differently." He says the "Varun effect" will be limited in Uttar Pradesh and certainly not have a national impact like it did in 1992.
Mushirul Hasan, vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia University in Delhi, points out that "although caste and religion get intertwined very often and can complicate and confuse the picture, caste is the dominant factor in Indian politics. At the end of the day, episodic events like the Varun Gandhi comments cannot influence the mature Indian electorate, because caste solidarity is not easy to undermine."
Over the past two decades, as the political pendulum has swung back and forth in Uttar Pradesh, power has been shared between the pro-BJP upper and medium-caste Hindus, backward castes such as the Yadavs led by the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which claim to represent the lowest of the lowlies on the Hindu caste scale.
Two years ago, the Dalits (members of the lowest caste formerly known as "untouchables") rallied their political power and formed a strategic alliance with upper-caste Brahmins, which brought the BSP to power here. BSP President and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati (she goes by one name) is a charismatic and outspoken champion of the Dalits, and the main reason the BSP is in power. Other parties have been courting Mayawati and the BSP, but last month she announced that the BSP would run on its own rather than joining a larger alliance. This, she believes, will offer voters an alternative to the two national parties, Congress and BJP, and still allow her to form an alliance after the vote.
But as India goes to the polls this month, stories of massive corruption in the BSP ranks, including the alleged sale of party tickets for as much as 7.5 million rupees per ticket, has put a big dent in the party's popularity. A local man named Ramesh, a Dalit who has passed his masters and has a law degree from Bareilly, tells me his community is split over who to vote for in the coming elections. "I was asked for a bribe of 30,000 rupees when I went to apply for a job. When I asked whether this was what I got for voting for Mayawati, I was told by the BSP middleman that in that case I should go to Lucknow and complain directly to her!" he said.
Since the battle for Delhi has long been fought on the plains of Uttar Pradesh, which with 80 seats has a stranglehold on India's 545-member lower house of parliament, political parties here are being forced to come up with unique permutations that will add up the numbers.
If parties like the Congress are hoping to improve their dismal showing in the state on the back of alliances with local backward caste groups, the BSP is hoping its vote bank will stay loyal and secure. As for Uttar Pradesh's 18.5% Muslim population, they have decided to vote tactically, constituency by constituency, so as to defeat their main enemy, the BJP.
This election is vastly different from 1992 in another way. By ordering the arrest of Varun Gandhi, upper-caste in name, reputation and birthâin a state acutely sensitive to all three factorsâMayawati has unleashed the ultimate caste weapon right in the middle of the elections.
This must surely be the final irony in a state already replete with so many.
âJyoti Malhotra is a New Delhi-based freelance journalist.