Author: Balbir K Punj
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 21, 2002
With elections to the four State
assemblies all but over, the media is working overtime to anticipate the
outcome. The English language press always views an electoral battle in
the Hindi heartland through caste-community-religion prism. So this time
again it has polarised the Assembly elections along Mandir-Mandal lines.
The contours of the media debate are set an the premise that those who
are with the B]P are "communal" and those who are not, are "secular".
It is amusing to note that the mediapersons'
cerebral endeavour ceases with labeling the BJP as "anti-backward and anti-minority"
and hence predestined to lose the battle of the ballot. It is a pity that
the Assembly elections to the largest State of India should revolve round
the cliches - secularism and communalism. In its jaundiced view, those
that have allied with the B]P are communal and the rest secular. The conclusion
of the "expert analysts" imply just one thing: That the country's electorate
is too deeply sunk in the morass of under-development and backwardness
to tide over casteist-communal consideration.
The derogatory stereotyping of "Hindu
cowbelt" for Uttar Pradesh still prejudice most of media analyses. This
image, once laboriously cultivated by the progressive-leftists combine,
presents UP as an example of backwardness. Somewhere there is an effort
to dismiss the importance of the State on lines of its eastern neighbour,
Bihar. Nothing can be more unjustified for UP. The senile mindset of these
media pundits does not allow them to see the economic and social accomplishments
of Uttar Pradesh at the ground level in an objective manner.
More populous than neighbouring
Pakistan, Uttar Pradesh could by itself rank as the sixth most massive
nation on earth. Its dynamics are much more than caste-community calculus.
Is it not ludicrous that the development factor never gets precedence over
caste-community determinants!
In Bihar, the RJD enjoys secular
credentials simply because it is against the BJP. The Congress and Leftists
have no qualms in supporting that despotic, casteist and retrograde rule
in Bihar tottering on the brink of an abyss. And there is a real danger
of their trying to repeat a Bihar in UP. In their BJP fixation, the pseudo-secularists
could go to the extent of opposing the ban on SIMI, guilty of numerous
destructive anti-national activities. They have no compunction in siding
with the Pakistani establishment and compare Dawood-Tiger Memon duo with
Home Minister LK Advani.
It is a pity that the brighter face
of UP never gets highlighted. Uttar Pradesh has quietly become the leading
State of India in traditional sectors like milk, vegetables, sugar and
sugarcane production. Edging out Gujarat by producing 141 lakh tonnes of
milk every year, UP contributes 18 per cent to India's overall milk requirement.
It fulfills one-third of the demand for wheat in the country; contributes
14 per cent of rice production; and grows a whopping 43 per cent of potatoes,
not to mention 30 per cent of sugar.
But one of the best kept secrets
is that UP has surged ahead to second position in software exports after
Karnataka. The contribution of the province insofar as the overseas computer
software export is concerned, has now touched Rs 3,500 crore per year.
After IT-savvy Andhra Pradesh, UP is the only Indian State to connect every
district with video conferencing. Lucknow and Chitrakoot will shortly have
IT universities. The establishment of Software Technological Parks at five
locations in the State has also received green signal from the Government.
In more than 42 districts of UP, the land-holding records have been fully
computerised. This is also the first and the biggest data bank of its kind
in the country.
UP ranks third in industrial development.
The State has posed impressive industrial growth rate of eight per cent
and an agricultural growth rate of six per cent in the last five years.
Out of that, the slog year of Mr Rajnath Singh's tenure has been the 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. These amazing facts are at work to refurbish the image of UP.
But it is an irony that UP should still be known for its coarse politics
instead of brick-and-mortar developments. Compared to UP, the self-styled
"progressive" regimes in West Bengal and Kerala and phony advocates 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 plump-paid intellectual elites of New Delhi project
it to be. They unscrupulously label the BJP as "anti-backward" and the
SJP and BSP as "pro-backward". But a scrutiny in the distribution pattern
of tickets to women and backward section candidates by these two parties
are enough to expose this claim. In 1993 UP Assembly elections, BJP candidates
won in 34 out of 84 reserved constituencies. The SP and BSP finished poor
second and third by winning 21 and 18 seats respectively.
This time the record of so-called
anti-backward BJP has been better than the two supposedly pro-backward
parties. The BJP has fielded 137 candidates under its "backward" and "acutely
backward" categories. The SP has given tickets to 123 backward candidates
and the BSP to 195. The BJP has fielded 31 women candidates as opposed
to the SP and BSP who have fielded 21 and 11 woman candidates respectively.
These figures for the BJP are out of 319 seats that it is contesting out
of 403, whereas its major opponents are fighting on all.
For sometime now, the name of Mr
Mulayam Singh Yadav has been playing a favourite amongst the Leftist. And
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 Mr Laloo
Prasad Yadav's "family farm" Government. But a worse gun-culture of goons
received a clear shot in the arms with Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP.
For the first time in the history
of independent India, terrified of SP's anti-social elements, the Chief
Justice of the Allahabad High Court had to call in the Army for his personal
safety and security of the court. It was also the first time since Emergency
that the journalist fraternity was systematically victimised through Mr
Yadav's infamous "Halla-bol" campaign. SP workers acting in tandem with
Mr Yadav's puppet police machinery terrorised the Uttaranchal movement
demonstrators. They opened indiscriminate fire and raped its women activists.
Mr Yadav can't just ride roughshod over the piquant legacies of his chief
ministership.
The reference to a hung Assembly
resurfaces repeatedly in media discussions. With leadership imposed from
above, the Congress has become a spent force. The BSP is not a power to
reckon with outside western UP. Still, Ms Mayawati can hold key to a very
sensitive equation. However, to the secularists, her only sin may be that
she had once allied with the BJP.
In these elections, the UP electorate
has exercised a crucial choice. It has not merely been a question of choosing
between one party and another. It has been a question of choosing between
a Government committed to development and the casteist-communalist model
of Bihar. Their vote will either help transform the image of UP to a model
state or relegate it to another stereotype. One hopes the concern for development
will get priority over emotive and sensitive issues.
(The writer is a BJP Rajya Sabha
MP)
