Ghosi, Ballia (Uttar Pradesh): As the campaign for the longest ever election in India gets into its final stages, this seventh phase in Uttar Pradesh (UP) is crucial. Thirteen seats of the last 57 out of the 542 for which elections were held will choose their representatives on June 1.
The main challenger to the dominant Bharatiya Janata Party is the INDIA alliance, steered by Samajwadi party’s Akhilesh Yadav and the Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, both of whom are also in the race to get elected as MPs from Kannauj and Rae Bareli, respectively. Many seats in this phase were closely contested last time, even if the overall results – BJP getting 62 of 80 – mask the close and bitter struggles.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Akhilesh Yadav has often outlined how ‘PDA’ – his abbreviation for ‘picchda (backward), Dalit and alpsankhyak (minority)‘ – is an appeal to ‘Bahujan samaj (society)’. This ‘Bahujan samaj’ is not to be confused with the Bahujan Samaj Party or BSP, but refers to voters of the BSP and calls on them to help enable a bigger consolidation that can upend and bring about parivartan or change, a theme no one visiting UP can escape.
The ‘Bahujan samaj’ in UP has also been known to choose the BJP. This is true especially for youngsters, who are drawn by better prospects and the promise of acceptance in the larger Hindu fold. But that dream seems to have soured with ‘joblessness’ emerging a top-of-the-mind issue for quite some time now.
But while opposition voices are loud and impatient, they really will be translated on the ground into fewer seats for the BJP, if the majority of ati-pichhdas or the extremely backwards break away and thereby dilute the stranglehold of the BJP on the Other Backward Classes vote and if Dalits, in significant numbers, support the INDIA alliance.
The bridge over River Ghagra, into Ballia. Photo: Seema Chishti/The Wire
The Dalit Vote in UP
About 20.5% of UP is Dalit, as per the census in 2011. This is more than the national average of 16.6%.
With the emergence of Kanshi Ram and his Bahujan Samaj Party in the late-eighties, there was finally a political party in India that was able to successfully transform fruits of its training and organisation via BAMCEF, to provide a voice to the Dalit community and make sure it got recognised and was able to make a difference in state politics. There was an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in 1991, which was able to counter the first wave of the Ayodhya push that BJP got on its own. Eventually aligning with the BJP, then going it alone, and finally forming a government in Lucknow on its own in 2007, Mayawati came to stay as a premier Dalit voice on the national scene.
After the ascent of complete Hindutva in the state in 2014, BSP scored a duck. It did align with SP in 2019, securing 10 seats. But in the 2022 assembly polls, its vote share, so far continuously on the rise, took a hit, with 12.88% and just 1 MLA.
This time, INDIA is not in alliance with BSP. Where BSP’s voters go is crucial to deciding how far the call and desire for change will go. With 80 seats, winning which has been crucial to forming governments in Delhi for the BJP since 1996, this has a direct bearing not only on INDIA, but also India.
More than Mayawati not aligning with INDIA, her political statements (equivocating between BJP and Congress), actions (seat changes, allotment of candidates clearly targeting INDIA more than the BJP, removing emerging nephew Akash Anand) and lack of political activity is getting noticed by her voters on the ground.
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In a Ghosi village, amidst several persons belonging to the Dalit community, there is deep anger against their state of affairs, which they attribute to the “complete capture by one party”. Frying pakodas and making tea at her stall, Malti Devi is incensed at the suggestion that the BJP wants 400 seats.
“Is he [Modi] the only person there is, whom we should look upto? All this must end.”
There are no jobs and no prospects for her children, she says. “Sabka baccha ghar par baitha hai. Koi bhi, lekin yeh [Modi] nahi,” she says. Translated, this means, ‘Everyone’s kids are sitting unemployed at home. Anyone but him.’
Modi’s close association with all things local, including MPs has meant for many sections that he takes the blame for their perceived incompetence too.
At the Ghosi tea stall, Shiv Pratap. Photo: Seema Chishti/The Wire
At the little stall she and her husband run, there are others from her community. Shiv Pratap’s life has changed beyond recognition as COVID-19 shut down his factory he used to work for “in Delhi”. He came back for a break before COVID-19, and then lockdown struck. He has never been able to go back and just sits about all day now, worrying over how to feed his children. “Is this what we gave power for 10 years for? I am in no doubt about panja [the Congress’s hand symbol], or whoever is with panja now.”
There are others here who join, making a vigorous case for the BSP as the prime mover for Dalit consciousness in the state. Munna Paswan was working with BAMCEF in 1988 as a teenager, he says. Now, he says it is time for a change. Sceptical of Mayawati’s politics now, but respectful of her role, he says, “Hum parivartan ke lakshya ke saath hain (we are aligned with the larger aim of a change of government now). We will do what it takes.”
Kedarnath, a resident of the Ballia village. Photo: Seema Chishti/The Wire
His associate, an older man, comes alive recalling how in groups of four, they would go about trying to build confidence in Dalit tolas (areas), despite being derided by others as chamar party-waale in BSP’s early days. The commitment to BSP principally is intact he says, as he sets about to sell the vegetables he has bought but “we know what we must do this time.”
Is he not a BSP worker? “I am, but I have the right to vote also, no?”
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In a larger Dalit village in Ballia district, with “80-90 Dalit homes”, there is a large and distinct statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar holding the constitution of India. You can only approach the statue without footwear.
At Ballia village, the statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar.
Photo: Seema Chishti/The Wire
The mood is sombre here as young and the old discuss the privatisation that has marred prospects of jobs and paper leaks that have blighted the lives of the young.
A diploma holder from Jaunpur gave the police constable examination where the paper was leaked. “Yogi ji has said he will hold it again in 7-8 months but I don’t think he will,” says Deepak Kumar. He is set about pushing for “change”. Appalled that the constitution will be changed. “Women in India do not become mahants or mullahs, but can become PM, president, CM and DM. That is because of the constitution, alone. The Right to Equality in India is only given by the constitution, not anything else.”
“Whatever progress the Dalit community has made is due to education and jobs, and that is at grave risk now. Any more of this and we will suffer irreversibly.”
Deepak Kumar (middle) at Ballia village. Photo: Seema Chishti/The Wire
Elders here swear by the BSP and say that “we must understand why she did not go with the alliance. We will definitely see change this time. We will stay with her. Because if we don’t, and drift away, they will stop valuing us, and they won’t even believe us, that we have not voted for haathi [BSP’s elephant symbol] so we will stay with it.”
Kedarnath, who farms here and also does a private sector job says, “If Ambedkar was a Brahmin, he would have been turned into a God. But as he is a Dalit, they dare talk about changing the constitution.”
More cynically he remarks, “Isn’t it odd that when reservations and other things about the constitution were at risk, only BSP came out in Delhi to protest? Where were Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi then? Now suddenly, it is the constitution.”
“How odd, isn’t it, that 10 years ago, it was Hindu khatre mein, now everyone says that the constitution is in danger?”
“Tell me, the BJP and RSS people want a Ram Rajya – they want a Hindu Rashtra – that means, a lohaar does iron-mongering, a shoemaker makes shoes, a kumhar does pottery and a Nishad does fishing and pandits are ministers. They want a jaat vyavastha (caste system). Tell me how dare they think of changing the constitution?”
He goes on, “If the 85% (referring to the entire population minus the forward castes, believed to be about 15%) throw up one big leader, yeh sab theek ho jayenge – everything will be corrected.”
Younger people in the village quietly say that they have made up their mind, not because they have shed their reservations about Yadavs or the Samajwadi party, but see it as an effective tool to get rid of the ek chhatra raj (single person rule) that prevails, that they feel is stifling the progress of their samaj and their future generations.
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The Dalit vote, assumed to have been with the BSP and unconditionally for over two and half or three decades, in what was termed the “silent revolution” by political scientists, is in the midst of a churn.
Loyalty to the BSP runs deep and there is scepticism about social conditions that prevail, making it tough to openly say they will go with “the cycle”. But they are as, if not more restless, as a large section of UP. There is anxiety but also a sense of clarity on what must be done, at least in the immediate term.
What it all adds up to will be revealed on June 4.
