Ayodhya test for BJP strategy to pull Dalits away from SP-BSP alliance

The BJP has promised a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, but realises that it needs to build a broad social coalition to win the state.

It has been a little more than a year when Qaiyuum Ahmed was elected as the pradhan (village head) of Abbu Sarai. The village is 20 km away from the district headquarters in Ayodhya and its 400 households comprise mostly of Muslims and Pasis, a Hindu Dalit sect.

In 14 months, Qaiyum has realised the intricacies of playing a game of thrones as Abbu Sarai’s leader. He has been dragged to jail two times on corruption complaints, which Qaiyum says were fabricated by Pasis in the village.

Qaiyum, who is in his 50s, now puts up yearly accounts summary of funds on the wall of the village school. “There were 19 candidates against me for the pradhan election (most of them Pasis). They are spreading canard about me. The BJP government listens to them as I am a Muslim,” Qaiyum says.

Farmer Shyam Prakash, who lost elections against Qaiyum, accuses him of bias. “He only works for the Mohameddans—his clan. Roads will be built till the last Muslim home and end as soon as our area starts,” says Prakash, who belongs to the Pasi community. 

Prakash, 60, is happy for the gas connection that freed his wife from cooking with firewood, but refills at Rs 800 are costly. His crops have destroyed by stray cattle that roam around cities and villages of Uttar Pradesh after the state’s BJP government banned many slaughterhouses. He is in two minds about whom to vote for, but thinks highly of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Abbu Sarai is a 15-minute drive from the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya, where the BJP has promised in the last six general elections to build a grand Ram temple. Ayodhya is part of the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency and will vote Monday in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections.

The temple agitation has made the city a pilgrimage centre (tourist footfall increased by 10 percent in 2018), but the poor infrastructure frustrates the city’s traders and middle class yearning for better governance. A bus service between Ayodhya and Janakpur in Nepal--part of the Ramayana circuit planned by the Modi government--has stopped. There are open drains, narrow roads and no rest houses for tourists visiting the city’s many temples.

“The city of Ram has been overlooked in the last five years by so called Ram bhakts,” says Pawan Singh, the trustee of 60-year-old Birla Dharamshala, a hotel for pilgrims.

Yet, the battle for Ayodhya in 2019 Lok Sabha elections doesn’t entirely lie in the unfulfilled promise of a Ram temple or Singh's frustration at infrastructure, but in the social fault lines reflected by Qayum and Prakash’s rivalry.

Dalits in Ayodhya had for years voted against the BJP as they considered it to be a Brahmin party, but in 2014 a national wave for Modi helped BJP leader Lallu Singh, a kar sewak during the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, to win the constituency by more than 1.5 lakh votes.

The BJP has its task cut out this time: try and form a social coalition of Muslims, Yadavs and Dalits and foil the alliance between the Samajwadi Paty (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which is working to attract Dalit votes.

The BJP’s strategy was evident in Prime Minister Modi’s visit early this week when he skipped the Ram Janmabhoomi site and held his rally 25 kms away from Ayodhya. In his speech he invoked Dalit and social reforms icons like B R Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia.

“(BSP leader) Maywati used Babasaheb's (B R Ambedkar) legacy for her fortune. The so called Samajwadis used Lohia's name for theirs. In this the loser has been people like you and me," he said, wooing voters of socially backward class. He didn’t visit temples in Ayodhya and neither did he mention “mandir” in his speech.

Mukesh Pandey, a Faizabad-based journalist, says the BJP is confident of its support in Ayodhya, but it insecure about its voter base in Faizabad

“Ayodhya is a city which moves on one name- Ram! Ram! Failure to build a temple will not sway Ayodhya voters away from BJP as they see the party as the only one inclined to the Hindu cause. Even in the 2014 election, Lallu Singh was trailing in the other regions but made up a substantial lead due to votes from Ayodhya city. The way the Dalit voters sway will make or break it for BJP,” Pandey says.

To prove his point Pandey took this reporter to visit 75-year-old Mahant Prem Das, the head of the historic Hanuman Garhi temple, the seat of Ayodhya’s biggest monastic establishment- Nirvani Akhara. Das, last week, presided over a puja performed by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi but has asked 1,000 members of his sect to vote for Narendra Modi. He doesn’t hold a grudge against Modi for not visiting the temple. “Modi has personally informed us that he will not visit Hanuman Garhi till the time the temple has been built. BJP’s ideology is intricately connected to the cause of the temple. They will ensure sushasan (good governance).

At Usroo village, a Pasi-dominated village in Faizabad constituency, the SP-BSP coalition candidate Anand Sen Yadav is busy distributing pamphlets for a rally by SP leader Akhilesh Yadav.

Sen’s campaign focuses on the stray cattle problem: most villages in Uttar Pradesh have been affected by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath cow protection campaign that forces farmers to herd ageing cows that no longer give milk. People are forced to herd them out into the fields instead of selling them to abattoirs.

Sen’s father, Mitra Sen Yadav, was a four-time parliamentarian winning the Faizabad seat from three different parties. But, 40-year-old primary school teacher Jagdamba says that she will not vote for Sen because he has a criminal history. Sen was an accused in the rape and murder of a Pasi girl in 2007. He was convicted by lower courts and has to resign as an MP, but the high court acquitted him when the SP came to power in 2012. “The Pasi community will never forgive Anand Sen. Are there no other leaders?” asks Jagdamba.

Jagat Verma, who grows wheat in his five-acre land, has been affected by stray cattle, but defends the law banning abattoirs. “For four years, you (farmers) earned from its milk. When she is unproductive, you just let it stray. It’s the mind set problem, not the government’s,” says Verma, praising the state for ensuring fair prices for crops and sugarcane.

Professor A K Verma, who teaches sociology at Faizabad’s Awadh University, feels the alliance between SP-BSP is aimed at a single election and may not work.

“The chasm between Yadavs and Dalits is a history in itself. One is an oppressor, the other is oppressed. Two political parties coming together may not translate in actual votes in the ballot box,” Verma says. “Caste is the most dominant factor. Toilets, LPG connection and national security matters like Pulwama/Balakot are only a sub-text, reasons articulated by many to justify their voting preferences,” he adds.

For BJP this wide social chasm that Verma refers to seems like an opportunity provided by Lord Ram himself.