The ironical, often ruthless, political law of opposites is revealing a dramatic picture, especially in north India. The Congress opened the locks of the ill-fated Ayodhya masjid; but it was the BJP, which gained from the subsequent Mandir mood. Now the BJP talks of ‘India shining’ and woos Muslims; and it is the Congress that appears poised for a revival.Things have come full circle; the NDA is falling short by a long march while its secular opponents are almost on the verge of recovering bases shattered during the fatal 14-year period (1990-2004) of caste and community politics. In Uttar Pradesh, Ansari Muslims—who had stood by the Congress even during the pre-Partition frenzy but had gone over to the Samajwadi Party in the 90s—seem to be voting almost en bloc for the haath ka panja. Brahmins present a confused picture but in pockets of Gorakhpur, Benaras and Azamgarh, old bases built by stalwarts like Kamalapati Tripathi, some elders actually cried before Rahul Gandhi. Only the Dalits are still with Mayawati; however there is a perceptible sympathy wave in favor of the Congress among the Dalits of Avadh, the middle Doab and Rohilkhand.Such was the state of Congress affairs in UP, that the “family” actually had to import/build a parallel network of sympathisers, outside the party rank and file. It was when the kids arrived with their new team in Amethi that ordinary Congress workers were galvanised. They saw a tumultuous, almost unimaginable, emotional reception with even BJP workers calling the Rahul, Priyanka cavalcade a rath “descended from the heavens”. This sea change has also resulted in the CPI, CPM and CPI(ML) getting back some of their votes, poached upon successfully by the SP in UP and the RJD in Bihar.A major reason why analysts are failing to read the picture is the quaint nature of a distinctly ‘anti-liberalisation’ mood here. This phenomena is a complex one. People want reforms but of a different kind. In the MP assembly elections, the electorate blamed Digvijay Singh for the lack of development. Bijli, Sadak, Paani (B-S-P), became BJP’s rallying cry. But the MP vote was more for internal liberalisation, the kind expounded by leaders like Ram Manohar Lohia. He had blamed Pandit Nehru for following an urban based, heavy industry development model, ignoring rural India’s infrastructural needs. Therefore, the BJP’s victory was more due to a saffron interpretation of Lohiaism, with Uma Bharti playing the neo-Lohiate Mandal card of ‘power to the backwards and the villages’. BJP’s Delhi leaders however interpreted the MP-Chhattisgarh results as a mandate for the reforms of the NDA government. The latter has very little to do with the rural-centric B-S-P model.During the current electoral campaign, BJP leaders kept reminding the media of the MP-Chhattisgarh verdict. But the public knew that these were general elections; they did not buy the idea that the central NDA reforms meant better rural infrastructure. The real picture is of the closure of textile mills, unemployment, suicides by farmers, the cutting of urea-fertiliser subsidies, the pending dues of sugarcane farmers, the abysmal state of rural infrastructure. Of particular relevance was the state of small-medium or medium peasants, with land holdings between 2-10 hectares. This section constitutes 13 per cent of UP’s rural society and holds around 45 per cent of its land area. It has always an been extremely vocal segment. It was the most enthusiastic supporter of the Mandir cause in its heyday in the early ’90s. But the ’90s brought them down to the level of marginal farmers. It was this experience that has turned it against the NDA.During a tour of UP this winter, this writer heard rickshaw drivers, slum dwellers and peasants abusing the sudhaar karyakram (reform process) directly, blaming it for enriching the rich and depriving them of even the do jodi comfort of kambal (blanket) and chappal (slippers). In the beginning, Mulayam’s SP reaped the fruits of this ire. But when Rahul Gandhi came a-knocking, people suddenly saw hope — however naive and short lived it may be. The Congress and other non-SP opponents of the BJP were now more identified with the bijli, sadak, paani urge. Mulayam was taken aback and not just because of the level of Muslim fury; in areas of middle Doab (Etawah, Mainpuri, Etah, Kannauj Farukkhabad, Mathura), his hold over the Yadav power groups and middle peasants has waned. Now a similar trend is visible in western UP, where the Jat-Muslim combination—solidly behind the Mulayam-Ajit Singh plank till now—is wavering. There are again reports of a Congress revival among middle peasants and the poor.The middle Doab and western UP go to the polls on May 5 and 10. Things have become unpredictable. It seems people cannot be taken for granted or seduced by hype. In many areas, the Congress simply has no organisation or the will (it too has been taken aback by all this), to tap the growing support for it. This turnaround offers a golden opportunity for analysts to gauge the nature of a new social churning that is currently underway in UP and Bihar.The writer has authored ‘Lucknow: The Fire of Grace’
