The time's come to pay the piper

J.P. Shukla

ELEVEN YEARS ago the Bharatiya Janata Party played the `Ram' card in Uttar Pradesh to counter the `Mandal' masterstroke of Mr. V. P. Singh. Mr. L. K. Advani, then BJP president, stated openly that his party had been forced to play `kamandal' politics to ``unify'' Hindus because of the divisive `mandal' politics of the Janata Dal leader.

Today, in his desperation to get a BJP Government re-elected in Uttar Pradesh, the Chief Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh, has been playing one card after another, `kamandal' and `mandal' are both being tried together, in the hope that one or the other will come up trumps.

But so far the reports from Lucknow indicate, even as the scheduled Assembly election is less than six months away, that despite all the tricks of the trade being used and all the secret cards being played, the Samajwadi Party, the BJP's main political rival in the State and its nightmare, may prove the joker in the pack and emerge as the single biggest party.

Even if the BJP were to play the Ayodhya card to the hilt - and all indications are that it is set to do just that along with its siblings, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal - the damage done to the party by non-performance over the last three years - new levels of corruption, new lows in power distribution and the farmers' problems - cannot be undone by singing the Ram tune. After all, that song has become a bit stale, the people of the State have been seeing the party use religion and Ram for political gain for the last ten years, and it is unlikely they will be fooled again.

Two former BJP Chief Ministers had disastrous innings. Mr. Kalyan Singh was forced to quit the party after he publicly badmouthed the Prime Minister and many in the BJP held him responsible for its poor performance in the State in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. And the reign of Mr. Ram Prakash Gupta, his replacement, saw the BJP lose support on the ground on a daily basis till even party leaders began admitting that they would not be surprised if the BJP were to get the third place after the SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party in the next electoral round.

After that came the ouster of Mr. Gupta and Mr. Rajnath Singh, reputed to be tough and practical and with a brief to do whatever it took to turn the party's fortunes around . And what did he do? One by one, he started playing the different cards, testing each one for effect.

First, he tried to win over the disgruntled teachers - he announced acceptance of the Fifth Pay Commission parity for them. (Of course, the monies were disbursed to them much later, and even now it is not clear whether all of them have been paid their arrears). Then came the `super mandal' card. He legislated to provide for a quota within the overall reservations for the ``most backwards'' and the ``utmost depressed and oppressed'' communities among the backwards and the Scheduled Castes.

Clearly this game had one motive: divide the votes of the SP and the BSP in one clever stroke of ``social justice''. As Mr. Singh himself argued eloquently, the quota for the Other Backward Castes had been mostly grabbed by the dominant Yadavs (the most committed supporters of the SP) and the reservation for the Dalits had been cornered by the Jatavs (known to be devoted to Ms. Mayawati of the BSP). He was going to deliver social justice to the ``most backward'' and the ``most oppressed'', in the form of sub-quotas so that they could also avail of reservation without being pushed around by the dominant castes.

Of course, it was another matter that for four years before this when the BJP was in power in the State, no one had thought about delivering justice to the most backward and oppressed groups, and in fact, both RSS and BJP leaders had always stated privately that they were opposed to any policies that ``divide'' Hindus. But suddenly, when elections stared the party in the face and its popularity chart had been sliding dangerously, it woke up to the problems of the weakest.

Privately, party leaders admitted that they hoped by this move to create turbulence in the ranks of the SP and the BSP, for these two parties depended to a large extent on the votes of the OBCs and the Dalits, and this is exactly what happened. The BSP was forced to applaud the move, fearing it would otherwise lose the support of the non-Jatavs among the Dalits, and the SP resorted to the trick of demanding an increase in the total quota for the OBCs after it got over the initial confusion and shock. The first responses of the SP and the BSP made the BJP feel sure its enemies were hurting. And that must mean good news for the party.

But slowly, it became clear that this `super mandal' trick alone might not work. After all, where were the jobs (although the Chief Minister boasted he would give 40,000 jobs under the new reservation policy before the elections)?

Then came the next card - the anti-corruption, anti-inefficiency, anti-non-performance card. Mr. Naresh Aggarwal, leader of the Loktantrik Congress Party and State Power Minister, was summarily sacked. The BJP's calculation was that it would send a signal to all allies to behave and it would tell the public that the new Chief Minister meant business. Farmers and city dwellers alike had not been getting electricity for more than a few hours a day. But that card failed to impress for there were no reports about any dramatic improvement in power supply.

Next, he played the non-nonsense discipline card. Mr. Ashok Yadav, a BJP Minister, was dropped for indulging in anti-party activities. That was meant to send a clear message to all partymen that Mr. Rajnath Singh would not hesitate to wield the stick if they did not behave. To that extent, his strongman tactics have been able to lower the voices of dissent in the State.

And finally, the Ayodhya card has been played. We have it from no less than the Union Home Minister, Mr. Advani, that it was the Ayodhya `movement' and the party's Hindutva ideology (euphemistically called ``cultural nationalism'') which brought the BJP to power.

The stage was set at the kumbh mela in January where the VHP announced it would wait no longer than March 12, 2002 to launch the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, even if no court judgment came through and even if it had to forcibly occupy the place. The Prime Minister (whose constituency is Lucknow) helped this along by creating controversies by saying Ayodhya was a matter of ``national sentiments'' and following it up recently by setting up an Ayodhya cell in his office. He virtually gave in to the blatantly illegal dictates of the VHP by also talking about a final negotiated settlement by March (conveniently coinciding with the scheduled Assembly elections).

Mr. Advani did his bit in between, using the terror strikes in the United States to ban the Students Islamic Movement of India and thus goading polarisation of votes along communal lines, all calculated to help the BJP. (However, one may add that several non-BJP States had also asked for a ban on the SIMI whose politics was anti-woman, communal and even medieval).

The September 11 attacks in the U.S. provided more grist to the communal mill in which the Shahi Imam of Delhi joined in to help along the polarisation in the State which the BJP wanted.

And now the ordinance to bring into effect a legislation to replace the lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act has been approved. This could easily be used to the BJP's political advantage against the minorities.

Several party leaders here, in fact, have begun talking of an impending ``civil war'' in India (possibly starting with clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh). Some people believe the recent forcible entry into the makeshift Ram temple in Ayodhya by a few senior VHP leaders was an attempt to provoke the minorities on the Ayodhya issue and to ignite the spark for starting a communal fire. But fortunately this has not happened. Fears are that efforts in this direction will continue and the VHP has already announced plans for a build-up to March 12.

The Opposition parties have also not been idle. Last month, the SP MLAs resigned from the State Assembly en masse, pointing out that the five-year tenure of the House was coming to an end in October. The Congress and the BSP MLAs as well as those of some smaller Opposition parties followed this month.

The attempt was to pressure the BJP to dissolve the Assembly and order early elections. But the Chief Minister is not about to give in, and he has received a boost from the Supreme Court which has rejected the plea for an injunction to dissolve the Assembly.

The Election Commission has also made it known that elections are not due for another six months.

The Congress' `parivartan yatras' have drawn considerable crowds, leading some to predict that it would do better than before (but that may still not be good enough to change its status as the number four in the State).

Other sideshows have been the vigorous wooing of partners - the BJP has successfully tied up with Mr. Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal to give both the parties added vigour in the western parts of the State, and there are reports of as yet unsuccessful talks between the SP and the Congress.

In the pre-election drama, what stands out is the effort by the BJP to revive `Hindutva' and its Ayodhya politics, despite its commitment to put this contentious issue on the backburner when it formed the National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre.

For the Prime Minister, winning Uttar Pradesh is a matter of prestige; after all it is his home State. For the BJP, it is of critical importance as a good percentage of its MPs come from there.

The political scene in the State promises full play of the BJP's Ayodhya card, and surely this will result in overheated emotions and a communally-charged atmosphere, a situation in which the party thinks it can do best.

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Section  : Opinion
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