THERE is little doubt that the Bahujan Samaj Party gained significant ground in the year 2007. By securing a majority in the state assembly in Uttar Pradesh, it for the first time won the chance to govern with a popular mandate. But more than that, the party stood apart from other national political formations which seem caught up in the turbulence of transition. The Congress is still working out a role for its future leader, Rahul Gandhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party may have announced its prime ministerial candidate, but the leader in question is 80 years of age. The CPI (M) looks stable at the top, but is facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions in West Bengal, its oldest and safest bastion. Mayawati’s party can now be ranked with other large national formations: the Congress, BJP and the Left.

Today there is no national level force of the sort Congress was till 1989. The grand old party has long ceased to be the prime force in states that account for over 228 Lok Sabha seats (Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, U.P., Bihar, and Gujarat). The growth of the BJP has been uneven across the breadth of the country and despite a strong campaign in Gujarat at year’s end, it has still to come to terms with its continuing eclipse in Uttar Pradesh. The Left is largely confined to three states.

The victory of the BSP in the most populous state assumes much more than local importance if seen in this context. It also opens up the possibility, tantalizing as it seems, that it may have the chance to mould Indian politics on new lines.

The victory of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the U.P. state assembly elections of May 2007 marked the start of a shift in focus of Dalit-centred politics from West to North India. Over the 23 years of its existence, the party has finally managed to create a sense of solidarity among the Dalits of India’s most populous state. Early on it entered into a successful pre-poll accord with a Backward Class led party (the SP) in 1993 and stalled the Hindutva forces. This had a major fallout in that it halted what looked like the irresistible rise of the BJP. The arrangement, however, did not last and the BSP subsequently teamed up with the BJP on three occasions, despite the fact that the two shared no ideological affinity. These unusual power sharing agreements gave it a foretaste of how it could use state power to expand its political base.

 

But the 2007 win was historic for more reasons than one. Mayawati annexed over 30 per cent of the vote, the first time any political formation had done so in more than a decade and a half. The 206 member legislative party was a veritable social rainbow, including 61 Dalits and 51 Brahmins, besides 26 Muslims. In her very first press conference she announced her support for reservation for the poor from the religious minorities and the forward classes. Whether this will ever be implemented or not, it did send out an important signal. The party would reach out to the upper caste poor, and it would not ignore the religious minorities.

There is little doubt that this victory was not only a reflection of an anti-incumbency wave against the Mulayam Singh Yadav government or a mere result of caste based social alignments. Critical as these factors undoubtedly were, there were larger processes at work. Far more than any other leader, Mayawati seems to have realized the limits of caste based polarizations. Though easier said than done, it was a need of the times.

 

The limits of caste based mobilization had been acknowledged almost a decade and a half ago. This was when the Sindhi panchayat of Kanpur honoured then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. The aftermath saw him try to unify cultivators across caste lines as reflected in the sugarcane policies in his third and most recent stint as chief minister (2003-07). Mulayam also reached out to significant sections of savarna opinion and interests such as the Rajputs. He was at a Suryavanshi-Raghuvanshi meeting trying to cement a new Rajput-Yadav alliance when news of the challenge to the Deve Gowda government reached him.

Uttar Pradesh is home to one of the largest concentrations of Muslims on earth who make up more than 18 in every 100 voters. Dalits number over 35 million, but a tenth of the population is Brahmin. Unlike in the South and the West of India, the Forward Classes are large in number and diverse in vocation. They include priests and traders, warriors and service castes. In all there are about as many savarna Hindus as there are Dalits: over 20 per cent each.¹ 

Since around 1990, two parties thrived on these divisions. One was the BJP which played the Ram Mandir card to the hilt ever since the rath yatra of L.K. Advani. That party is seeing its social base fritter away as the card yielded diminishing returns and in any case, except in the summer of 1991, it has never managed a majority in the state assembly. Now it is down to below pre-rath yatra levels, with a mere 50 seats out of 403 compared to 57 in 1989.

The other party that flourished due to social divisions was the Samajwadi Party. But the core issue Mulayam played on since the demolition of the Babri Masjid was one of physical security. Over the last few years there have been many attempts to disrupt the social fabric of the state. These included bomb blasts in the Sankat Mochan temple of Benaras, the riots in Gorakhpur and a terrorist attack in Ayodhya. None of these, however, worked and there was virtually no ripple across the state. The end of polarity spelt as much trouble for the SP as for the BJP.

The BSP also gained electorally due to the work of its cadre over the years. Much of the state was covered by its founder Kanshi Ram in his famous cycle yatras of 1983. It was also here in Muzaffarnagar in 1984 and in Bijnore the next year that Mayawati made her electoral debut. By 1991, when the Ram wave was at its peak, the BSP was polling close to a tenth of the popular vote.

 

This time around the BSP reached out to wider sections of the people on a simple and unifying plank: the breakdown of law and order. This takeover of the plank of a law governed society by a Dalit leader is a first. At a meeting in Azamgarh in the closing stages of the campaign, this writer was witness to the roar of the crowd as Mayawati chanted, ‘Chad gundon ki chhati pe, button dabaa do haathi pe.’ To get rid of the goonda raj, vote for the elephant symbol. The strong law and order plank in terms of sheer physical security struck a chord cutting across caste, clan and community lines.

What the electoral verdict showed was the shrinkage of the two national parties, not just the BJP but also the Congress. Neither has any serious presence in the social landscape. The SP though still survives with one in four votes and just fewer than 100 MLAs. Its base among cultivators, and to a lesser extent the minorities, has placed it in second spot.

The implications of this are staggering. For the second time in succession, the most populous state has consigned the two large national parties to the sidelines. Contrary to popular assertion it is clear that the BSP is not a regional party. It is not only the major political force in U.P., but a significant force in adjacent states (like M.P.). The elephant’s march has but begun and U.P. is only the starting place, not its only arena.

 

The politics of Dalit assertion has taken an upturn with the victory of Mayawati. But it goes well beyond that. In the past the politics of Dalit assertion has often come up against the age old barrier between Dalits and the rest of society, whether savarna or avarna. Until the 18th century when the British recruited those excluded by purity norms, these classes did not even bear arms or have the benefit of military training. It is no coincidence that Ambedkar’s father, Ramji Sakpal, had served in the Bombay Presidency Army or that Kanshi Ram grew up in a military cantonment. In addition to these avenues, there was modern education: Mayawati’s father was a graduate and she went on to get a LLB and a B.Ed. It is doubtful if these advances would have been possible without reservations in education and jobs.

That the BSP ever got this far is testament to its innovative style of politics. It has built on a longer legacy of Dalit assertion in North India that only now is being uncovered by scholars.² Even today, the Dalit political primacy in U.P. is in stark contrast to the economic milieu of most of the Dalits. Infant mortality is a staggering 110 per thousand live births. Over one-third are either small farmers or wage labourers. Dalit adult literacy is less than 25 per cent.

Santosh Mehrotra of the Planning Commission illustrates the Dalit scene in U.P. In Tamil Nadu, only one in four Dalit children is delivered outside of hospitals; in Uttar Pradesh, the figure is eighty per cent. More children die young and more mothers die in child birth. If they are from the Dalit communities their chances of suffering are all the greater. In contrast, the infant mortality rate for Dalit children in the southern state is 42 per thousand live births, a third of the level in U.P. To place this in perspective, the infant mortality of the savarna Hindus in U.P. is more than twice that of the Tamil Nadu Dalits.

 

There is no doubt that Dalits and the small number of Adivasis in the state lag behind on several social indicators. Yet, their need to access quality public services such as schools or hospitals is no different from other sections that may rank higher in conventional social hierarchy. This creates a large area of overlap in demanding expansion as well as upgrading of the quality of state services to those who lack the purchasing power for the fee demanding private sector. In addition to the issues of physical security, this formed a critical area of focus for the BSP platform.

Yet, it is in Uttar Pradesh and nowhere else that Dalits have managed to construct a larger social alliance of which they are at the apex, even though their political ascendancy is in stark contrast to their social condition. Despite lagging behind the rest of society in levels of literacy and land ownership, what seems to have made all the difference is their ability to leverage not only votes but their social connections via the reserved job holders.

 

Victory, however sweet, hinges on performance. Among the priorities the new chief minister spelt out were bijli, swashtya, shiksha and paani. There has been a clear distancing of the police machinery from protection of armed political musclemen, exemplified best in the case of a leading BSP MP arrested from the chief minister’s own residence. Of equal importance was a government order legalizing holdings of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on government land if these were held prior to 13 May 2007. At a rally in Lucknow to mark the birth anniversary of the founder, Kanshi Ram, Mayawati went further, promising housing schemes and better medical care for the urban poor. The cancellation of several Special Economic Zones championed by the previous government was yet another major policy measure.

An area of opportunity beckons in the field of entrepreneurship. In the last century, the emergence of a business community often paralleled and complimented the ascendancy of backward class power in peninsular India. But the country still lacks any large Dalit entrepreneur.³ There are small signs of change, however. In Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati’s birthdays are marked by advertisements in Hindi dailies placed by small-scale Dalit contractors. Of some significance is the formation of the Western U.P. Dalit Chamber of Commerce. The question is whether a five year run in power will see government patronage actually create many such small men (or women) of capital.

 

The larger stage will still beckon. The BSP president’s road shows have covered several key cities across many states. Perhaps of the most significance in symbolic terms was the rally in Mumbai in November 2007. Here she offered a glimpse into the future strategy. Without trying to coopt the existing Republican Party of India leaders, the attempt was to reach out not only to Dalits but well beyond them and to rope in all but the dominant group of Marathas who have effectively dominated the state’s politics for much of the last 47 years.

Where the Bahujan Samaj Party goes next will have major implications for larger national level political formations. No doubt the most critical impact will be on the Congress. More than simply a raider of Dalit vote banks, Mayawati calls into question the core populist claim of the larger party, namely that it is a defender of the deprived sections of society. In positing a different organizational model built around the educated cadres of the BSP and a clearly defined programmatic approach, she hopes to undercut the loose non-federal structure of the Congress. The coming state assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan will be a test. Of signal importance was the BSP performance in the Delhi municipal elections where it polled over ten per cent of the popular vote.

There are, to be sure, some major challenges and hurdles in the way ahead. For one, the victory in Uttar Pradesh was on a plank of providing better governance. It was a cross-caste and cross-class verdict, with the clear possibility of transcending the polarities of the Mandal and Mandir eras. Yet, the party has no clear approach to the issues of agriculture, though in common with Dalit political legacies, it does have considerable clarity on upgrading education and skills. Land redistribution, especially of the government owned lands, will give the Dalits and other such sections a more stable base in rural society. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the new government will foster a larger productive base.

 

An even bigger challenge is one of the expansion of the BSP into other states. A major advantage of the BSP, and in this it has been different from the RPI, is that the line of command has been clear from the very outset. But the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and national party leader must still allow for new leadership to emerge in other states. This has not been the case in the past. Punjab, where the party first made a dent in 1985, has seen major reverses. In Madhya Pradesh too, for instance, the successes of the 1990s were undermined by the exit of Phool Singh Baraiya who has since joined forces with Ram Vilas Paswan. Further, there is the challenge of creating and sustaining a stable base beyond the Hindi belt.

The Lok Sabha elections are due not later than May 2009. In 2004, the CPI (M) emerged as the third largest party with 44 MPs, who in turn were part of a bloc of 61 left and attached MPs. The short-term strategic aim of Mayawati’s party will be to displace the Marxist party from this slot. Even short of this, it can outpace Lalu Prasad Yadav whose mainly Bihar centred party has 23 MPs in the House of the People.

The implications of such a shift, if it does occur, can be staggering. Each party has a specific philosophy and emphasis in terms of priorities. Yet, the BSP is in a time of transition. It is trying to broad-base its appeal and go beyond a caste specific image. One obvious issue will be reservations: will it try pushing its new formula that brings the upper caste poor and minorities under the ambit? The other dimension is of the private sector, whether foreign or Indian. Will it welcome them and how far will the employment policy be the new touchstone? In turn, the private sector will have to come up with more imaginative responses than mere training and placement schemes.

 

As job opportunities expand in sectors beyond the reach of government, the attainment of diversity in employee profiles will be a major challenge. Recent studies indicate huge potential for change. Two Union Ministers, Ram Vilas Paswan and Meira Kumar, have taken up the issue of reservations in the private sector. But they only refer to groups like the Scheduled Castes who are presently entitled to positive discrimination in the state sector. The U.P. chief minister goes a step further and seeks to bring new groups in the ambit. Clearly the sheer size of Mayawati’s party and its considerably political clout will make it a key participant in this debate.

The challenge for the party in the short term is more directly a political one. Here, it starts with an advantage, the gains that accrue to a successful practitioner of realpolitik. This in part flows from its recent past. More than any other Dalit force in the country, it has placed electoral politics at the centre. The Republican Party of India in Maharashtra in its various factions always had stronger links with cultural and social reform. In Tamil Nadu, the Puthiya Tamilam movement and Dalit Panthers of India have a strong human rights focus. Closer to the bastions of the BSP, Ram Vilas Paswan is a veteran socialist with an anti-Emergency record as activist, political detenu and minister in many coalition governments. It is significant that such a list cannot include any key figure or tendency from the two largest political parties. The Jagjivan Ram tradition in Congress has long since faded away. The BJP’s attempt to reconnect with Dalits via power sharing with the BSP was a flop.

Still, the hurdles that lie ahead are formidable. For instance, Mayawati’s recent forays into Maharashtra and Gujarat tried to forge a concord with the Brahmins on the lines of U.P. But not only are the numbers of the former priestly communities miniscule by comparison, they are today marginal to the political process in these regions.

 

A similar picture obtains in peninsular India. Further, the southern states have a strongly populist orientation in state policy. Food provisions alongside schooling, housing and medical care are often seen as a matter of right, even if these are not always available to all or in adequate measure. Backward classes too have long played a key role in politics. This includes land owning communities like the Lingayats and Vokkaligas in Karnataka. It can also extend to the more backward classes as in the Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu. This is not to rule out the expansion of the space for a Dalit political player. It is only to say that there is no magic formula to replicate the experiences from Uttar Pradesh.

Yet, the short term challenge will not be in the expansion into other states. This is bound to be a protracted process. It is easy to forget that the BSP got nearly a tenth of the vote in U.P. as far back as 1991. It will lie in retaining and expanding the base in its main bastion. The state assembly election of May 2007, if seen in terms of Lok Sabha leads, would give the party 40-45 out of 80 seats. Such a score, if repeated, will transform power equations in a new Lok Sabha. The party will, of course, try not just to hold onto these seats but to add to them. As a bonus, it will try expand and consolidate gains in adjacent states. Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh, for instance, is remarkably similar to the adjacent districts of U.P.

 

Even if it does not win seats, it can certainly skew the picture by under-cutting one or the other party. The party first played such a role in the state assembly elections of Punjab in 1985. Most recently, it ate into the Congress’ base in Madhya Pradesh in 2003. The BSP has already said that it plans to contest all the seats in the Central and North Indian states due to poll in late 2008, hoping to erode the two party systems that obtain in states like Chhattisgarh and open up a space for a third force.

To return to the national stage, a larger parliamentary presence in the new Lok Sabha could make the BSP a player that counts in government formation. Much depends on the exact composition of the next House. Public memory is short. In 1999, the fate of the Vajpayee government was sealed once Mayawati’s five member legislative party decided to vote against his government. In 2004, she was the first to announce support for a Congress-led government. Not that this stopped her from going on the offensive against the UPA coalition in New Delhi on issues as diverse as aid to her own state and private sector reservations.

Dalit power is clearly an idea whose time has come. But to move forward the BSP will have to display adaptability and capacity for reinvention in new arenas. Its future will also rest on how far it meets the hopes it has kindled.

 

Footnotes:

1. Political Process in Uttar Pradesh edited by Sudha Pai, Pearson, Delhi, 2007.

2. Ram Naryan Rawat, ‘The Making of the Scheduled Caste Community: The SC Federation and Dalit Politics in U.P.’, unpublished PhD thesis, Dept. of History, University of Delhi, 2006. Also see his paper, ‘Making Claims For Power: A New Agenda of Dalit Politics of U.P., 1946-48’, Modern Asian Studies, 2003, vol. 37, pp. 585-612.

3. Harish Damodaran, India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business and Industry in a Modern Nation State, Permanent Black/Palgrave Macmillan. In Press.