POLITICS-INDIA: Caste, Community Dominate State Elections

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Feb 21 2002 (IPS) - Constitutionally, India is secular and caste discrimination illegal, but religious loyalties and the ancient social hierarchy continue to determine how Indians vote û as evident in the current polls in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

On Thursday, Uttar Pradesh, whose population size of 160 million people could have made it the world’s sixth largest country, entered the final phase of a staggered three-phase poll to elect a provincial assembly.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee came under fire for suggesting publicly that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Indian People’s Party could dispense with the Muslim vote.

The BJP, which rules the state, may have alienated the Muslim vote by insisting on introducing in the state stiff anti-terrorist laws following the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and making anti-terrorism, especially in disputed northern Kashmir, its main plank.

Vajpayee, considered the moderate phase of his avowedly pro- Hindu BJP, may have been led to make the outburst after exit polls, conducted after the first two phases, indicated a complete alienation from his party of Muslims who make up 20 percent of Uttar Pradesh’s population.

Prominent Muslim leader and former member of India’s elite diplomatic corps, Syed Shahabuddin, said he saw nothing new in Vajpayee’s attitude and accused the prime minister of always projecting himself as a leader of the Hindus and not of all Indians.

’As for his claim that the BJP had done much for minorities, I would only point to the fact that the party has only one Muslim member of Parliament and has fielded only one Muslim candidate in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections,” Shahabuddin said.

D Raja, national secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), commented that Vajpayee and the BJP had only themselves to blame for any alienation of religious minorities.

’Instead of understanding that the minorities feel threatened by the aggressive stance taken by the BJP and its allies on the Ayodhya issue, the Prime Minister is only worsening the communal divide,” Raja pointed out.

Thursday’s elections for 166 of Uttar Pradesh’s 404 assembly seats covers Ayodhya town. This is where the BJP and its fundamentalist allies, notably the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Organisation, demolished in 1992 the tri-domed Babri Masjid, a structure allegedly built over a Hindu temple by 17th century Muslim invaders.

The campaign to demolish the Babri Masjid and later to replace it with a grand temple dedicated to the Hindu warrior deity Rama fanned communal passions, but propelled the BJP to national power through increased support from the Hindu majority.

But the BJP was soon to discover that the Hindus were deeply divided along caste lines, and that it could depend only the loyalties of the upper castes and not of the middle and lower castes who form the overwhelming majority.

It also found itself restrained from going ahead with the building of the temple by a Supreme Court order to maintain the status quo at the disputed site and by its regional allies in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition.

With exit polls suggesting that the BJP was about to face an electoral drubbing in Uttar Pradesh, the VHP has declared that it was prepared to defy the Supreme Court order and begin construction at the heavily guarded and barricaded site at Ayodhya on Mar. 15.

On Wednesday, VHP leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore denied that the VHP was reviving the temple construction issue in order to create problems for a new state government. ’It is not a question of which government, it is a question of faith,” he told reporters.

Kishore also denied that the Hindus were divided along caste lines and said that the warrior deity Ram, who is believed to have been born at Ayodhya 10,000 years ago, was a unifying factor for all members of the faith.

However, that is not a view shared by Mayawati, firebrand leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) or People’s Socialist Party, which is one of the two main rivals of the BJP for power in Uttar Pradesh.

The BSP, whose main is goal is to further the interests of Dalits, or people belonging to the lowest rung of the Hindu caste ladder, has, in the current elections forged a strategic alliance with the Muslim community.

Even if the BSP may not end up with sufficient strength to form a government on its own, it is poised to play a balancing role between the BJP and the Samajwadi (socialist) Party, which represents the interests of the middle Hindu castes and also has a following among Muslims.

In fact, the present elections in Uttar Pradesh have been a triangular affair among the three caste-based parties. The exit polls predict that government formation will depend on which of the two can put aside differences in hierarchy and get together

Analysts say a fractured verdict may not be a such a bad thing and may even lead to a stable political system, in which diverse social and political groups may actually have a voice û in government formation if not in actual governance.

The last assembly elections held five years ago resulted in a hung verdict and no government could be formed for the first six months.