No heart in heartland

India’s most populous state, sending 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha even after the departure of Uttarakhand, had always boasted of deciding who will run India. UP has contributed the largest number of prime ministers — five, and with a record number of years in office — and a belief, especially before P.V. Narasimha Rao broke the mould decisively (we did have Morarji Desai and Charan Singh briefly), that if you were a powerful politician from the Doab, you had the best chance of running India. The belief continued in the coalition era too, with UP being the state where the BJP got most of its seats during the NDA heyday, and the Samajwadi Party (SP) retaining a hold during the United Front years too as a powerful party.

Somehow, over the past five years, despite the excellent performance of the SP in 2004 — both in securing seats for itself and in restricting the BJP — the SP and then UP have somehow been marginal to the Centre’s politics. That may be because the SP did not exactly cosy up to the UPA, and Mayawati’s relationship with the Congress too see-sawed, with neither party being central to the UPA’s survival. Now, despite the SP’s perceived proximity to the Congress, there is a sense within the party, especially in Mulayam Singh’s remarkably shrewd mind, that with polls due in under a year it is best to appear politically flexible, that is, appear unpredictable as a key to securing an important role for his party. While his party general secretary is seen to be busy repairing a once-bitter relationship with the Congress, the party chief is trying to take the edge off his and Mayawati’s politics. Once partners in securing a spectacular coalition of the OBCs, Dalits and Muslims in the state (in 1993), the two split equally dramatically two years later, with a “Guest House incident” badly marring prospects of a coming together for ever, as it appeared at the time.

But now, in trying to be “normal” about things, the SP chief is almost acknowledging the spirit of his arch-rival and her way of conducting politics; that is, aiming to bring a certain strength of votes, representation and clout to the table and then taking a call on which way it will swing, what alliance it will forge and with whom — justifying it on the grounds of the support base’s welfare. An unpredictable or unreadable SP makes Mulayam Singh a more sought-after ally for the UPA, or the NDA too, in future. (Deputy Amar Singh has never tired of telling TV cameras that his party is keen to be the “link” between the UPA and the NDA.)

Moreover, the BSP government, with a decent majority of its own in the state, is here to stay in UP for the next four years. To simply allow antagonisms to blossom does not help the SP — it is perhaps better to try and ease the pressure of witch-hunts, “cases” and other “decision-reversals” (that have become the order of the day each time a party in power gets replaced). Also, several in the SP are rumoured to be quitting to join the ruling BSP, and it may just be the sort of meeting the SP chief needed with Mayawati to convey a message of business as usual, or of being in control, despite not being in power at the Centre or in the state.

While assessments of the BSP’s expanding social base may be a little exaggerated, it is clear that, for whatever reason, upper castes, Muslims and a section of the OBCs did attach themselves to the core Dalit base of the party last year — which demonstrates a degree of acceptability across the board for the BSP, which should worry the SP. It is therefore not a bad idea at all to send a message to others who are not quite Mulayam Singh’s core vote base that, as the head of a predominantly OBC party, he has no fundamental problem with Dalits — so sitting in the same room and talking is an important signal to send out in an assertive but still caste-consumed UP.

Most important, and most complex of all, this could be part of a bid by Mulayam Singh to get back to his much praised, vintage “old-world politician” ways, of being mindful of political changes, working hard to not preclude any possibility in politics. More than that, what can never be over-estimated is the need for accretions to the vote base in times of deeply fractured politics. If Mayawati is going on about Brahmin samaj and Vaish samaj openly, and someone like L.K. Advani is keen to be seen as an occasional meltdown man (significantly while watching a film by Aamir Khan and then after hearing a poem by an industrialist), it appears that for all those nursing dreams of the top job, it is important to look as if you are “flexible”, “accommodating” and have things for everyone in your list of policies. So umbrella-like projections, dismissed as boring Congress-isms at one point, are being furtively adopted by all of Congress’s rivals in a way that would certainly make the ailing Harkishen Singh Surjeet or Atal Behari Vajpayee chuckle.

Since the BSP has national ambitions, with the third front (UNPA) pretty much in disarray, the SP chief may have done well to predict the BSP’s high nuisance value even after the next general elections. By attempting to take away some of the vitriol and charge that characterise his relationship with Mayawati, it may be easing the path, just in case a civil relationship is necessitated by more complex coalitional times in the future — complexities beyond the relatively straightforward UPA and NDA variety.

It would be naïve to suggest a BSP-SP tie-up, but as politics rumbles along, and alliances and calculations take shape before the 2009 polls, it would be equally naïve to rule out any possibilities, bids and ambitions, especially of the smaller-big parties.

Parallels are often drawn between Tamil Nadu and UP’s peculiarities (of a basic two-party system, whittling down the Congress and BJP to a narrow base). How Tamil Nadu is seen to have benefited and remained “relevant” by steadily maintaining a whole team of ministers in the Union cabinet over the past 12 years with three different types of governments, without causing as much as a murmur or loss of vote base, is seen as a case of smart and vigorous politics by UP-ites feeling left out over the past five years. Why UP should not emulate its southern counterpart is a question that must be haunting both the chief minister and the leader of the opposition. And what better way to clear your head than to meet and discuss the case for human rights in the state?

seema.chishti@expressindia.com