UP voted for change, not ideology

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and the BJP itself have reason to be ecstatic about the outcome in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. And they can be forgiven in the moment of success if they — Mr Modi, Mr Shah and the BJP — believe, wrongly, that the UP result is an endorsement of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre in general and of demonetisation in particular. This would be an insult to the intelligence of the UP voter. He or she opted for Mr Modi and the BJP at the Centre in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, and the voter will revisit the issue in 2019. The voter in UP was focused on the Assembly election in February-March and on who should form the government in Lucknow for the next five years. And it is evident that the voter opted for the BJP in 2017 after having tried out the Bahujan Samaj Party in 2007 and the Samajwadi Party in 2012. On all three occasions, the UP voter has given a clear and decisive verdict. One can understand the indignation, despair and dismay of the Congress and the liberal intelligentsia, saying the BJP has won UP on Saturday because Hindus voted for it and that the minority Muslims had lost out in the process, and that it was a regrettable triumph of Hindu communalism over the vaunted secularism of the rest — meaning the Congress, SP and BSP. But again, the critics would be missing the woods for the trees, as it were, in the same way as Mr Modi’s admirers. It would of course be necessary to explain why the BJP is getting the sweeping mandate that it has secured. Did the anti-Muslim bias of the party’s leaders and cadre have a role to play in it?

It would be naïve to ignore the anti-Muslim bias, which is not a plain communalism versus secularism battle that is a strong undercurrent in the politics of Hindu right-wingers represented by the BJP. It looks that there is a conflict between Jats and Muslims in western UP, which is more social and economic than religious. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers have certainly spread the ideological poison, fishing in the proverbial troubled waters. And the reactionary Muslim clergy as well as opinion-makers in the community have decided to put their weight behind the secularists in order to defend their own version of communalist ideology. But the rivalry between Jats and Muslims, and to an extent between dalits and Muslims as seen in the Muzaffarnagar riots, is centred around the economy. The Samajwadi Party government of Akhilesh Yadav failed to provide protection to the Muslims in the region at the time of the Muzaffarnagar riots, which was only a symptom of a larger clash of interests between Jats and Muslims. Many Muslim opinion-makers had argued that there was never any communal discord between Jats and Muslims, and this was nothing but the machinations of the RSS and BJP. It seems evident now that Jats have not voted for the ostensibly Jat party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), and its leader Ajit Singh.

The ordinary Muslim across UP feels uncomfortable with the in-your-face communal aggression of the BJP-RSS workers on the streets but it will be a momentary phenomenon. As the election day passes and things get back to the daily routine as they must, Hindus and Muslims, Yadavs and dalits and the other castes will continue to deal with each other as they have done for years. The BJP has no option but to deal with Muslims as it does with any group of citizens. The needs and rights of Muslims in UP can’t be pushed under the carpet, nor can they be trampled upon. This is not to argue that the BJP doesn’t have a majoritarian bias, but it knows as much as anyone else that it is not good for its government to face social strife between communities. So, to interpret the 2017 UP Assembly election verdict as the triumph of Hindutva and Moditva would be a case of barking up the wrong tree. It is indeed plausible that some BJP leaders and cadres would now want to spread Hindutva across the board, but the people have no interest in it. They may not oppose the spread of Hindutva tooth and nail as in the case of believing secularists. But people of all castes and communities in the state would expect the BJP government to create opportunities in education and employment, provide infrastructural facilities like houses, water, roads and electricity. People want change, and a change for the better. This is the only reason that the BJP has been voted into power now, as were the BSP and SP earlier. The BJP’s victory in UP then is not the people’s seal of approval for Hindutva, either benign or vicious.

The BSP and SP have tended to rely more on the rhetoric of social equality in order to win votes without realising that people want the rhetoric to become reality. The BJP would face the same challenge. People would not settle for the rhetoric of development. They demand development, and if it does not happen between now and the next Assembly election in 2022, the BJP will get the same treatment that the SP and BSP have got on Saturday. There were moments in the campaign that Mr Modi, Mr Shah and other Hindutva hotheads in the party harped on the Hindu-Muslim divide. But Mr Modi and Mr Shah are realistic enough to recognise that this is not sufficient to run governments. The two will have a tough time reining in the Hindutva elements while providing a government that would pull UP out of social and economic backwardness. The record of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan shows that they have not succeeded. It is quite likely that the forces of inertia in UP too will turn the BJP like the next-door political party, boastful but not successful. Ultimately, it is for the people of UP to get out of the political delusion that they control the reins of power in New Delhi, and make a place for themselves in the successful Indian economy which has not much to do with the whims of political masters.