Posted by: "Tarun Udwala" tarun.udwala@gmail.com tarunudgir
Sun May 20, 2007 11:39 am (PST) http://www.tehelka.com/story_main30.asp?filename=Ne260507The_strategy_CS.asp THE STRATEGY PAYS OFFThere is nothing new about the BSP's plan to move beyond its coreDalit base and include other sections of the society. Inclusion wasalways integral to the BSP's ideology and strategy, writes Christophe JaffrelotJaffrelot is a French political scientist and an authority on the riseof the Indian Right and the caste system. He has long been predictingthat Dalit forces will come to head political power structures in the NorthThe success of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh has comeas a surprise to many, but it is the outcome of a well thought-outstrategy harking back to the heyday of the Kanshi Ram-Mayawati duo. Both of them always strove to broaden the BSP's electoral base.Certainly, the BSP's core group has comprised of Dalits. The BSP hasbuilt its cadre by attracting middle-class Dalits who benefited fromthe reservation system. After Brahmins and Kayasthas, Scheduled Casteofficers form the largest number in the UP cadre of the IAS. Yet theseofficers felt frustrated because they were denied important posts. Thefirst bamcef (All India Backward and Minority Communities EmployeesFederation) cadres came from this new, frustrated Dalit elite.The consolidation of this constituency resulted then from the specialtreatment Mayawati granted to the Dalits when she was the chief minister. Her Ambedkar Villages Scheme, for instance, consisted ofallotting special funds for socio-economic development for one year tovillages with a high proportion of SCs. Eventually, 25,434 villagesreceived special treatment in the form of roads, hand pumps, houses, etc, being built in their neighbourhoods.However, the BSP has never been an only-Dalit party. This is evidentfrom the fact that in 1996, according to a survey by the Centre forthe Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), 27 percent of the Kurmis and 24.7 percent of the Koeris voted for it in the Assembly elections. In1999, however, the BSP received only 13 percent of the non-Yadav OBCvote. At the time, the Kurmis had deserted the party — largely becauseof the splits orchestrated by Kurmi leaders such as Raj Bahadur andJung Bahadur who formed, respectively, the BSP (R) and the BahujanSamaj Dal, while another Kurmi leader from the BSP, Sone Lal Patel,created the Apna Dal. But a significant section of the Koeris were supporting it, and Kanshi Ram never gave up his initial attempt atamalgamating Dalits and OBCs under the "Bahujan" label.Not a Dalit-only partySLOW AND STEADY AND RISINGPercentage of votes polled by the BSP In the last six general elections YEAR % OF VALID VOTES1989 2.071991 1.611996 3.641998 4.71999 4.22004 5.3When he lived in Maharashtra, Kanshi Ram was very critical of theRepublican Party of India's (RPI) tendency to work only among the Dalits. For him, the OBCs and the religious minorities were parts ofthe "Bahujan Samaj". The first all-India association he created in1978, interestingly, was called the All India Backward (SC, ST, OBC) and Minority Communities Employees Federation. After establishing theBSP in 1987, he continued to defend the OBCs as much as the Dalits.This is evident from a speech he made during the election campaign forthe Vidhan Sabha of Haryana in 1987 where he admitted that in somerespects the conditions of the SCs were better than those of the OBCsbecause of reservations.After gaining power in UP in 1995, Mayawati announced that OBCs would benefit from 27 percent of the state budget. Similarly, Muslims wereto receive the same grants as SC children, and Mayawati implementedthe recommendations of the UP Backward Classes Commission whichinsisted, in a report dated July 11, 1994, that low caste Muslims should benefit from reservations in the state administration. MulayamSingh Yadav had not been in favour of such a measure because it wasbound to reduce the quotas, which the Hindu OBCs tended to monopolise.Mayawati granted the Muslims 8.44 percent of the 27 percent due to theOBCs. A comparable proportion of the police officers' posts (8percent) were also allegedly reserved for Muslims.The BSP's ambition to be more than just a Dalit party became clear in the 1980s when it nominated non-SC candidates for the UP elections. In1996, only 29 percent of all the candidates nominated by the BSP wereSCs, whereas 34 percent were OBCs and 18 percent Muslims.Interestingly, the BSP's OBC candidates were relatively more successful since there were almost 40 percent OBCs among the partyMLAs and only 28 percent among the SCs. The share of the OBCs was evenmore important among the state party office-bearers — 46 percent in2000. By contrast, only 21 percent of the office bearers were Dalits — comparable almost to the 14 percent upper-caste office-bearers! Amajority of the lower-caste leaders of the BSP come from the MostBackward Castes, and not from larger, dominant Backward castes such asthe Yadavs and the Kurmis, who were important till the mid-1990s but whose role diminished after the Samajwadi Party — a Yadav-dominatedparty — and the BSP developed hostile relations. Yadavs and Dalits'class interests are clearly contradictory, the latter being oftenlandless labourers or cultivators with very small plots, working for Yadav farmers.Kanshi Ram was very critical of the Republican Party of India'stendency to work only among the Dalits. For him, the OBCs and thereligious minorities were parts of the 'bahujan samaj' To cope with the rise of OBCs, and more especially of the party of theYadavs, the BSP developed two strategies. First, it joined hands withthe BJP, which was equally anxious to sandwich Mulayam Singh.Secondly, it decided to focus on the OBCs. As a result, the list of BSP candidates started to include people from small, dominated castessuch as Nishads, Sainis, Shakyas, Baghels, Kashyaps and Rajbhars. TheOBC MLAs and office-bearers of the BSP in UP come today from differentjatis, whereas its SC MLAs are almost all Jatavs. But the former arein larger numbers anyway.A catch-all party?In order to further broaden the social base of the party, the BSPwooed the upper castes too. Since the mid-1990s, the party has made it a point to give tickets to a significant number of upper-castecandidates. In both cases, the percentage of the upper castes inquestion approximates their share in the population: 15-20 percent.This was in tune with Kanshi Ram's assumption that Assemblies should reflect the composition of society. In the 1999 elections, Kanshi Ramnominated candidates in proportion to the caste and community break-upof society: out of 85 candidates in UP, he fielded 17 Muslims (20percent), 20 SCs ( 23.5 percent), 38 OBCs (45 percent) and 10 savarns(12 percent). In 2002, the BSP did the same during the UP Assemblyelections: it gave tickets to 37 Brahmins and 36 Rajputs. In 2004,this strategy started to bring some dividends since 5 percent of Brahmin voters and 4 percent of Rajputs cast their vote in favour ofthe BSP, according to the CSDS survey.The share of the BSP's OBC office-bearers was 46 percent in 2000. Bycontrast, only 21 percent were Dalits — comparable almost to the 14 percent upper caste office-bearersAmong the upper castes, the BSP seems to be particularly keen onwooing the Brahmins. In May 2005, the party coined a new slogan"Brahmin-Dalit bhai-bhai" and Mayawati decided to set up bhaichara samitis in all Assembly seats with Brahmins as presidents and Dalit assecretaries! Mayawati also organised a series of Brahmin Sammelansacross UP.The BSP's current success is the outcome of a constant effort to broaden the base of the party. This may well be a landmark in thepolitical history of India for two reasons. First, it shows thattoday's socio-political coalitions are bound to be led by subalterngroups and not by savarnas anymore. This is good thing for the democratisation of India's democracy. Second, this victory of the BSPis also one of the few defeats of the BJP. If Mayawati sticks to ananti-BJP line of conduct — as she should now that she does not needHindu nationalists to form a government — the upa should turn to herahead of the 2009 general elections so that it can consolidate theanti-communal front and give more substance to its "pro-poor"discourse. How long can the Congress ignore the fact that it cannot go it alone in UP any longer?