Ms Social Engineer

She’s not the same. Her open-ended, catalytic rainbow coalition across castes and communities might push the threshold of Indian politics beyond archaic equations and twilight zones. And for all you know, she might succeed. This insightful essay enters the depths of her social engineering process and rediscovers a changed Mayawati and the dalit factor – Editor

A K Verma Kanpur

After roughly four months in office, many UP watchers are wondering whether Chief Minister Mayawati's charisma is waning away. Has she lived up to the expectations of her electorate? Has she been able to check the alarming rise in the crime graph during former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's rule? 

What about her promises of development? Are her experiments in social engineering sustaining on the ground? 

The general impression is that Mayawati is maturing. She is maturing in looks and manners. She is becoming careful in choice of words and expressions, sophisticated in her admonitions of the bureaucracy. Most importantly, she is maturing in respect of her policy decisions that are in tune with her philosophical transition from bahujan samaj to sarvajan samaj.

That is a good sign, not simply for the strengthening of her party in UP and elsewhere, but also for the unity and integrity of a society as diverse and multi-cultural as ours. After ages, the ruling party is trying to generate a sense of cohesiveness among the people of UP, cutting across all shades and denominations. That is good politics.

That got reflected in the recent by-polls in three assembly constituencies of the state — Farukkhabad, Gunnur (Badayun) and Swar-Tanda (Rampur), the results for which were announced in the first week of September, 2007. In the assembly elections earlier (April-May, 2007), all the three seats had been won by the Samajwadi Party (SP). In the by-polls, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won the first two seats, and even in Gunnaur (a Yadav bastion vacated by Mulayam Singh), it lost by only 13,663 votes. It is interesting that the three seats represent the dominance of three different communities: Farukkhabad is dominated by Brahmins, Swar-Tanda by Muslims and Gunnur by Yadavs and other backward    castes (OBC).

The analysis of the by-poll results gives some inkling of the under-currents of Mayawati's social engineering at the grassroots level. In the April-May assembly elections, the BJP were runners-up in Farukkhabad with Major Sunil Dutt Dwivedi getting 35,512 votes. This time, Dwivedi had crossed over from the BJP to BSP, and the BJP was reduced to just 2,119 votes — a transfer of possibly 33,393 Brahmin votes to BSP! The BSP vote share this time went actually up by 42,792 votes (from 22,904 in May to 65,696 in September), which indicates not only the transfer of Brahmin votes but also 9,397 Muslim votes. In Swar-Tanda, BSP's Muslim candidate trounced the SP's Muslim candidate, so much so that SP was relegated to the third position, behind the BJP. With a victory margin of 49,225, there was proof enough that there was a substantial Muslim shift towards the BSP. Even in Gunnur, where all the main contestants were Yadavs, the Yadav candidate of the BSP got 51,569 votes as compared with 65,232 votes polled by the SP. Thus, it is clear that in all three constituencies, the three communities — Brahmins, Muslims and OBCs — have shown a substantial shift towards the BSP.

How are Dalit-Brahmin relations at the grassroots level?

The Brahmins reportedly feel satisfied that dalits are showing them respect, while the dalits' confidence in the Brahmins as their saviours (in the event of their exploitation by other socially dominant castes) has increased. That has unnerved Mulayam Singh Yadav. He has courted alliance with the Sanatan Samaj Party and Sanatan Brahmin Samaj — two lesser known Brahmin organisations led by Kripa Shankar Mishra — though of doubtful political clout. The BJP too has changed its state president and appointed a Brahmin — Ramapati Ram Tripathi  — to the post. Even the Congress has appointed a Brahmin, Rita Bahuguna Joshi replacing Salman Khursheed as the president of the UP Congress. Mayawati's lead is being replicated by others.

In tune with her new 'sarvajan philosophy', Mayawati is concretising her plans and policies. She has opened up the private sector for 30 per cent reservation (10 per cent each for dalits, OBCs and minorities and upper caste Below Poverty Line (BPL) families). She has also renounced her narrow focus on the development of 19,000 'Ambedkar villages' (where dalits are in majority) to the development of all 97,134 villages in the state. This is proposed to be done in five phases.

For the first phase, Rs 10,000 crore has been allocated in the current budget for link roads, electrification, drainage, toilets, drinking water, Indira Awas Yojna, primary schools, boring for water pumps, creating job-oriented programmes, pension schemes, health provisions and scholarship grants in 17,000 villages. This is a positive sign because there was no one to voice the plight of the poor upper castes although their conditions might be more pitiable than that of the Muslims, OBCs and dalits.

On the urban development front, the government seems to be in the company of people who can think big. The first indication was the cabinet nod to the Rs 40,000 crore, 1,000 km long, eight-lane, Ganga Expressway from Ballia to Noida which will link the undeveloped eastern UP to western UP. That will boost the economy of the state and bring all-round prosperity.

On the agricultural front, Mayawati started on a slippery note. She had initiated a policy under which investors with net worth of Rs 500 crore, and ready to make a capital investment of Rs 5,000 crore in the next three years, were to be permitted to buy products from farmers directly. That was designed to rope in Rs 30,000-40,000 crore in three years to change the face of the state economy and usher in rural employment. It allowed investors to enter into contract for purchase of agricultural products, and provide good seeds, fertilisers and finance to the farmer in lieu thereof. But, after protests by farmers and adverse intelligence reports, the government quickly withdrew the policy.

And what about Muslims? Are they happy in Maya's regime?

A minister in her government, Naseemuddin, has been working overtime to rope in influential Muslims. Muslims are an important component in Mayawati's social coalition. She has come out with an innovative idea to computerise 2,000 madarsas in the state with a package of Rs 7,000 crore and several other facilities for training female Muslim entrepreneurs. The Allahabad High Court, however, recently quashed the appointment of 13,000 Urdu teachers during Mulayam Singh's tenure on grounds of gross irregularities. Mayawati plans to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

Crucially, Mayawati has not lost a minute in expanding her social coalition — horizontally and vertically (see 'Mayawati's Sandwich Coalition', Economic and Political Weekly, June 2, 2007), with a view to repeating the UP phenomena in the coming Lok Sabha polls. It is widely believed that the party has set an ambitious target of 60 Lok Sabha seats (it presently has 16). As early as the first week of August, Mayawati had appointed zonal coordinators for various regions and was meeting leaders from all communities to win them over. By the end of August, 50 per cent Lok Sabha candidates had reportedly been finalised. She has set up party offices at important places in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat where state assembly elections are due next year. In Rajasthan, her Brahmin lieutenant, Satish Mishra, had set up bhaichara committees not only for Brahmins but for other communities such as Gujjars, Meenas and Rajputs in all 200 assembly constituencies. In Maharashtra, a close relative of Satish Mishra has been appointed to do the same.

Mayawati has also taken some bold but politically sensitive decisions. Students' union elections have been banned. These elections, often loaded with violence and criminal/political patronage, money and muscle power, had become a nuisance. This process was seriously harming the larger community of students and compromising excellence in academic institutions. She also dug into flagrant violations of norms in making appointments to about 10,000 police posts during the previous regime, canceling all appointments. Everyday, new scandals are coming up that indicate total disregard of the law and the Constitution during the previous regime.

How are things for the Samajwadi Party and Mulayam Singh Yadav?

He and his party are steadily getting into hot waters. Public faith in him is on the decline and he seems to be on the defensive. He could not even capitalise on the students' union issue as no serious student really wants unions and elections in the manner they exist. Nor did Mayawati allow him to exploit her agriculture policy.

The BJP is in disarray. With Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani becoming less effective, there is hardly any leader of national stature with public support and confidence. The Congress came to the rescue of BJP by unexpectedly giving them the Ram Setu issue but that may not bring them votes. The era of voting on emotive grounds is fast withering away as the day-to-day problems of the people are getting bigger.

As for the Congress, it has neither the desire nor dynamism to revive itself in the state. After the assembly elections in May, the party appears to have lost confidence in Rahul Gandhi as a possible saviour of the Congress in UP, notwithstanding his appointment as the National General Secretary of the party and incharge of the youth and student wing. Predictably and transparently, there is organisational collapse and functional invisibility of the party at the grassroots.

However, the people who elected Mayawati are yet to feel benefited. The earlier relief on the law and order front is evaporating. The initial dash against criminals and dacoits has slowed down. Criminal elements are being inducted in the party in the name of pursuing inclusionary politics. And development benefits are hardly percolating to the common people owing to no change in the work culture in the administrative machinery.

The problem is that in a democracy the ruling party cannot benefit its electors quickly and directly unless the government is prepared to violate norms and rules. As Mayawati tightens control over the bureaucracy and admonishes them to be firm and fearless, the rank and file of the BSP is increasingly getting restless because it is not able to derive favours from the local bureaucracy. That is the limitation of the rule of law. But it pays in the long run, especially in an inclusionary mode of politics which is currently being pursued by the BSP chief.

Indeed, Mayawati's focus on putting up statues, and frittering away crores of rupees in non-developmental activities, does not augur well for the BSP. Instead of consolidating on the historic victory and working speedily for the welfare of the people and the development of the state, Mayawati appears more concerned about expansion in adjoining areas with an eye on the coming Lok Sabha elections. The 'savdhan raho, aage badho' (Alert! Advance!) rally on the eve of first death anniversary of Kanshiram in Lucknow on October 9 is an effort to virtually launch the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.

Mayawati's efforts may bring in more seats to the BSP; but the people are worried whether UP will wriggle out of its economic plight and march towards genuine development and prosperity. In that sense, Mayawati seems to be taking a trajectory that may not be in tune with the aspirations of the people.

The writer teaches politics at Christ Church College, Kanpur