By Daya Sagar
BJP leadership has talked very less of Hindutva in recent times where as there are many outside BJP and even in media who have been after 11th March election results still discussing / debating around “Hindutva” and class/ caste politics more in relation to Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results. Rather it is more a ‘TV anchor” these days who ventures into Hindu-Muslim debates than is the common man. Even in case one defines the Ramrajya professed by Mahatma Gandhi as a fair and unbiased democratic rule there are many on the “intellectual” Indian scene who would like to remove Ram word from Ramrajya since for them who so ever talks of Bhartiya Sanskriti or takes reference to Indian origin philosophies is not ‘secular’ inspite of the fact the values enshrined in Raj Dharma as per Bhartiye Sanskriti are much beyond even the preaching as are enshrined in the dictionary meaning of word secular.
UP has been and is the largest populated state of India. This state has given eight Prime Ministers to India out of 14 Indian Prime Ministers up to 2014 (Jawahar Lal Nehru- 6131 days, Lal Bahadur Shastri -582 days, Indira Gandhi – 5831 days , Charan Singh- 171 days, Rajiv Gandhi ( 1859 days ) 31 Oct 1984 to 1st Dec 1989, V. P. Singh 344 days , Chander Shekhar -224 days, A.B. Vajpayee ( 2273 days ) – 16th May to 1st June 1996, 19th March 1998 to 13th May 2004) in addition Manmohan Singh ( say 3657 days ) from May 2004 to May 2014 with Sonia Gandhi as President of INC/ Chairperson UPA. Still the NSDP capita 2013-14 (at current prices) for UP was just Rs.36250.0 as against national per capita NSDP of Rs.74380.00 . Even Uttranchal that was carved out of UP around 2000 had per capita NSDP of Rs.103716.00 , nearly 3 times that of UP. One would ask why?
The answer could be seen in bitter facts that Uttar Pradesh has been the worst victim of communal as well as caste politics than any other Indian state.
UP had as per 2011 census about 3.85 Cr muslims ( 19.26 % of UP population ) out of total 17.22 Cr muslims in India ( 14.23 % of India population) of what nearly 1.2 Cr + are in Western UP , this state has seen the extremes of caste politics ( people have worked arithmetic in SC : 2021% OBC : 45% ( like Yadav : 9% Kurmi : 3.4% Lodh : 2.2 % Jat : 1.7% Gujar : 0.8% Mallah : 2 % Teli : 2% Kumhar : 1.6 % Kahar : 1.5 % Nai : 1.3% Kachi : 1.4% Gadaria : 2% and like ) Muslim : 19% Brahmins : 13% Thakurs : 7.6 % and what not.
Earlier it was Congress that used divisive politics and then entered players like Bahujan Samaj Party & Samajwadi Party who directly addressed the muslims minority ofUP since at 2011 standards 22.5 % of Indian muslims ( 3.85 Cr out of 17.22 Cr Muslims) lived in UP and in addition the caste divisions even beyond SC amongst the Hindu were professed more and more for vote bank politics . The Mandal politics added more fuel to the mild fires. The parties like BSP &SP have not been able to set roots outside UP although they talked of the welfare of religious minorities and ” Dalits” so vociferously because there was not such a “large muslim constituency” out side UP.
But inspite of so many “well wishers” (even from out of non- muslims ) of muslim community the muslims had still been suffering from social, economic & administrative backwardness and to add to that more from the venom of disputed concepts about nationalities.
The SC( ” depressed classes” as defined during British times) as well as OBC classes too suffered from misconceptions and exploitation by their own leaders like the Muslim populace had been suffering.
Rather it would not be wrong to say that the state’s process of economic and administrative development remained derailed anda state like UP had a total disintegrated social mass. The lust and race for vote bank politics had left the political leaders with no time &vigour worth handling such a vast state of Uttar Pradesh that is spreadover 75 districts / 18 Divisions ( Paschim-17, Avadh-23, Purvanchal-28, Bundelkhand-7) and had population as per 2011 census as large as 19,98,12341 ( say 200 million — may be near 23 Cr in 2017).
One thing is sure that the caste and sect based divisive political game plans have not worked that effectively for SP/BSP/INC during the February – March 2017 elections in UP and the non-muslim community has voted beyond the caste politics more looking for socio economic development that had
eluded them inspite of the crutches of reservations and “trumpeted” special consirations. In case
BJP Government is not able to deliver position may not remain like that but let us hope.
During the process the muslim population forming 19.26 % of the UP population ( 32.20 % Urban 15.55 % rural ) was instead only made to distant itself more from the Hindu.
Christian who just formed 0.18 % of state population ( 0.39 % Urban and 0.12 % rural ) was not that much talked about. Muslim population concentrated more in some urban pockets and the ‘leadership’ has only exploited their backwardness and religious identity.
One can well imagine how bad would have remained the conduct of political leaders where a state has 80 MPs ( before Uttrakhand was carved out from UP the state had 85 MPs ) but inspite of that economically the state could have NSDP per capita 2013-14 ( at current prices) of just Rs.36250.0 as against national per capita NSDP of Rs.74380.00.
And above all the population density is 829/km2.. The state of Uttar Pradesh has paid exceptionally high cost for divide and rule policy adopted by the political leaderships all these years. It is now BJP with “Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patr” agenda in UP, let us wait and see how far the accusations laid on BJP naming it a communal party by the “secular political community” have been and are true.
(Daya Sagar is a Sr Journalist, Social Activist can be reached at [email protected])
