It helps to travel to Lucknow through the “badlands” of eastern Uttar Pradesh, otherwise known as Purvanchal, to understand politics in UP. According to the UP agriculture department, around 84 per cent of agricultural land holdings in this region are below one hectare in size, which classifies a farmer as marginal. Eking a living from such small holdings means everything has to be done manually, for farm mechanisation becomes uneconomical.
Who else to press into service as agricultural labour but the landless Dalit? And, what if they should refuse to work? Mukul Wasnik, the Union minister for social justice, says 38,849 cases of atrocities on Dalits were registered in the country in 2009. Of these 7,465 cases were from UP – 7,461 related to scheduled castes and four to scheduled tribes.
This is not a random statistic. In eastern UP, as elsewhere in the state, physical attacks on Dalits is an important factor in the way they work – and vote.
“Go to any Mayawati rally. You will find Dalits sitting quietly, peacefully and listening to what she says. There is little emotion, complete discipline and no excitement,” says Dalit activist Ram Kumar, convenor of Dynamic Action Group, a non-government organisation. “If there is anything Dalits are afraid of, it is violence, emotion and anger. Their entire history has been about victimisation through these emotions.”
Instances
In eastern UP, violence against Dalits comes easy and needs very little provocation. Local newspapers noted in 2007 the case of Santosh Kumar of Bhabori village in Jaunpur, who worked as a daily-wage labourer in a Thakur’s field. Kumar, a Jatav (chamar) by caste, asked the Thakur landlord for his pending wages in public. Offended, the landlord called Kumar to his house, hung him upside down from the ceiling fan, gave him electric shocks and beat him. Kumar became mentally ill and is undergoing treatment in Mumbai.
The Savitri Bai Phule Dalit Mahila Sangharsh Morcha, a local NGO, recounted the case of Om Prakash, who ran a kirana shop in a village in Jaunpur where many customers bought groceries on a monthly loan. When Prakash asked a Brahmin schoolteacher to clear his dues, he was offended that a Chamar had dared insult him. The schoolteacher beat him and then took him to his house. After that, Prakash disappeared. He is feared dead
In Mayawati’s first few terms – when she came to power with support from the Bharatiya Janata Party – she impressed the dalits with her strong language and tough diktat to the bureaucracy. If cases were not registered under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, police station heads were proceeded against, transferred, even punished.
But then came 2007 and the experiment with Sarvajan Hitay, the project in the course of which Mayawati diluted her core constituency by broadening its caste base, including Brahmins and Muslims in the social compact. Dalit Brahman Bhaichara Committees (Dalit Brahman Brotherhood Committees), headed by a Brahman president and a dalit as secretary, were set up.
The change
This brought her to power in UP with a simple majority – 206 seats out of 403. And, even as Dalits began to dream of seeing Mayawati as Prime Minister, the compulsion to retain the rainbow caste coalition also became stronger. “Before registering a case of caste atrocity against a Brahmin, BSP leaders in villages would ask each other: ‘Arre Mayawati ko Pradhan Mantri nahin banana hai? (Don’t you want to make Mayawati the PM)?” explained Ram Kumar. Mayawati herself issued instructions to apply the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act only in murder and rape cases — and, after medical examination and preliminary enquiry. All other cases were ordered to be registered under normal laws i.e. the Indian Penal Code and other Acts. The net result was, violence against Dalits was not properly recorded, and the latters themselves became wary of going to police stations when the party involved was part of the BSP’s bigger project of Sarvajan Hitaya.
“The result of this was seen in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections: 25 per cent of the BSP’s core constituency, the Chamar, did not come out to vote. Mayawati could have got 35 lok Sabha seats (of a total of 80). She got only 21,” said Ram Kumar.
Between 2009, and 2012, the Dalit leader tried to take a U-turn. In 2010, she asked party coordinators to prepare a list of those with a criminal record. Later, 21 ministers and MLAs were thrown out of the party on charges of corruption. Nominations were denied to nearly half her sitting MLAs.
Was this too little, too late? Only two phases of the ongoing elections have been held so far. Both have shown an unprecedented turnout. In Sitapur, that has the highest concentration of Dalits, of as much as 32 per cent of the population, the turnout has been 72 per cent. Could the Dalits be deciding to save Mayawati to enable them to live to fight another day?
