WHOEVER wins, these elections will fail many people in Chhattisgarh. The issues which many outside Chhattisgarh associate with the new state – such as Naxalism, Salwa Judum, resource exploitation – are unlikely to find serious expression in the election campaign. This is because, despite the noise of electoral politics, there appears to be little to distinguish the stand of the BJP and Congress on some of the most important issues facing the state. The Congress has not laid out a distinctive stand from the state government on Salwa Judum or the nature of economic development. With little clear water between the parties on policy issues, we are likely to see an election campaign that is again dominated by personality and talk of factionalism.

While each party has a relatively distinct core support base, they are competing for a sizeable pool of floating voters. As in Chhattisgarh’s parent state of Madhya Pradesh, no major home-grown party has so far emerged to mobilize or represent new social groups in Chhattisgarh. This is one of the few states in India where political competition continues to revolve around the two main national parties, the BJP and Congress.

One feature of the continued dominance of the two national parties is the absence of a strong autonomous tribal voice in the state’s politics. Chhattisgarh was often referred to as a tribal state when it was created in 2000. Thirty two per cent of its population are Scheduled Tribes and in five districts of the state they comprise over fifty per cent of the population.¹ This is the largest concentration of Scheduled Tribes in any state in India outside the North East. But, it is by no means clear that the centre of political gravity lies with adivasis in the state. They were not behind the demand, such as it was, for statehood and they have not been well represented in the administration of the new state.² Banias, upper castes and some OBCs from the plains areas are prominent in the governing elite of the present administration. But the tribal areas are a crucial part of the state’s political economy both because of the number of seats they contribute to the Vidhan Sabha as well as their rich endowment with forests and minerals.

The marginality of the issues facing people in the tribal-majority regions in Chhattisgarh’s politics is partly maintained by the divided nature of the state’s political arena. There are two main physical – and political – arenas in Chhattisgarh: the rice-growing plains area around Raipur, and the forested and hilly regions of Bastar to the south and Surguja to the north where adivasis comprise a majority of the population. The two have different political economies and histories. The plains region largely fell under the old British province of Central Provinces and Berar, while the tribal areas came under a variety of princely and feudatory states. The two adivasi-majority areas are themselves separate from each other geographically and home to different tribal communities.

 

The tribal majority regions of Bastar and Surguja were central to the BJP’s victory in 2003. The party won 19 of 24 seats here out of a total tally of 25 of the 34 seats reserved for tribals across the state (see Table 1). Party competition in seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes has markedly intensified in Chhattisgarh from the 1990 state elections onwards. Congress has not been the natural party of the Scheduled Tribes – nor in seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (see Table 2) – for some time.

Across the state as a whole, the 2003 elections did not represent a landslide for the BJP. Although it won a majority of seats, there was actually a swing of 1.1% away from the BJP. In the plains areas of Chhattisgarh both parties lost seats to each other, but in the tribal areas there was a clear swing against Congress – especially in the southern region of Bastar. The adivasi vote was split evenly between the BJP and Congress but the BJP took the majority of seats.³ And, suggesting that this was not a one-off event, the BJP also increased its margin of victory in the Bastar assembly constituency of Keshkala by 10,000 votes in a by-election in February 2008.

Why did Congress lose support in these regions? One of the explanations that Ajit Jogi offers for why he lost power in the last elections is that the tribal areas which he thought he had ‘in his pocket’ voted against him.⁴ The then Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, had ordered troop deployment to the area, with the chief minister’s consent, because of a poll boycott issued by the Naxalites. Jogi argues that he did badly in the tribal areas because turnout suddenly shot up in light of the security presence, effectively suggesting that he would have won more seats on a lower turnout. An ally of Jogi’s in Chhattisgarh further elaborated his suspicions that turnout had increased and Congress been defeated because the security forces themselves had stuffed the ballot boxes.

 

But, it is notable that the only place where the Congress retained seats in Bastar was in the area with the worst ‘security problems’ – Dantewada, where the Naxalite movement was strongest. It won all three seats there. If ballot stuffing was indeed instrumental, this was where you might expect it to have been most influential. It was actually in the rest of Bastar as well as Jashpur, Surguja and Raigarh in northern Chhattisgarh, where the Naxalite movement has less of a presence, that the BJP swept the board.

So what was happening in the tribal areas and why did the BJP do so well in 2003? One important factor is the base that the RSS had been building through organizations like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram from Jashpur in the Surguja region. Dilip Singh Judeo was the most prominent local leader of the BJP. Judeo has led ‘reconversion’ campaigns in a bid to convert Christian adivasis to Hinduism, a process he describes as a ‘homecoming’ (an assertion which relies on an active reinterpretation of tribal religious practices as sharing the essentials of Hinduism). A corruption scandal against Judeo, exposed by the Congress shortly before the last elections, may have backfired because it looked like a pre-election conspiracy. The fact that Jogi himself was already the focus of corruption allegations may have made it harder for Congress to make corruption an election issue.

 

Another issue in the election was Jogi himself. Ajit Jogi says that he is a tribal, but this has been disputed by those who allege that he is a Satnami (Scheduled Caste) whose family had converted to Christianity. The question of his ‘true’ social background is currently with the Supreme Court but this ambiguity about his identity made him easy prey for the BJP. Some non-BJP tribal leaders also alleged that Jogi was a ‘fake adivasi’. It has been suggested that because Jogi represented himself as a tribal leader, he held back the promotion of other tribal leaders in the local Congress party. Jogi’s close relationship with, and promotion by, the national leadership of Congress, especially Sonia Gandhi, may also have reduced the space for the emergence of new leaders ‘from below’ in these regions.

Mahendra Karma, the Dantewada MLA, sponsor of the Salwa Judum movement and leader of the opposition in Chhattisgarh, was the only real counterweight to Jogi within Congress in the tribal areas. Senior tribal leader Arvind Netam had left the Congress party in this period. Netam laments the lack of strong tribal leaders in mainstream parties. ‘Most mainstream political parties prefer yes-men as ST leaders,’ he has said. ‘Tribal leaders within political parties depend entirely on non-tribal leaders. There are no tribal heavyweights in the higher echelons of the parties to influence, say, the distribution of tickets to promote a promising young tribal politician.’⁵

 

Behind the inconducive environment for tribal representation may be the mindset implicit in persistent suggestions by politicians and observers of different political persuasions (and not just in Chhattisgarh) that the votes of adivasis are more likely than other groups of voters to be ‘bought’ on the basis of offers of drink or food. In the 2003 elections, the BJP made an offer of a cow to each tribal family if they were to win the elections. Jogi laid bare the distinction he made between two types of adivasis: plains adivasis who were educated and ‘saw the significance of a tribal becoming chief minister’ (i.e. were likely to support him) and hills adivasis who were uneducated and responded to other things such as offers of drink and mutton.⁶

Arvind Netam claims that there has been a historical tendency to treat adivasis as the ‘bonded labour’ of the political system.⁷ Certainly, images of tribal ‘biddability’ seem to contribute to a disempowering atmosphere for serious tribal politics. They appear to strip political contests in these areas of substantive issues – and perpetuate a paternalistic attitude towards tribal communities that could be seen as a partial justification for the absence of strong tribal representation at the heart of Chhattisgarhi politics.

 

But, it is not only in terms of leadership that tribals have been marginalized. If we turn to one of the biggest issues in the state, tribals are also squeezed between the Naxalite movement and Salwa Judum, the state-sponsored response to this. Since the last elections, the Bastar region and in particular Dantewada has become considerably more conflict-ridden as a result of the emergence of Salwa Judum. The Maoist movement has had a presence in the southernmost district of Chhattisgarh, Dantewada, since the 1980s. This grew out of the trade union movement in the Bailadila mines, from where iron ore production had begun in 1968 by the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) with Japanese funding. The trade union movement, led by the CPI, gradually spread into rural areas in the 1970s, campaigning on questions such as the control of mineral resources and local employment in the Bailadila mines.⁸ Dantewada has the lowest literacy rate of any district in India – just 30.17% (2001 Census). It is poor and remote with inferior communications, but home to substantial natural resources.

The labour movement faced state repression in the late 1970s. From the 1980s, the Maoists began to establish a militant force and set up parallel structures of local governance or ‘village sanghams’. By the time the state of Chhattisgarh was created in 2000, the CPI Marxist-Leninist (People’s War) controlled large tracts of forest land in Dantewada and Kanker.⁹ In 2005, a new force emerged in this region.

 

Accounts of the exact origins of Salwa Judum differ. The state government describes it as a spontaneous people’s movement against the Naxalites. But, the movement has often been linked to the personal anti-Naxalite campaigns of current opposition Congress leader in the Vidhan Sabha (and former CPI MLA) Mahendra Karma, who led a ‘Jan Jagran’ (people’s awakening) campaign against Naxalism in the 1990s. What is clear is that from June 2005, the state government, encouraged by Mahendra Karma, began to sponsor the Salwa Judum movement against Naxalism by training and arming tribal youth who are known as ‘special police officers’.

The conflict between the Naxal movement and Salwa Judum has led to the creation of government refugee camps to house the thousands of displaced. Although not all Congress politicians in Bastar support Salwa Judum, the fact that it is spearheaded by the leader of the opposition gives the impression of agreement between BJP and the Congress on the issue. This would make it difficult for Congress to set out a position independent from the state government on Salwa Judum, even if it wanted to.

Civil society activists in Chhattisgarh have increasingly sought to draw links between the displacement of adivasis into camps as a result of the conflict involving Salwa Judum and Naxalites, and the bid to intensify the exploitation of the region’s rich mineral resources many of which happen to lie under land inhabited by tribals – as in Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.¹⁰ There has been controversy about land acquisition for several major industrial projects agreed to by the state government – especially with Essar and Tata Steel in 2005 (and with the NMDC under Jogi in 2001) – particularly because of the secrecy around the specific details of the MOUs signed.¹¹ In both instances there are allegations that undue pressure was placed on gram sabhas to provide consent for land acquisition, a right that the PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act gives them.

 

If adivasis are still on the sidelines of mainline Chhattisgarh politics, where does the centre of political gravity lie? The answer is to be found in the plains area, where there is a contrasting pattern of political competition. The demographic composition of the plains areas is different to the tribal districts with a much larger percentage of the population falling into OBC categories. The state’s own estimate based on projections from the 1931 Census, the last to record caste, is that 42% of the population across the whole state are OBC and this is similar to the National Sample Survey estimate.¹² The OBCs are more concentrated in the plains areas of the state and so account for a larger proportion of the population in these areas. Here, in what is often called the ‘rice bowl’, farmers are an important political constituency, and a key political trend in this area in recent years has been the emergence of a more visible OBC presence in politics.

 

There is competition between the BJP and Congress for the votes of OBCs who are numerically dominant in the region, but not organized into a coherent ‘backward’ political coalition. Kurmis and Sahus (oil pressers) have been the most upwardly mobile groups, while others such as the Yadavs have felt somewhat left behind in politics. It was under the 1977 Janata government that the representation of OBCs first improved in the Chhattisgarh region of the Vidhan Sabha, when 14 (of a total of 90 MLAs) OBCs were elected.

And from the 1985 elections, there was markedly more competition between the Congress and BJP over the representation of the other backward classes. In 1985, all but two of the OBC MLAs in the region were Congress whereas in 1990, eight of the 14 OBC MLAs from Chhattisgarh belonged to the BJP, two were Janata Dal and only four came from Congress. The 2003 state assembly in Chhattisgarh included 20 OBC MLAs and the current cabinet contains four OBC ministers (two Kurmis, one Sahu and one Yadav).¹³

The plains areas were the crucible for the idea of Chhattisgarh. Locally dominant landowning castes in the plains such as the Kurmis and long resident Brahmins had been an important constituency for the demand for statehood. There was never a strong popular movement for statehood in the Chhattisgarh region, unlike in the states of Jharkhand and Uttarakhand created at the same time. But, the idea of statehood had been articulated by Kurmi politicians such as Khubchand Baghel who left Congress in the 1940s and set up the Chhattisgarh Mahasabha and later joined Acharya Kripalani’s socialists, as well as the next generation of socialist politicians such as Purushottam Kaushik. These politicians resented the domination of politics in the region by the family of Ravishankar Shukla, the first chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.

 

The Shukla family are Kanyakubja Brahmins and had moved to the region in the late nineteenth century. R.S. Shukla’s sons, Shyamacharan (SC) and Vidyacharan (VC), dominated politics in the area after his death. Later on, Chandulal Chandraker – a Kurmi – in Congress became a proponent of statehood. Although the upper caste population of Chhattisgarh was significantly smaller than elsewhere in Madhya Pradesh, the Shuklas held sway in politics and the administration, to the chagrin as well of the longer resident Saryupalli Brahmins also known as Chhattisgarhi Brahmins, who had also been supporters of the idea of a separate state.¹⁴

Here too there are questions of political exclusion that probably will not be addressed in the election. Large farmers have had a stronger voice in state politics than marginal farmers or the landless. As elsewhere in the country, the size of landholdings in Chhattisgarh has deteriorated in the last forty years. Increasing numbers of farmers fall into the marginal category with landholdings of under one hectare and there are reports of high levels of migration from the area. There is also evidence of a relatively high number of farmer suicides in the plains area – 1483 in 2006 – in the region, which the state government is not eager to acknowledge.¹⁵ These figures are comparable with other states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala which have received much media attention and some central assistance, but much less regard has been paid to understanding or addressing the situation of agrarian distress in Chhattisgarh.¹⁶

 

The other dominant feature of the political economy of the Chhattisgarh plains is the industrial belt which extends from the steel plant at Bhilai and its feeder mines in Dalli-Rajhara to Raipur. A Reserve Bank of India report in August reported a significant spurt in investment in Chhattisgarh, accounting for 6.2% of private corporate investment across the country in 2007-08 or Rs 17, 671 crore compared to Rs 2,365 in 2006-7 (0.8%).¹⁷ Most of this is capital intensive investment in the mining sector.

Chhattisgarh, a state well endowed with electricity generating capacity, is also experimenting with new projects to export power – such as the deal recently concluded with the new BJP government in Karnataka. But, associated with industrial development are disputes over land, a large number of migrant labourers and a significant pool of contract labour, including many poor adivasis who have migrated from rural areas. The intensification of industrial development is likely to magnify social tensions in the years to come.

 

The new state has seen an enormous mobilization of private investment – more than neighbouring Jharkhand which also has large mineral deposits – but contentious issues remain. Presumably aware that such investment may not win the votes of the aam aadmi, both the main parties are currently engaging in an exercise of ‘competing populism’ ahead of the elections. Earlier this year, the BJP government began a scheme to provide rice at three rupees per kg to below poverty-line families. On independence day, Chief Minister Raman Singh also announced the introduction of new low interest (3%) agricultural loans. Congress has sought to compete by suggesting that they could provide rice at two rupees per kg if they come to power, as well as offering free electricity to the poor. The BJP is fighting that cliché of election-bound Indian states – anti-incumbency – and may give tickets to a host of new faces.

In the last election, the BJP had a lead over Congress among upper caste and OBC voters while Congress retained the support of dalits and Muslims.¹⁸ It will be interesting to see whether this holds up in the forthcoming elections. There are rumblings of discontent among some leaders in the BJP about a Brahmin-Bania hold on the reins of the party, which they fear could be an electoral liability for the BJP among OBCs. The BSP made some small inroads among dalit voters in recent elections winning three seats in 1998 and two seats in 2003, and have declared their intention to field candidates in all 90 seats this time round. These state elections will be a critical testing ground for Mayawati’s BSP ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections.

In 2003, the presence of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), to whom Congress’ old big beast V.C. Shukla had defected, complicated the race between the Congress and the BJP. The NCP won only one seat but acted as a spoiler in many constituencies by splitting the Congress vote in favour of the BJP. The return of V.C. Shukla to Congress earlier this year removes the potential for a repeat of 2003. But, his return also complicates the struggle for leadership within Congress. There are a number of factions within the party – loosely expressing loyalty to Ajit Jogi, V.C. Shukla or Motilal Vora (national party treasurer). Arvind Netam has also recently returned to the party. Chhattisgarh may be a new state, but it is useful to remember that its politicians were schooled in the faction-ridden climate of Madhya Pradesh.

 

Like the other states where elections are to be held, Chhattisgarh’s polls will be held under newly delimitated constituencies. The delimitation exercise has reduced the number of tribal seats to 29 (from 34) of 90. This slightly increases the weight of the plains seats. The last few years have seen the more aggressive promotion of a Chhattisgarhi identity by the state’s political elite in order to promote the emotional unity of the new state. Chhattisgarhi – the regional form of Hindi spoken in the plains areas – was made an official state language last year. But it is unlikely that this will be enough to unite Chhattisgarh’s multiple political arenas. It remains to be seen in which party’s favour the parts will stack up when the votes are counted.

 

* The author would like to thank the many people whose conversation, insights and support have enabled and enriched the doctoral research on which this article is based.

 

Footnotes:

1. Bastar (66%), Dantewada (79%), Jashpur (63%), Kanker (56%) and Surguja (55%) according to the 2001 Census.

2. There is one ST minister of eight ministers in the current cabinet – Ram Vichar Netam – and three further ministers of state.

3. According to the CSDS postpoll data, 36% of adivasi voters each voted for BJP and Congress. See Y. Yadav and S. Kumar, ‘Understanding the Chhattisgarh Vote’, The Hindu, 11 December 2003.

4. Interview with Ajit Jogi, Delhi, 18 September 2007.

5. Interview with Arvind Netam in Down to Earth, 12 July 2003.

6. Interview with Ajit Jogi, as above.

7. Author’s interview with Arvind Netam, Delhi, 18 September 2008.

8. I. Sen, ‘Ground Clearing with Salwa Judum’, Himal South Asian, 2006.

9. Ibid.

10. For more discussion of this, see N. Sundar, ‘Bastar, Maoism and Salwa Judum’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2006, 3187-3192.

11. See, for example, ‘Tata, Essar Steel MoUs Out of Right to Information’s Ambit’, Business Line, 15 February 2006.

12. ‘UP Has the Highest OBC Population in all States’, Times of India, 7 May 2007; Rajeev Ranjan Roy, ‘Most States Don’t Have Firm OBC Data’, The Pioneer, 16 April 2007.

13. Figures collated during fieldwork in Chhattisgarh in 2007.

14. My forthcoming PhD dissertation on the reorganization of states in North India addresses issues around the statehood demand in more depth.

15. S. Choudhury, ‘Farmer Suicides in Chhattisgarh: A State in Denial’, Infochange Agriculture, 2008.

16. These figures come from the National Crime Records Bureau of the Union Home Ministry.

17. Reserve Bank of India, ‘Corporate Investment Growth in 2007-08 and Prospects For 2008-09’, RBI Bulletin, 2008.

18. According to CSDS postpoll data reported in Y. Yadav and S. Kumar, ‘Understanding the Chhattisgarh Vote’, op. cit.