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Setback to 'social engineering'?

Vajpayee's axing of Kalyan Singh as U.P. Chief Minister has weakened the strategy of relating Hindutva to OBC politics. This could spell big trouble for the BJP.

PRAFUL BIDWAI

IT is a truism that Kalyan Singh did not really resign as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, although as a technicality, that is correct. He was unceremoniously sacked by Atal Behari Vajpayee - more out of personal pique than on the basis of a serious politic al calculation regarding the BJP's future. The axing of Kalyan Singh and the weeding out of some of his supporters from key positions in U.P. mark a new phase in the evolution of the BJP, in particular of factionalism at the topmost level of the party, a nd its relationship with different social classes, especially the other backward classes (OBCs), that vocal group of middle castes which continues to be assertive, particularly in the Hindi belt.

It is, of course, undeniable that Kalyan Singh campaigned against some BJP candidates in the latest elections, and worked more or less openly in some cases in favour of the Samajwadi Party through leaders such as Sakshi Maharaj. But that is not why he wa s removed. Other senior leaders such as Kalraj Mishra or Lalji Tandon, and even U.P. party president Rajnath Singh, have committed similar acts of subversion without incurring the wrath of the party's top bosses. Nor is it possible to attribute the BJP's poor performance in the State mainly to Kalyan Singh's sabotage. The party's base in U.P. has considerably eroded, its vote share having fallen by nearly 10 per cent - thanks to processes that are largely independent of Kalyan Singh, including restlessn ess among the OBCs, greater self-confidence amongst Muslims and the revival of the Congress(I).

Kalyan Singh was singled out because Vajpayee has a particular aversion to him, and believes that the Chief Minister worked clandestinely for his defeat in Lucknow. Personal pique apart, Vajpayee is allergic to Kalyan Singh's aggressive OBC politics. He has long been uncomfortable with the "social engineering" approach advocated by the likes of K.N. Govindacharya, and to an extent, L.K. Advani, which tries to co-opt OBC self-assertion into the broader Hindutva framework. Vajpayee certainly disapproves o f the idea of banking on Hindutva's aggressive forays into OBC identity politics as the key to the BJP's growth.

Vajpayee went out of his way to remove Kalyan Singh altogether. He replaced him with Ram Prakash Gupta, a Bania leader less known for his political accomplishments than for his longstanding RSS connections and personal loyalty to Vajpayee. The compositio n of Gupta's Cabinet does not do much to reverse Kalyan Singh's marginalisation, although some of his old Ministers have been accommodated in it out of fear that the former Chief Minister might get even more rebellious if they are kept out. Gupta is repo rtedly planning to reverse a number of decisions made and orders issued by his predecessor, including more than 60 recent appointments - the most important among them being the nomination of Kusum Rai, considered his confidante, to the State Commission f or women.

NONE of this would have merited serious attention if it were a phenomenon confined to U.P. and to "normal" factionalism which has become pervasive in what was once "the party with a difference" - disciplined, united, purposive, and dead-serious. As it ha ppens, the U.P. drama is a "side-show" or surrogate battle being played out within the BJP's national-level leadership, especially between Vajpayee and Advani. Vajpayee has been personally, directly, involved in the events in U.P. that run from candidate selection three months ago, through Kalyan Singh's dramatic departure, to the selection of portfolios in the new Cabinet. Advani, for his part, has been equally serious in promoting, shielding and defending Kalyan Singh. What is being played out in U.P. is the Vajpayee-Advani conflict, in which Murli Manohar Joshi, a side-player, has sided with Vajpayee.

Vajpayee clearly has the upper hand in this power struggle. Earlier, he succeeded in marginalising Sushma Swaraj (and her husband Swaraj Kaushal, then engaged in secret talks with Naga rebels). Similarly, it was at Vajpayee's instance that the BJP allied with the Janata Dal in Karnataka - a decision that was not discussed at the National Executive. Vajpayee has also been playing his own game in the VHP, where Ashok Singhal (who is close to Advani) is being eclipsed by Giriraj Kishore, a Vajpayee groupie , who can hardly be called "liberal" or even a soft-Hindutva advocate. Now Vajpayee has turned his attention to India's most important State where he is relentlessly promoting factional loyalists, rejecting compromises. For instance, an agreement was str uck between the Vajpayee and Advani factions just before Gupta's swearing-in that two BJP upper-caste faction leaders - Kalraj Mishra and Lalji Tandon - would be kept out of the Cabinet. As part of the deal, Advani had agreed to communicate this decision to the two leaders, and also to be present at Gupta's oath-taking. But this was cancelled just as Advani was about to board a plane for Lucknow - at the behest of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The Mishra-Tandon duo was duly sworn in.

ALL this calls for a reassessment of Vajpayee. Those who thought that he is soft, "liberal", above factionalism, or that he works by consensus, and has no raw ambitions related to crude power politics, must think again. Vajpayee's image, largely cultivat ed by a fawning media, is misleading. He is deeply mired in factional politics. He is as ruthless as anyone else. He deeply resents the fact that for long years he was sidelined in the party by Advani, who served two terms as president, terms which saw t he party jump from two Lok Sabha seats to 89. Vajpayee is attached to the upper caste, in particular Brahmin, faction in U.P. and probably believes that the BJP's best bet lies in a Brahmin-Dalit alliance, which totally marginalises the OBCs. He is not a verse to soiling his hands in venality and patronage, nor to the politics of personality cults. The PMO under him has been involved in numerous shady deals in the past 20 months.

Vajpayee apart, Kalyan Singh's removal from a pivotal position in the BJP power structure must be seen in relation to other OBC politics-related events, in particular Shankersinh Vaghela's alienation from the party in Gujarat, and Sahib Singh Verma's Jat lobby which was involved in faction-fighting in Delhi, which too led to his removal as Chief Minister. The party top brass is giving out the signal that it is not as committed as in the past to the Mandal-Kamandal alliance - despite the expansion of the OBC reservation list, in pursuit of pure expediency.

However, Vajpayee may be overplaying his hand in U.P. - just as he did in Karnataka, where allying with the utterly discredited J.H. Patel turned out to be a disaster for the BJP. This time around, the stakes are even higher. The BJP is in deep trouble i n U.P., its fortress in recent years. In the latest Lok Sabha elections, of a total of 425, the party led in less than 120 Assembly segments. Its OBC base is shrinking. Kalyan Singh is a formidable opponent. He is gutsy and muscular, has political acumen , and pushes a hard line, even if that means brazenly violating the law. The Babri Masjid demolition, it bears recalling with awe and horror, could not have happened without him manipulating the government machinery to ensure that the kar seva would take place on December 6 safe from the attention of Central forces.

SUBIR ROY
Kalyan Singh and Vinay Katiyar at the Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya on November 9.

Kalyan Singh can create real trouble for the BJP, especially if Vajpayee continues to marginalise and humiliate him, and if his OBC core-supporters are kept out of access to power. This could well precipitate fresh Assembly elections, which the BJP canno t relish. The Rajya Sabha elections from U.P. too are less than four months away. The BJP needs every seat it can find to shore up its poor presence in that House. It cannot afford to have Kalyan Singh ranged against it.

YET another factor is the neighbouring State of Bihar. State party boss Sushil Modi was dead against removing Kalyan Singh because of the likely damage to the BJP in that State, where too it has to compete with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for OBC supp ort.

Kalyan Singh has for the moment chosen to move Rightwards by adopting a hardcore Hindutva line, as demonstrated by his visit to Ayodhya, his drumming up of the temple issue, and his statements ridiculing the Lahore summit. But he may only be reminding Va jpayee of his own importance in the Ayodhya factor and its contribution to the BJP's political advance during the period of 1986-92. At any rate, this does not mean that he will reject for all time to come the option of joining hands, openly or secretly, with non-BJP leaders and parties, including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav (who has approached him). Kalyan Singh may well be so tempted. In U.P., an OBC alliance with substantial Muslim support, could form a formidable, potentially winning combination. Kalyan Singh's ability to mobilise peasant castes, like his own Lodh Rajputs, should not be underestimated. It is not the Mishras and the Tandons who built the BJP in U.P. They have no mass base whatsoever. It is above all the OBCs' entry in to it, engineered by Kalyan Singh, that gave it ballast.

Kalyan Singh is not just another BJP politician. He is quintessentially an OBC leader. Indeed, he represents a unique confluence of two streams: Hindutva and OBC-based politics, Mandal and Kamandal. No other leader of stature has been able to embody this or co-opt OBC politics into the Hindutva framework, or half as confidently, the way Kalyan Singh has. He represents the greatest success of the "social engineering" strategy of accommodating plebeian groups into Hindutva's hegemonic project.

If Kalyan Singh is antagonised and pushed out of the BJP, that could spell a decisive setback for, if not the end of, "social engineering". Kalyan Singh is not only the BJP's ablest non-upper caste leader with a rural base, he is potentially a candidate for India's first Prime Minister shaped by OBC politics. Losing him will cost the BJP heavily in terms of its image and in terms of votes. It could well inaugurate its reduction to a largely urban, upper caste, elitist party that cannot communicate with the poor or the middle layers of society. Such a party could, of course, have a significant presence in Indian politics, but it could hardly hope to come to power on its own. Even less can it transform India radically and fundamentally the way the Hindut va project aspires to do. Without a sizable non-upper caste base, the BJP has only a dim future.