Churn in Uttar Pradesh Bahujan politics: Options ahead for Mayawati, Chandrashekhar
The Bhim Army is a threat to the BSP chief. But joining hands with Chandrashekhar has its own pitfalls.
Bahujan politics is facing a critical time in its history. I use the term ‘Bahujan movement’ here to denote the struggle of Scheduled Caste communities for equality.
The Bahujan movement led by Kanshi Ram and Mayawati managed to successfully represent the political aspirations of SC communities in North India, especially in Uttar Pradesh, for 35 years.
But the BSP is facing various kinds of crises today.
On one hand, Hindutva politics is trying to make inroads into the SC vote bank, by trying to mobilise non-jatav (Mayawati’s caste) communities in Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, youth leaders from within SC communities are emerging, with a new, aggressive language against dominant social groups. They are trying to mobilise SC castes under their own leadership.
These youth leaders have emerged through social movements against atrocities on SC communities. They have come up from various civil society and NGO movements. Their political language is mixed with NGO and civil society-produced language, and a revival of the old Dalit Panther language that emerged in Maharashtra in the 70s. To some extent, one can also hear notes of the Marxist language of struggle for the marginalised in the rhetoric of these youth leaders.
The BSP had used much the same language against dominant castes in the early phase of its mobilisation. It had attacked all the upper castes , such as Brahmins, Thakurs, Vaishyas, through the early years of the 90s.
But when the BSP movement expanded among other communities, it changed its slogan and started working on the politics of social engineering.
The party tried to include even brahmins in its fold, by distinguishing ‘manuvadi brahmins’ from ‘non-manuvadi brahmins. Mayawati said many times over that the BSP would give space to all non-manuvadi brahmins who supported the upliftment of SC communities.
In this process, a section of the SC population started complaining against the BSP. Their grievance was that the party was not focusing properly on the SC-Bahujan cause.
The BSP movement under the leadership of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati had started as an empowerment project, raising social issues such as sharab bandi (prohibition) and organising campaigns against atrocities on SCs.
Slowly, its focus turned to only political issues, and campaigns for acquiring state power.
In this vacuum, new SC leaders like Jignesh Mewani in Gujarat and Chandrashekhar in Uttar Pradesh emerged.
Chandrashekhar, founder of the youth organisation Bhim Army, came into prominence after the Shabbirpur incident in Saharanpur, where Rajputs and SCs clashed violently.
After spending more than a year in jail, he was recently released by the BJP government. Soon after, he publicly announced that he had no quarrel with ‘bua’ (aunt) Mayawati and that she was of the same blood as him. He also said that he would work for the defeat of the BJP in the 2019 elections.
However, Mayawati rebuffed Chandrashekhar’s overtures, and also cast doubts over his political intentions. She said that while on the one hand, Chandrashekhar pledges support to me, on the other, he says he will tour across India to strengthen his own organisation.
Mayawati’s strategy is to keep the Bhim Army chief at a distance, so that he does not eat into her support base.
Another reason for Mayawati to stay away from Chandrashekhar is that she does not want to annoy upper castes. She still has hopes from her strategy of social engineering, and knows that she cannot get a comfortable majority in the politics of Uttar Pradesh based merely on the support of Scheduled Castes.
In this situation, what would be the future strategy of Chandrashekhar? One political possibility is that through his own mobilisation, he fractures SC votes, which could benefit the BJP. But that will only happen if he either supports any political party other than the BSP, or fields his own candidates.
Another possibility is that he joins the Congress, as Jignesh Mewani did in Gujarat, and supports the mahagathbandhan in the 2019 elections. It is well known that Chandrashekhar is very close to Imran Masood, Congress leader of Western Uttar Pradesh.
It is quite obvious that in spite of all their complaints, a majority of SC voters will still back Mayawati in the elections. Chandrashekhar understand this reality — which is why his public stance is friendly towards Mayawati.
Now we have to see how Mayawati responds to these challenges, and keeps her SC vote base intact.