Author: Balbir K Punj
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 14, 2002
Introduction: Despite its progress
and brick-and-mortar developments, Uttar Pradesh is still being pilloried
for its politics
Electronics to the four state assemblies
including UP are due this month. The media is working overtime to anticipate
the poll outcome. The English language press always viws an electoral battle
in the Hindi heartland through the caste-community-religion prism. This
time too, it has polarised the elections on Mandir-Mandal lines.
The contours of their debate are
based on the premise that those with the BJP are communal; those who're
not are secular. This cerebral endeavour ceases with labelling BJP as 'anti-backward
and anti-minority' and hence predestined to lose in the polls.
It's a pity that the Assembly elections
to the largest state in India should revolve round the cliches - secularism
and communalism. The conclusion of these expert analysts imply just one
thing: that the state's electorate is too deeply sunk in underdevelopment
and backwardness to tide over casteist-communal considerations. The derogatory
stereotype of 'Hindu cow belt' for Uttar Pradesh still prejudices their
analyses. That image, once laboriously cultivated by the progressive-leftist
combine, presents UP as an beacon of backwardness. There is always an effort
to dismiss the importance of the state on lines of its eastern neighbour,
Bihar. Their servile mindset does not allow them to see the economic and
social accomplishments of Uttar Pradesh at the ground level.
More populous than neighbouring
Pakistan, Uttar Pradesh could rank as the sixth most massive nation in
the globe. Its dynamics go far beyond the caste-community calculus. Is
it not ludicrous that the development factor never gets precedence over
caste-community determinants?
In Bihar, RJD enjoys secular credentials
simply because it is against the BJP. The Congress and Leftists finds no
qualms in supporting the despotic, casteist and regressive rule in Bihar.
There is a real danger of their trying to repeat a Bihar in UP. As part
of their anti-BJP fixation, the pseudo-secularists could go to the extent
of opposing the ban on SIMI, guilty of numerous destructive anti-national
activities. They can have no compunction in siding with the Pakistani establishment
and comparing the Dawood-Tiger Memon duo with Home Minister L.K. Advani.
It is a pity that the brighter face
of UP never gets highlighted. Uttar Pradesh has silently become the leading
state of India in traditional sectors as production of milk, vegetable,
sugar and sugarcane. Edging out Gujarat by production of 141 lakh tons
of milk every year, the state contributes to 18 per cent of India's milk
sufficiency. It fulfills one-third of demand for wheat in the country;
contributes to 14 per cent of rice production; and grows a whopping 43
per cent of potatoes, not to mention 30 per cent of sugar.
One of its best kept secrets is
that UP has surged to the No. 2 position in software exports after Karnataka.
The contribution of the province in the matter of overseas computer software
export has now touched Rs 3,500 crore per year.
After IT-savvy Andhra Pradesh, Uttar
Pradesh is the only state in India to connect every district through video
conferencing facility. Lucknow and Chitrakoot will shortly have IT universities.
The establishment of software technological parks at five locations in
the state has also received a green signal from the government. In more
than 42 districts in UP, the land holding records have been fully computerised.
This is also the first and the biggest databank of its kind in the country.
UP ranks third in the field of industrial
development. The state has posed impressive industrial growth rate of eight
percent and an agricultural growth rate of six percent in the last five
years.
The slog year of Rajnath Singh's
tenure has been most productive. This is despite the fact that the annual
industrial growth rate had plummeted to only 0.3 per cent during the phase
of political uncertainty in 1997-98. Yet, it's an irony that UP should
still be known for its coarse politics instead of its very real brick-and-mortar
developments.
In comparison to UP, the self-styled
''progressive'' regimes in West Bengal and Kerala and phony advocate of
'social justice' in Bihar are busy keeping themselves anchored to power
at the cost of development. Who really represents the backward sections
of society?
The ground reality of Uttar Pradesh
is dramatically different from what well paid intellectuals in New Delhi
project it to be. They unscrupulously label BJP as 'anti-backward' and
SJP and BSP as 'pro-backward'. A look at the distribution pattern of tickets
to women and backward section candidates by these two parties are enough
to expose this claim.
In the 1993 UP Assembly elections,
BJP candidates won in 34 out of 84 reserved constituencies. SJP and BSP
finished a poor second and third, winning in 22 and 18 seats respectively.
This time the record of the so-labelled
anti-backward BJP has been better than these two. As a matter of fact BJP
has fielded 137 candidates under its 'backward' and 'acutely backward'
category. SJP has given ticket to 123 backward candidates and BSP to 195.
BJP has fielded 31 woman candidates whereas SJP and BSP have fielded 21
and 11 woman candidates respectively. The BJP is contesting 319 of 403
seats, while its major opponents are fighting in all.
For the past few days now, the name
of Mulayam Singh Yadav has been a favourite amongst leftists. Why not?
His dictatorial style of running the state and promoting criminal elements
in politics is temperamentally closer to the Communists. Corruption, casteism,
nepotism and stagnation have prospered in Bihar during Laloo Yadav's 'family-farm'
government. But a worse gun-culture of goons received a clear shot in the
arm with Mulayam in UP. For the first time in the history of independent
India, terrified by Samajwadi Party anti-socials, the Chief Justice of
Allahabad High Court had to call the Army for his personal safety and security
of the Court.
For the first time since the Emergency,
journalists were systematically victimised through his infamous hulla bolo
cry. SP workers acting in tandem with his puppet police terrified the Uttaranchal
movement demonstrators. They opened indiscriminate fire and raped women
activists. Mulayam Singh can't ride roughshod over the legacies of his
chief ministership.
The reference to a hung assembly
resurfaces repeatedly in media discussions. While the leadership imposed
from above the Congress has become a spent force. BSP is no power to reckon
with outside western UP. Mayawati may hold the key to a very sensitive
equation, but to secularists, her only sin may be that she had once cohabited
with the BJP.
The electorate will exercise a crucial
choice this year. It's not merely a question of choosing one party over
the other. It is a question of choosing between a government committed
to development and a casteist-communalist Bihar model. Their votes can
transform the image of UP from a stereotype to a model one. One hopes the
concern for development will get priority over emotive issues.
(The writer is a BJP Rajya Sabha
MP)