Uttar Pradesh
Where will the UP Brahmin go?
Saba Naqvi
Uttar Pradesh is a complex place with certain peculiarities besides being the nation’s most populated state. It is a state where the upper castes are numerically strong, constituting nearly 20 per cent of the population of whom half are Brahmins. This makes Uttar Pradesh the home to the largest numbers of Brahmins in the country who constitute 10 per cent of the state population. Besides, the three contested sites where the VHP, BJP, RSS claim that mosques were built on destroyed temples are in Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya, are in this state. It is today therefore the epi-centre of political mobilization on the basis of Hindutva. The question in the upcoming elections is whether it will still work in the state or will economic distress be the main issue.
Uttar Pradesh is also the home state of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty who have ruled India for the largest period as prime ministers if we combine the reigns of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Indeed, when he began his conquest of India Narendra Modi found it necessary to shift base from Gujarat and contest from Varanasi. And finally, it is the state that has witnessed both Backward Caste mobilization and Dalit mobilization on political lines during the Mandal era.
The state has also been the theatre of every coalition experiment that happened in the country since Congress domination began to wane. The process began in the 1967 state elections: Congress got just 199 seats, short of a majority in the 425 seat assembly (since the creation of Uttarakhand the assembly strength is 403). The Jan Sangh, precursor to the BJP, made its presence felt with 98 seats indicating that the Hindutva sentiment has an old vintage in the state. This is an important point to understand the mind-set in the state.
Charan Singh era: the backstory to the RLD now led by Jayant Chaudhary
To elaborate, in 1967, Charan Singh, the Jat leader broke from the Congress to form the Bhartiya Kranti Dal (BKD) and was backed by socialists such as Ram Manohar Lohia who had already come up with the doctrine of anti-Congressism and by Jan Sangh leader Nanaji Deshmukh. In April 1967, Charan Singh was sworn in as Chief Minister at the head of the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal (SVD), a coalition ranging from CPI(M) on the left to Jan Sangh on the right, and including small parties such as the Republican Party of India, Swatantra Party and a clutch of independents.
It is Charan Singh’s grandson Jayant Chaudhary who today heads the RLD that has aligned with the Samajwadi Party although seat distribution has not been announced. In the last three elections in the state, both assembly and national, the Jat community were mostly with the BJP but today loyalty is divided between RLD and BJP with the former believed to have greater clout in the Jat belt after the farm agitation.
To learn from history, what followed over the next four years after Charan Singh became CM was classic coalition instability that saw four chief ministers in and out of the revolving door. Each constituent of the coalition had its own agenda and kept pushing it. In less than a year Charan Singh resigned and a year of Presidents rule followed. Elections were held in 1969 and Charan Singh’s party--that had significantly begun to represent a section of the middle and rich peasantry including Muslims of western Uttar Pradesh--won 98 seats while the Jan Sangh share dropped to 49. The Congress won 211 and managed a chief minister but the party split in a year and next Charan Singh returned as chief minister, this time supported by the Congress faction loyal to Indira Gandhi. More drama followed and president’s rule was again proclaimed and after another election that failed to give a clear verdict another patchwork socialist regime was propped up that lasted five months.
Brahmin after Brahmin
What is instructive is that the Congress of that era only turned to Brahmins for leadership positions. Congressman Kamalapati Tripathi, one of the Brahmin doyens of the party would become CM for two years from 1971 to 1973. When his government fell over a revolt by the police, another Brahmin from Garhwal, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna became Chief Minister in November 1973. He lasted till 1975 but then was pushed out due to differences with Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi. A third Brahmin, this time from Kumaun, N. D. Tiwari became chief minister at the time when Indira had imposed the Emergency on India.
When the Janata Party won the Lok Sabha elections in 1977, the N.D. Tiwari government in Uttar Pradesh was sacked and in the elections that followed the Janata Party won 352 of the 425 seats. But what was happening at the Centre during the Janata years was being replicated in the state with faction fights and ego tussles over the chief minister’s post. Chandra Shekhar pitched for a Dalit CM, while the Charan Singh faction along with socialist leader Madhu Limaye backed a Yadav. Eventually Ram Naresh Yadav, an MP from Azamgarh became CM from 1977 to 1979 and the Jan Sangh was part of the government. Again, it’s important to remember the roots of the BJP.
Kalyan Singh (who would later become the BJP’s chief minister in the state when the Babri mosque was demolished) was health minister while Mulayam Singh Yadav (who would have three terms as the state’s chief minister while his son Akhilesh would have a full term) was then the minister in charge of Cooperatives. Ram Naresh Yadav would eventually resign over a case of police atrocities and there was briefly another chief minister in charge, till Indira Gandhi returned to power at the Centre and dismissed the Janata government.
The Congress swept the 1980 elections, back to primacy with 309 of the 425 seats in Uttar Pradesh. Now, besides Brahmins, it also began elevating another forward caste, the Thakurs and V. P. Singh, the king of a small principality became chief minister. What is fascinating about that age is that V.P. Singh’s tenure saw a lot of violence amid charges of fake police encounters. In 1981, the Behmai massacre took place in which 20 Rajputs were killed by the bandit Phoolan Devi. Dacoits eventually killed V.P. Singh’s elder brother Justice Chandrashekhar Pratap Singh, following which V P Singh resigned.
In 1982 another Brahmin, Shripati Mishra, ruled for two years, till 1984 when N.D. Tiwari was brought back for another tenure as CM. He was in the chair when Indira was assassinated after which the Congress swept again. Rajiv Gandhi would by 1985 replace him with Vir Bahadur Singh, a Thakur leader from Gorakhpur (the same place from where current UP CM Adityanath Yogi also a Thakur heads a religious order). Singh got nearly three years but was replaced by N.D. Tiwari, under whom the Congress was defeated in 1989.
After that the Congress has never formed a government in Uttar Pradesh. But what must be noted is that since 1967, resistance to the party was visible although scattered into various ideological streams. But the point is that India’s largest state has never been a cake-walk for the Congress. The Jan Sangh, the socialists, the peasant forces have all been active in UP for half a century. In hindsight we can also say that some of the Congress’ atrophy can also be linked to the fact that in the matter of leadership the party never showed the capacity to look beyond Brahmins and Thakurs: in Eight years, between 1980-1988, the Congress national leadership kept changed the chief ministers six times, choosing between the two forward castes. This would matter when Mandal and Mandir exploded on the Uttar Pradesh stage.
In conclusion one can say that the Congress was the real home of Brahmins but since it withered away in UP, the community saw the BJP as a way of reclaiming its relevance after Mandal had decisively shifted power top the OBCs. But the BJP has a much more diverse caste rainbow representation extending from the upper castes to Backward castes and a section of Dalits. What is said to rankle with some Brahmins in the state today is the dominance of the Thakurs in the reign of Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi. Yet, even with anti-incumbency in the state it would be hasty to conclude that most Brahmins would shift allegiance from the BJP. The BJP still reaffirms the caste order and does not challenge the forward castes as the Mandal era did. A section is certainly disgruntled over economic and employment issues, but in the current scenario, the BJP will still get a lot of Brahmin support.
This is a very clearly written backgrounder on the politics and caste interplay in UP. Will be wide read and referred to in coming days to explain the disparate issues weighing on our national politics.
If UP with its regressive agenda based on casteism hoary old traditions holds the key to national political dominance the progressive economic development will continue to be held back.
The brief history narrated by you also shows that Congress has all along pandered to this agenda and has inherently not been the force for progressive modern reforms.
I am a huge fan of yours but I find it little strange that you have forgotten to mention anything from 1990’s onwards There is no mention of Mayawati. So the history is rather incomplete. I fully agree with the conclusion drawn by you.