Three Reasons Why Political Pundits Got It Wrong in Uttar Pradesh

By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam 14 March 2022 The Communal Rhetoric Was the Base upon Which Issues of ‘Safety and Security’ Were Hoisted Successfully By the Ruling Dispensation Main Points: 1. During the COVID-19, the entire opposition was missing from action; the only presence in the political space was that of the government. 2. Calling the government welfare programme as ‘freebies’ harmed the opposition immensely. 3. Lower caste leaders who defected to the opposition failed to carry their social base with them. ----- Though the main contest is believed to be between the BJP and the SP-RLD, the BSP too has its influence on some seats in the first phase. ----- Despite the rather formidable challenges faced by the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh; its victory at the polls is nothing sort of spectacular. The election was fought in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic which devastated lives and livelihoods across sections but most severely affected the poor. On top of it were issues of price rise and unemployment, which directly affected the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. Moreover, towards the very end, there was a realignment of caste equations in favour of the challenger Samajwadi Party. Some prominent political leaders from the marginalized castes joined the opposition and it seemed that the damage to the ruling BJP will be irreparable. Many political pundits therefore were expecting that people’s ‘anger’ will get reflected in the polls and ‘they will teach BJP a lesson’. The result seems to have been the exact opposite: the people, especially those who suffered the most, have once again reposed their trust in the BJP and its popular chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Here are some of the reasons why the political pundits got it so wrong: First, it is true that the pandemic wreaked havoc in the lives of poor people. Images of people walking hundreds of kilometers to their homes; corpses floating on river banks are still fresh in the minds of the people. But people rationalized the pandemic as a natural disaster, the scale of which was beyond the capacity of any human to control. The opposition could have exploited the situation by pointing out the inadequate and at places non-existent health facilities. But if one remembers correctly, the entire opposition was missing from action. Forget about making this into an issue, opposition leaders refused to come out of the safe confines of their homes. The only presence, no matter how feeble, was that of the government. As a result of this wholesale abandonment of the opposition of its own space, people could see the presence of the government alone. A result of the pandemic was the expansion of the government’s welfare programme aimed at the poorer sections of the population. They were given free rice and other items of subsistence, which any sensible government should do. However, the opposition again completely misread the situation and scored a self-goal. They called it ‘freebies’ and saw it as the government’s desire to make a welfare-dependent population. Some even likened the programme to a deliberate effort to turn the poor into beggars. Such discourses ended up harming the opposition immensely. Calling poor people beggars was an affront to their dignity and the poor did not take it kindly. For these people, the government seemed to be a caring one, helping them tide over a natural calamity. The opposition’s critique was seen by them as extremely insensitive and callous. To be fair to the ruling dispensation, this was not the first time such an exercise was being carried out. Governments in Tamil Nadu, undivided Andhra and Orissa have been doing it for decades. Similar measures were undertaken by the West Bengal government before the local elections but then the same political commentators had called her a visionary leader. Uttar Pradesh Elections Results - Seat Share (0/403) Party 2022 2017 Lead Won BJP 0 255 312 AIMIM 0 0 Others 0 2 INC 0 2 7 BSP 0 1 19 SP 0 111 47 ADAL 0 12 RLD 0 8 NINSHAD 0 6 SBSP 0 6 AAP 0 0 Second, it appears that contrary to expectations, the exit of some prominent caste leaders was not enough to realign a majority of lower caste votes in favour of the opposition. One forgets that Hindu organizations have invested years of hard work in these communities with a view to bring them within the larger Hindutva fold. The fact that despite some of their leaders exiting the saffron fold, the masses still opted to remain within the fold tells us that the hard work has paid off. Simply because Swami Prasad Maurya or Om Prakash Rajbhar decide to quit the BJP, doesn’t automatically mean that all Mauryas and Rajbhars will start voting for the opposition. Moreover, as Dr. Ambedkar reminds us, Indian society is not just about upper castes and lower castes; rather caste is a system of graded inequality. This means that caste contradictions operate locally and regionally. It doesn’t really make sense that Dalits and marginal non-dominant backwards will start aligning with Yadavs, Jats and Muslims simply because some of their leaders have done so. At many places, these marginal communities have historically been oppressed by the dominant OBCs like the Yadavs and Jats and it is difficult to erase such historical memories. It is no wonder that the lower OBCs and Dalits have largely stayed with the BJP for the security it provides them from the dominant OBCs. It also needs to be said that in terms of political representation, the BJP has been far better in accommodating the interests of these groups as compared to the so-called social justice parties. It is intriguing how this escaped the attention of our political pundits. Last but not the least, the communal rhetoric has paid its dividends to the ruling party. The political pundits were in fact loath to say it aloud this time. They underlined the immense sagacity of Akhilesh Yadav to remain focused on issues which could not lead to any polarization. They congratulate the opposition (but not the Muslims) for not ‘falling in the trap’ of communal rhetoric. However, the fact remains that almost every slogan of the ruling dispensation was laced with communal rhetoric. The slogan of safety and security was another was a way of reminding the electorate that ‘Muslim Romeos’ had been eradicated; the names of Azam Khan and Atiq Ahmad were regularly invoked because the electorate had to be reminded that Muslims have been ‘put in their place’. The average Hindu mind had been so saturated with anti-Muslim imagery that even small signals were enough to reach their intended audience. This mobilization of Hindu identity would have happened even in the absence of Muslims throwing their entire weight behind one so called secular party. ---- A regular contributor to NAI, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia. URL: New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism