Syed Khalique Ahmed
NEW DELHI—Various political parties in Uttar Pradesh – Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and Congress – wooing the Brahmin community ahead of the 2022 assembly elections has changed the political discourse in the state.
When the BJP that came to power at the Centre and in various states by using emotional and polarising issues, had just initiated steps to polarise the voters on communal and religious lines after the visit of AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi to Lucknow a few weeks ago, BSP and SP began programmes to woo Brahmin voters in the forthcoming assembly polls, promising to take care of their concerns. Brahmins feel neglected in the Yogi Adityanath government. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is also chief priest of the Gorakhnath Math, is a Thakur.
BSP’s “Prabuddha Varg Sammelan” organized for Brahmins at Ayodhya on July 23 was a grand success. Emboldened by it, Mayawati organized another programme at Ambedkarnagar, formerly Akbarpur, just 40 km from Ayodhya, and this, too, was a huge success. Now, she plans to hold Brahmin sammelans all over the state. Samajwadi Party that was the first to attract the Brahmins towards it about a year ago, immediately called a meeting of the party’s Brahmin leaders in Lucknow to plan a strategy on how to win the Brahmin voters. Congress party’s Priyanka Gandhi has been highlighting the harassment of Brahmins under the Yogi government ever since the encounter of Vikas Dubey in Kanpur.
The talk about Brahmins being treated shabbily in the Adityanath government by the opposition parties has put the state government on the defensive. The headlines about BJP leaders’ communally divisive statements in media all of a sudden shifted to debate on Brahmins looking for alternatives to restore their lost position in the state’s politics. UP Brahmins, even those in the state government, have been speaking in a muted voice that the community has been badly sidelined and Thakurs have complete domination. Brahmins and Thakurs have been age-old rivals in UP’s politics in which Brahmins always dominated till the BJP acquired power in the state.
UP has not seen a Brahmin Chief Minister since 1989 when ND Tiwari demitted the office. UP’s first CM – Govind Ballabh Pant – was also a Brahmin. Other Brahmin chief ministers were H N Bahuguna, Kamlapati Tripathi, and Sripati Mishra. For the last 30 years, Brahmins have lost their political “varchasva” (domination) though they are still in a leading position in bureaucracy and administration. Even at the Centre, the top BJP leaders from UP are Thakurs.
Political analysts in Lucknow say that the Brahmins, who ideologically shifted to BJP in the 1990s and helped bring the saffron party to power in the state, are now looking for other parties to restore their old political position, that is, of a KING, not a kingmaker. But the biggest question is: How far the Brahmin community is ready to compromise on its ideology to regain its political domination because major support to RSS in UP comes from the Brahmins? Various studies conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) have suggested that the Brahmins in UP and the cow-belt states have significantly shifted towards BJP since the 1990s. This shift in Brahmin voters due to ideological changes is one of the reasons for the decline of Congress. Brahmins are estimated to account for about 11 percent of the population in UP. However, being an academic and dominating community, they influence smaller and weaker communities who went along with it, shifted to BJP, thus increasing the support base of the BJP.
According to CSDS, Brahmins voted en bloc for BJP in the 2017 assembly elections in UP. While it is impossible for 100 percent of Brahmins to dissociate themselves from the BJP due to ideological reasons, the question is: Can a split in Brahmin votes throw BJP out of power? BJP, apart from playing communal politics, has also learned to play caste politics. As Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav had won their positions due to caste politics, BJP used the same game to weaken them. The BJP leaders won over the non-Jatav and non-Chamar Dalits, who were neglected by Mayawati. The saffron party also split the OBC voters. Akhilesh Yadav gave importance to only Yadavs among OBCs. BJP won over the non-Yadavs. Adityanath gave important positions in the government and the party to leaders from the neglected Dalit and OBC groups, who together account for a large chunk of voters. BJP made Keshav Prasad Maurya deputy chief minister, although he comes from a tiny koeri community.
Various studies have shown that 40 and 38 percent of Brahmins voted for BJP in the 2007 and 2012 assembly elections, but in the 2017 elections, 80 percent of the Brahmins voted for BJP. CSDS report says that in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 72 and 82 percent of Brahmins voted for BJP.
