Will the BSP reap rewards from Maya's decision to not contest by-polls?

The BJP’s poor performance in the recent by-polls in Uttar Pradesh has boosted the morale of BSP activists, shaking them out of the despondency they had slipped into following the drubbing their party received in the April-May Lok Sabha elections. Ironically, the by-polls have rejuvenated the BSP even though it didn’t participate in it.

Its rejuvenation arises from the belying of analyses predicting the fracturing of the BSP’s Dalit votebank, the signs of which became visible during the Lok Sabha elections. Then a segment of non-Jatav Dalit voters was perceived to have voted the BJP, swayed by the Hindu-Muslim polarisation in the state.

This shift of Dalit votes to the BJP was expected to escalate during the by-polls. Not only did Mayawati decide against participating in the by-polls, the BJP sought to bolster the larger Hindu identity through its campaign on love-jihad, which portrayed the involvement of Muslims in a devious plot to entice Hindu girls into marriage for converting them to Islam. Undoubtedly, the BJP’s mission was to paper over internal differences in the Hindu community through the projection of Muslims as the ‘other’ or the ‘enemy’.

Dalits were an integral element of this mission – both consensual and coercive sexual relationships between Dalits and Muslims were portrayed from the perspective of love jihad, a brazen attack on the honour of Hindus that called for retribution. Passions were deliberately whipped up to communally polarize the society.

However, the by-poll results demonstrated that the love-jihad theory didn’t impress the Dalits to the degree the BJP had hoped for. At least three BSP district coordinators, who are considered the vital cogs of the party organisation, explained to me that a campaign to succeed must resonate with the “lived experience” of those who are its target audience. Love-jihad didn’t seem a convincing construct for Dalits, who simply couldn’t forget that they had always been the principal victim of ‘honour killing’, a term describing punishment to those who opt for inter-caste marriage or relationship. No wonder, said the coordinators, the Dalits saw love-jihad as a ploy to woo them in preparation for the 2017 Assembly elections and harness a possible BJP victory to reinforce the oppressive social framework, which had loosened over the decades.

One of the coordinators remarked sarcastically to me, “They are besieging and targeting the Muslims now. If the BJP were to come to power in 2017, it is we the Dalits whom they will oppress. Do you think Dalit-upper caste or Dalit-Jat relationships will be tolerated or not sanctioned against?” He said the Dalits understood this social reality instinctively, precisely why they didn’t vote for the BJP in large numbers in the 11 constituencies that had by-elections.

Nevertheless, the frisson among BSP activists is a measure of the deep doubts they had over Mayawati’s wisdom not to contest the by-polls. They feared the BSP’s absence from the fray would lead to non-Jatav Dalit voters deserting the BSP for the BJP in greater numbers than witnessed in the Lok Sabha elections. Once social groups and their leaders are co-opted in a party, the task of weaning them back becomes hellishly difficult, they felt. However, Mayawati’s decision to keep away from the by-polls was not unusual, said Prof Vivek Kumar, who teaches in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and has researched and studied the BSP. “The party has the policy of not contesting by-polls when out of power,” he pointed out.

Prof Kumar points to three distinct stages in the BSP’s shifting attitude to by-elections. In the initial years of its growth, between 1988 and 1993, the BSP enthusiastically participated in by-polls because it could concentrate its then meagre resources in a few constituencies. Exceptional performance pumped up cadres and attracted media attention. For instance, BSP leader Kanshi Ram’s decision to contest against VP Singh in the Allahabad Lok Sabha by-poll of 1988 pitched him into the national limelight overnight. By contrast, participation in a state-wide Assembly election stretched the BSP’s resources unduly.

The second stage coincided with the BSP heading or being part of coalition governments. It fought by-elections to increase its numbers in the Assembly and use its electoral performance to drive a hard bargain. Thereafter, in the third stage, the BSP kept away from by-polls when out of power.

The hard realities of UP politics have influenced this policy of the BSP. As Prof Kumar explains, “Mayawati believes when the BSP is not in power, the administration turns against the BSP and rigs the polls to its detriment. She, anyway, believes the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BJP are in league. When I met Mayawati in January, she cited party surveys to show that the SP and the BJP transfer their votes to each other in several constituencies, with the purpose of defeating the BSP. She thought the Lok Sabha election was bound to become a ‘fixed match.’”

It was to rule out the possibility of the BJP and the SP ganging up against the BSP that she decided not to participate in the by-polls, believing a poor showing would further demoralize the cadres already reeling under the Lok Sabha shock. Not only would have the theory that the BSP votes were splintering gained credence, it would also have turned the Assembly election of 2017 into a contest largely between the SP and the BJP.

Mayawati’s strategy seems to have paid rich dividends. With the BSP not participating in elections, a large chunk of Dalit voters – nearly 60 percent, district coordinators say – didn’t even turn out to exercise their franchise on the polling day. Those who did, particularly in Sirathu and Charkhari, seemed to have not rallied behind the BJP, instead choosing to spread their votes across the political spectrum. Two, the BSP’s absence engendered heavy Muslim consolidation behind the SP.

“We were keen that the BJP performed poorly,” the district coordinators were unanimous in their opinion. Following the BJP’s astonishing performance in the Lok Sabha elections, a strong showing in the by-polls would have reinforced the popular perception that the BJP’s rise to power in the 2017 election is unstoppable. Individuals and social groups tend to gravitate to the perceived winner. This would have rendered the BSP even more vulnerable to the poaching of its votebank. Second, it would have inspired the BJP to play its Hindutva card even more unabashedly, in the hopes of papering over the caste contradictions on which the BSP thrives.

By contrast, the BSP feels the SP would be easy meat for it in the 2017 elections. For one, it will be hard pressed to retain its non-Yadav votes because of the ant-incumbency factor working against it. Second, the Muslims have been looking askance at the high incidence of communal riotings under the Akhilesh Yadav government, buying into the theory that violence is being deliberately stoked to ensure that both the BJP and SP remain relevant. In the by-polls the Muslims voted the SP only because the BSP option wasn’t available to them.

But might not Muslim votes get split yet again between the SP and the BSP in the 2017 elections? Believing the community votes the party best placed to defeat the BJP, the BSP has taken to wooing the lower OBCs and Dalits subcastes other than the Jatavs, who remain steadfast in their support of Mayawati. As a district coordinator said, “Muslims will then come to us. We had 20 percent of votes in the Lok Sabha elections. With an addition of another 10 percent of votes, we can form the government.”

But all this requires the BSP recalibrating its ideological appeal and electoral strategy. Indeed, there persists much disquiet among the BSP cadres over Mayawati’s decision to woo upper caste voters and accord undue primacy to their leaders during her five-year rule. Not only did this policy dilute the party’s ideology and alienate Dalits and lower OBCs, it failed to win for Mayawati the gratitude and allegiance of upper castes. They voted the SP in 2012 and have now rallied behind the BJP.

BSP activists say the desertion of upper castes has perhaps helped remove ideological confusion of the leadership, evident from instructions asking them to deepen the bonds with the Dalit subcastes such as Valmikis, Khatiks, and Passis, and bringing under the BSP umbrella lower OBC groups like Kashyap, Pal, Kushwaha, and Prajapati. This is also in anticipation of the BJP attempting ‘social engineering’ through the Ram Temple issue, expected to brought back on the Hindutva agenda months before the 2017 Assembly elections. Dr Satish Prakash, who is a professor at Meerut University, says the BSP can recover its subaltern base through a three-step strategy. He explains, “Since 2012, the Dalits have been confused, in despair and feel insecure. One, they want the BSP leadership to aggressively take on its rivals. Two, they want Mayawati to abandon in-house meetings and interact directly with her supporters. Third, they want the so-called leaders who have insulated Mayawati from her supporters to be banished.”

In other words, BSP activists wish to return to radical slogans and sharply defined ideology of the past. But this doesn’t mean resurrecting the rhetoric of “Tilak, taraazu or talwar, maro unko joote chaar”, but to a political language which makes clear to the lower castes that it is their interests are foremost for the party – and yet doesn’t alienate the progressive elements among the middle class-upper caste.

The by-polls have given the BSP an opportunity to rally it forces. But to exploit this opportunity Mayawati has to reinvent a self, which mirrors the forgotten passion of the past and promises hope in the future.

A Delhi-based journalist, Ajaz Ashraf is the author of The Hour Before Dawn, HarperCollins India, which will be released in December. Email: ashrafajaz3@gmail.com