The social engineering, a political strategy devised by Mayawati is a kind of political snakes and ladders game. According to a political observer—
‘In UP assembly polls BSP got only 9.41 percent of the total votes polled which infact was the lowest of all the four major political parties in 1989. But 18 years later, in 2007 the same BSP hogged 30.43 percent votes and topped the list, the rest being the same players. It would be revealing to caste glance at the graph of Congress votes. In 1985 it polled 39.25 percent votes, the most amongst the tour parties namely Congress, BJP, SP (Janata Dal) and BSP.
To understand the miracle of Social Engineering in UP the study of the graphs of Congress and BSP is educative since their upward lines and downward lines correspond inversely. BSPs riseline will almost the same as downfall line of Congress if the graph were held upside down. In the snakes and ladders game BSP got most of the ladders for jump up and the Congress got snake bites to get chuted down. BJP and SP were the other two players in this game. SP (Then Janata Dal) entered the electoral fray in 1989, the same year BSP made its entry. In its first fray SP bagged 29.71 percent vote share and religated Congress to second or third spot. SP went through many fluctuating fortunes and ended up at 25.43 percent vote share mark in 2007 assembly polls. On the other hand BJP had only 9.83 percent votes to share in 1985, jumped to 33.30% vote share in 1993 in communalised atmosphere in the wake of Babri Masjid demolition. Eventually its vote share fell to 16.67% in 2007.
During this period the political parties realised there was little scope for expansion of their vote banks in the prevailing situation. In 1993 and 1996 assembly polls BSP and SP did not register any change in the number of seats they won. To get out of the quagmire of political stagnation the parties began to make attempts to expand their vote banks on social basis according to their own respective perceptions. Before 2002 assembly elections BJP government made a provision for reservations in jobs and representations for very poor Dalits and backwards under the same strategy to carve out new support bases for addition to the existing vote bank. It did not prove very effective but this pre-poll move did increase the vote share of BJP by 3.50 percent compared to 1996 elections.
The real wonder of Social Engineering was worked up by Mayawati in 2007 assembly polls of UP when she knocked out all her opponents and detractors. It was done by engineering the electoral alliance between Dalits and Brahmins under the banner of BSP which increased its vote share by more than 7% compared to last elections and after 16 years the state got single party majority government. All these years the state suffered from fractured mandates, instable coalition governments, minority rules, blatant horse tradings, opportunistic politics, unruly scenes in assembly that put the state to shame, unprincipled supports and petulent withdrawals of support and spells of governor’s rule. All the development works in the state had come to a halt. The people were fleeing to other states in search of livelihood. UP had become a sorry state. With one party majority rule in state the people could breathe easy and hope for sustained development.
The political analyst Professor R.K. Verma opined—‘‘In the post independence UP the Congress was monolithic giant that dwarfed other outfits and its vote bank was constituted of votes from almost all sections and strata of the society. But within Congress many castes had no say or political share. Dalits and the 40% backwards of the state were not happy with this situation but there was no alternative. They could do little inspite of feeling trapped in the Congress.
The scene suddenly changed when in 1989 the backwards castes found patron in Janata Dal and the Dalits had BSP to pin their hopes on. As soon as alternatives emerged the backward classes (OBC) and the scheduled castes and tribes deserted Congress to go into the electoral folds where they could collectively become political forces and gain distinct political identity. Although the leaders called shot and worked out the agenda yet they for the first time felt in Indian politics and society they were dictating terms. For deprived masses even this psychological feeling of empowerment was great. From eternal nobodies they had become somebodies.
How revolutionary change state of mind can bring about is proved by the rise of the Dalits and the OBCs. This division of the Congress vote bank resulted in no party getting majority in the house. As a result in 1993, 1996 and 2002 coalition governments had to be formed. The process of their formation and the functioning style came under heavy criticism and redicule. Basically there is nothing wrong in this type of cobbling up of caste combinations in the name of social engineering.
Normally the parties used to prove a caste good and the rest were branded as evil. But in the social engineering all the castes are given importance and treated with respect. It reduces the bitternes in the society which otherwise has been traditionally full of enmity, hatred and viciousness. This kind of social engineering was glorified by BJP ideologies in the early half of the last decade of the last century in communal atmosphere but later they termed the bid of Mayawati in the same exercise as distortion.
The BJP ideologue charged that politicians for the sake of the power first destroyed social uniformity in the name of the social justice. And then social justice was being sacrificed in the name of social engineering. The goal of real social engineering was society but Mayawati’s engineering was only aimed at gaining power. Due to that type engineering some people were enjoying power but the forces of social discrimination as strong as before.’’
Above views may not be correct as it comes from a person committed to the agenda and ideology of a particular party that suffers the collateral damage coming from the latest social engineering. Local conditions and values at the ground level are different from what a scholastic eye perceives from intellectual height. The definition of ‘social engineering’ for the author of OBC reservation V.P. Singh was not what it is for Mayawati in UP or Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar.
During 2009 Lok Sabha polls parties tried to create new vote banks by new social engineering mechanisms. To gain ‘Lodh’ vote bank SP Supremo aligned with Kalyan Singh, the man responsible for Babri Masjid demolition and the Ram Mandir movement. Muslims hated him. This unwise step angered Muslims and Mulayam Singh’s Muslim vote bank became shaky. To cash in Mayawati changed her candidates in eastern and western UP where significant Muslim population lived. In large numbers Muslims were made BSP candidates to the dismay of Mulayam Singh.
Mayawati was worried about western UP where farmers and Jats had turned against BSP due to an incident of confrontation only a year ago. She now thought loss of farmer votes could be made up by new Muslim support weaned away from SP as a result of Kalyan Singh factor. But here Mulayam and Mayawati miscalculated. The two carts had forgotten about the monkey that was eyeing the piece of social engineering bread they were fighting over. Congress was the monkey and it had been doing its own social engineering through Rahul Gandhi to make inroads into Dalit and Muslim vote banks. The monkey surprised the cats and a few months later it was sitting above them. Kalyan Singh factor helped Congress win back Muslim support. Some upper castes too deserted BJP and lined up behind Congress. Calling the work of Rahul Gandhi ‘social engineering’ would not be correct. Infact it was ‘Sociable Engineering’ which was being nice to all beyond caste and communal lines and being against none overtly. It will be interesting to see how this ‘Sociable Engineering’ fares in the future against social engineering of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav at least in UP.
The sociable enginnering may not provide a party a solid vote bank but it has the capacity to generate good feeling and moral support amongst all sections of the society as it does not antagonise anyone. It has the sweeping acceptability. Sooner or later, the people are bound to get fed up with caste-communal politics as it will lead to quagmire of non-progress and non-development the people would want to get out of. In that case the only alternative would be the party with uniform acceptability to all castes and creeds.
Vote banks come and go but universal acceptability is permanent. This lesson the parties must learn from BJP. Till yesterday it commanded formidable Hindu vote bank in viciated atmosphere but today it is gone. There are few takers for irrational communal agenda. The Muslim vote bank of Mulayam Singh is slipping away. The same can not be said of the Dalit vote bank of Mayawati. It will remain with Mayawati for some more time because Dalits have suffered the ages of deprivation, exploitation, brutal represession and brazen injustices. Through Mayawati Dalits feel empowered and psychologically consoled or compensated.
But it won’t last for ever. When the feelings begins to sink amongst the Dalits that BSP was not getting them anywhere in respect of economic betterment, social transformation, human dignity, honour, justice, security and political empowerment at grass root level the support base will erode away. It might just go the Republican Party way and become merely a balancing chip of other parties in their power games.
Mayawati tried to apply her social engineering strategem in Jammu & Kashmir as well but did not succeed. The impatience shown by Mayawati to come to power at the centre through Third Front failed miserably and in the process she lost much of her credibility and betrayed immaturity. New Delhi appears to be turning into a mirage for BSP and its supremo. UP experiment did not work in J&K and Delhi. In J&K over-ambitious Mayawati put up 85 candidates out of the total 87 seats but failed to win a single seat. In some constituencies only BSP fared well where its candidates ran second with impressive vote share. In other states the social engineering did not work. It failed to work in Delhi and Haryana. BSP won some seats in Rajasthan but the few seats are always a very vulenerable flock always in danger of being poached by other parties. Those MLAs defected to Congress.
It antagonises the voters. They don’t see any point in voting for BSP. The party needs to give tickets only to solid characters who won’t desert the party for any reason. The committed MLAs will redeem the faith of the electorate in BSP. The ideological commitment of a candidate to BSP must be genuine and not a tradable commodity.
Some experts feel the policy of BSP of giving tickets to candidates on the basis of caste equation or balance was not proving beneficial as it was done in J&K. It led to bickerings in the party and the internal quarrels and rivalries led to the downfall of the party. In 1996 elections to J&K assembly BSP had won four seats but it could not hold on to them five years later. It was a negative progress which did not augur well for the party in this very sensitive state with sizable Dalit and Muslim population. The presence here meant BSP could boast of being representative of Muslims as well.
In the company of Third Front Mayawati saw the dream of spreading BSP wings in the deep southern region where the front was projected to do extremely well considering Congress and UPA to be on death bed. In Andhra, Chandrababu Naidu of TDP appeared to have a winning edge. In Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha seemed strident. Things looked rosy. In Kerala BSP had decided to field candidates on all 20 seats. Left parties did not worry as they thought Mayawati’s party would only cut into the votes of Congress led alliance which could eventually work to their benefit. In Punjab Mayawati had given tickets of BSP to members of almost all the castes and creeds.
The success of social engineering in UP had infected the mind of BSP top brass that in election battle all that mattered was caste and religion coresponding to the population ratio of a constituency on those lines. But different states of India and their respective people reacted politically in different ways according to their local conditions and mindset which were greatly different than UP. In different states caste and creed relationships in the society were at different levels. In other states it was no simple Hindu-Muslim and Upper caste-Lower caste equations. There were local factors and traditions as well. These factors are very important in Indian context.
In MP party has some pockets of support mainly alongside its border with UP. In 2004 Lok Sabha polls BSP got 4% share of votes which increased to 9% in assembly polls perhaps because of social engineering, if it indeed is so BSP must increase its vote share or atleast retain the current percentage in future polls.
Maharashtra has significant Dalit population in regions like Vidarbha. In certain pockets the Republican party fractions have hold on voters. But these fractions are merely hangers on to the major political players like Congress, NCP, BJP and Shiv Sena. BSP too joined the fray to cash on the Dalit votes as their independent representative, not an appendage to any other party. It gained impressive support of Dalits but their votes did not translate in seats. At the best they spoiled the chances of Congress or NCP candidates.
Thus, in Maharashtra, MP, Rajasthan, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi and Punjab the social engineering formula did not work as it did in UP. The reason was not far to seek. In these states the main parties Congress and BJP were entrenched firmly. It was not easy to displace them. Hence BSP could not garner the support of Brahmins and traders under social engineering play. Any promises made to these sections could not be fulfilled unless BSP came to power and offered shares in the spoils. Hence, Brahmins or traders could not see any gain in aligning with BSP as it had little chance of coming to power.
Here social engineering ploy did not work due to credibility gap in the promises made by Mayawati to the sections of the society other than Dalits. The situation in UP totally different. It was the home base of BSP and the political battle field of Mayawati. She always had chances of coming to power and with the support of Brahmins and traders her victory became certain. Put in power Mayawati could oblige all the sections joining her social engineering ranks with due shares in the spoils.
That scenario did not emerge in other states and hence social engineering formula did not work solely because BSP could not deliver the goods. Had Mayawati come to power at centre these could have been hope of her social engineering working from the national capital to gain benefits in the states. But that possibility also receded with her impatient move to line up with left leaders and be on the same side as BJP on Indo-US Nuclear Deal, so important for the country. It put question mark on her ability to discern issues with national perspective and interest.
