Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party (SP) epitomize the relic of a great socialist tradition, one which is fast withering away in Uttar Pradesh. Though the Left continues to flourish in West Bengal, it has become a spent force in Uttar Pradesh. Even in such a place as Kanpur, a labour-dominant city of 4.2 million, once called the Manchester of the East and the commercial capital of Uttar Pradesh, and which sent the CPI(M) leader S.M. Bannerjee several times in a row to the Lok Sabha, there is hardly any trace of socialism and the Left!

Mulayam Singh Yadav and the SP claim to be the real torch bearers of the socialist traditions in UP, but is their claim really valid? Have they followed the path laid down by Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and Madhu Limaye? Mulayam entered active state politics in 1967 when he was first elected to the UP legislative assembly; the SP was born in October 1992. So, for a quarter of a century before the birth of the SP, he was in the company of India’s leading socialists, and thus can legitimately claim to be their progeny. Yet in almost one and a half decades of its existence, can the SP show any linkages and continuity with the socialist tradition? Can it demonstrate that its evolution – ideological, organizational, and as a party of governance – has been in consonance with the ideals and expectations of its socialist mentors? The general belief is that the answer to both questions is in the negative.

How much samajwad is left with the Samajwadi Party? Is the party really addressing the problems of the common man and society? The party chose the bicycle as its symbol, signalling that it was a common man’s party. But surprisingly, even ordinary office bearers of the SP in cities and villages ride in big and expensive cars. There is no trace of any bicycle or socialism in the lives of party workers. The samajwadis’ relation to Lohia and samajwad is akin to the way in which the Congress has stood by Gandhi and Gandhism!

 

Secularism and ruralism have been the two other major ideological planks of the Samajwadi Party. Ever since it first came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 1989, the SP has been firmly committed to secularism and the protection of the minorities, especially the Muslims and the mosque. This earned it a reputation of being firm against the forces of communalism represented by the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Not only did this provide Muslims the much needed ‘psychological security’, it also induced them to steadily drift away from the Congress. For over a decade and a half now, the Muslims have been firmly with the SP, indicating that ideology still matters in Indian politics.

However, the SP could not handle this ideological component with the necessary skill to cement the party’s relationship with the electorate, especially Muslims. Excessive posturing about the need to defend Muslims through secularism by party leaders only led to an equation of secularism with minorityism that in the long run harmed both secularism and the Muslims. It also seemed to put Hindus on the defensive, duty bound to protect the Muslims while absolving the Muslims of any equivalent responsibility towards the Hindus. Such over-enthusiastic rhetoric has bred disaffection against Muslims and unnecessarily sharpened the communal divide. Further, the SP failed to distinguish between the common Muslims and criminal elements within the community. When people see hardcore criminals among Muslims swearing by secularism and taking advantage under its cover, as is evident in the conduct of some influential Muslim leaders of the SP in Uttar Pradesh, the resultant blurring only serves to devalue secularism.

 

Ruralism and agriculture constitutes another major plank of its ideological mooring, and the party often claims to be the champion of kisans. But, has it lived up to the expectations of the rural poor and kisans? Despite being in power thrice since 1989, with Yadav as chief minister in 1989, 1993 and 2003, the SP failed to initiate any major land reform measures in UP for the benefit of small and marginal farmers. In contrast, the Nitish government in neighbouring Bihar swiftly placed land reforms on its agenda and appointed D. Bandyopadhyay, the man responsible for ‘Operation Barga’ land reforms in West Bengal, as Chairman, Bihar Land Reforms Commission. Yet, notwithstanding the abysmal condition of kisans in some sub-regions of Uttar Pradesh viz., in Bundelkhand alone, official figures put suicide deaths by farmers at 122 during the past three and a half years, agrarian reform is nowhere on the government’s agenda. If at all, as the recent land acquisition controversy for Dadri power project seems to indicate, the interests of the farmers is being subordinated to a corporatisation of agriculture.

Casteism has served as a central ideological component in the political mobilization strategy of the so-called ‘Lohiaites’, forgetting that for Lohia caste was a stumbling block to India’s progress. In Lohia’s words, ‘Caste restricts opportunity. Restricted opportunity constricts ability. Constricted ability further restricts opportunity. Where caste prevails, opportunity and ability are restricted to ever-narrowing circles of the people.’ The SP has consistently deployed caste as an effective tool to sharpen the social and electoral cleavages on the support of the backward castes. However, after its repeated failure to win a majority in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, it finally seems to have realized that its ‘exclusionary politics’ enjoys limited political appeal, and that it must renounce it in favour of an ‘inclusionary politics’ as is being attempted by its arch rival, the BSP.

 

Both the SP and the BSP have come to realise that a ‘social coalition’ is far more politically rewarding than an ‘electoral coalition’ in which the constituents keep on pestering the main partner. The manner in which the SP has opened up to the thakurs, brahmins and banias, as also to the non-chamar dalits, speaks volumes about this shift. Besides this turn to inclusionary politics, the attempts by the Mulayam government to use public resources to oblige different social components indicates an anxiety to expand its electoral base so as to face the BSP in the coming assembly elections. The new political outfit, BSP (Kanshi Ram), floated by the brother of late leader in an effort to divide the BSP cadres, appears to be the brainchild of the SP.

The SP has also been trying hard to become a national party. In the 2004 polls, the SP contested seats in 23 states and Union Territories. Nevertheless for all practical purposes, it remained a single state party, winning all its 35 seats only from UP; it however won one seat from Uttaranchal which was earlier a part of UP (see Table 1). But why has the party failed to expand its organizational and social base beyond Uttar Pradesh, despite professing both ‘secularism’ and ‘ruralism’, conventionally seen as sufficient to acquire an all India electoral base for any party? Is it because the party allowed caste to overwhelm its stated ideology? Or is it that the OBC-Muslim combine, which forms the backbone of the SP social base, failed to work in the neighbouring states where these groups had been adequately subsumed by the existing parties, mainly the Congress and BJP, especially in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh? Note that in Bihar, the RJD of Laloo Prasad successfully created a new coalition of the OBC-Muslim-Dalits. Evidently, the ‘caste-ideology’ of the SP served to limit the horizontal spread of the party.

Worse, the SP could not even acquire the status of a dominant regional party, unlike the DMK/AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, TDP in Andhra Pradesh, Akali Dal in Punjab and Asom Gana Parishad in Assam. This can be attributed to its failure to (a) successfully attempt a regionalization of the state and foreground state politics vis-à-vis national politics, and (b) infuse a distinct cultural or class identity to the politics of the state.

The party has also failed to grow vertically, with no evolution towards a true democratic leadership, individual or collective. How else do we explain the fact that the same person remains the President of the party ever since its inception in 1992? Further, no one else has even tried to challenge Mulayam who was always elected uncontested. Worse, Mulayam Singh Yadav has been promoting his son, brothers and nephews to leadership positions. Overall, Mulayam remains the undisputed leader, and it is his ideas that form the ideology of the party. It is this absence of an ideology-based politics, and a good second line of democratic leadership that makes the Samajwadi Party vulnerable in the event of the departure of the top man from the scene.

 

Why is the SP steadily losing grip over the socialist ideology and ideals of Lohia? And why have old stalwarts like Janeshwar Mishra, Ram Saran Das and Beni Prasad Verma been marginalised in the party? Is it because the party has fallen into the trap of capitalists, criminals and the corrupt? Despite the party making some efforts on the developmental front, the criminal image of the party and the party-men refuses to die out and has done incalculable damage to the SP.¹

 

Perhaps in the initial stages of party building, the SP was forced to rely on criminal elements in the constituency building process, who subsequently have become a liability for the party. It did not realise that such individuals only use politics as a vehicle for their economics and pester the bureaucracy to further their selfish interests. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy appears to have almost given up, and prefers the easy route of keeping the politicians in good humour! More disturbing, even independent functionaries such as the State Election Commissioner and the High Court justices often succumb to the pressure of the SP, reflective of the deteriorating politico-administrative culture in the state. This could be a major reason why the SP may find it difficult to return to power in the coming assembly polls.

 

What has happened to the social base of the party? Has the party been successful in stabilizing and also enlarging its constituency? As evident from Table 2, during the last decade (1996-2004), the social base of the SP has started showing signs of reverse osmosis, i.e., the traditional voters are moving away, and a new set of voters are moving in. The party has made some inroads into the upper castes (+6) and the SCs (+6), substantiating our conjecture that the party has taken to inclusionary politics. But simultaneously, the party has suffered loss of support among the OBCs: Yadav (-1) and lower OBCs (-6), confirming the apprehension that a section of the traditional support base is showing signs of estrangement. Similarly, a substantial loss can be seen in Muslim support (-7).

Though the data for 2006 is not available, field studies during the recent municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh confirm the acceleration of this trend.² The SP has suffered loss of support among both males (-3) and females (-7), and also in the urban areas (-5), but has won the support of the rural (+7), non literate (+6) and educated (+8) voters. It has also won both the poor (+9) and the rich (+6). The middle class support to the party has remained static.

 

As evident from Table 3, the Samajwadi Party had been able to acquire a uniform voter base of over 20 per cent in most sub-regions of the state by the last assembly elections in 2002. The record of the party has been somewhat poor in western UP, given the domination of the RLD led by Ajit Singh in the area. The most impressive gains for the party have been in Bundelkhand, where from a paltry vote share of 3.68 per cent in 1993 the party jumped to 23.1 per cent votes in the 2002 assembly elections and 32.2 per cent votes in the 2004 LS elections, and in Poorvanchal (east UP.) where its vote share rose from 13 per cent in 1993 to 26.7 per cent in 2002. Nothing would be more unfortunate for the party if it allows such a uniform and substantial voter base, which it has developed over years through hard work, to disintegrate because of its neglect of ideology and a socialist orientation.

 

Has the Samajwadi Party, given its proclivity towards ‘cleavage politics’, succeeded in consolidating the OBCs, and retaining them in the party fold? Though the party played an active role in the ‘Mandalisation’ of state politics leading to a ‘second democratic upsurge’, it has not been equally concerned with the problems of the More Backward Castes (MRBCs) and the Most Backward Castes (MBCs). There are 79 OBC castes recognized in the official Gazette, and the Yadavs are the most dominant and prosperous among them. But, there are also eight MBCs and 70 MRBCs about whom the SP has been negligent, thereby allowing them to drift away from the party. Probably the fact that these caste groups are often exploited by the more prosperous Yadavs, may have contributed to their unwillingness to be part of a Yadav dominated party.

Starting from the early nineties, the SP has been successful in converting the electoral competition in the state into a SP-BSP affair, in the process marginalizing both the Congress and the BJP. Most analysts felt that UP was moving towards a bipolar convergence model of party system. But, a combination of the failures of the SP and the tactics of the BSP have undermined that possibility, resulting in a multipolar convergence model of party system in Uttar Pradesh.³ For instance, the decision of the BSP to stay away from the recent municipal elections in UP gave the BJP and the Congress a new lease of life and allowed the Muslims to move towards the Congress. Similarly, efforts at a new electoral chemistry by Mayawati, of wooing the brahmins and the banias, can work to the disadvantage of the SP in the event of a quadrangular fight in the coming assembly elections.

 

It is difficult to defend the governance style of Mulayam Singh, which remains erratic with little focus on rational decision-making. Arbitrary transfers and postings have assumed the status of a lucrative industry for the ministers. The same is also true of the policy decisions. The way large sums of money were made available to a Degree College run by Mulayam’s brother at Hebra (Etawah) without following official procedures, is one such example. Worse, the chief minister treats the state treasury as if it is his personal fortune! The announcement of a monthly unemployment allowance of Rs 500, Kanya Vidya Dhan of Rs 20000 to girls, and two sarees to each woman in a BPL family may appear as a social justice measure. But, by linking the largesse to votes for the party, the SP is only indulging in a brazen politics of dole. Such acts not only place a heavy burden on the state exchequer, they also divert resources away from the real developmental needs. Worse, they do little to address the durable concerns of vulnerable groups. No surprise that the party lost the posts of Chairperson, Municipal Council in all the four VIP constituencies of Gunnur (Badayun), Sambhal, Kannauj, and Mainpuri represented respectively by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Gopal Yadav (brother), Akhilesh Yadav (son), and Dharmendra Yadav (nephew) in the recently held municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh.

 

No doubt the electoral graph of the party has shown steady improvement both in the LS and assembly elections since its inception (Table 4). But, the way Mulayam Singh split the BSP and lured other MLAs by use of force and money, to form the government in August 2003, has not been appreciated by the electorate. Though the recently concluded municipal elections do not indicate any substantial loss for the party, the future prospects appear less certain than earlier.

Despite the advent of coalition politics in India, there is little ideological consistency in Mulayam’s alliance making strategies. At the national level, he refused to be an alliance partner of the Congress in 1989, agreed to be a partner but did not accept Sonia Gandhi’s leadership in 1998-99, and most recently, both accepted the Congress as a coalition partner and Sonia’s leadership in 2004. It is instructive that the Congress eased the SP out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and despite a strength of 36 MPs in LS, the SP could not become a part of the UPA government. At the state level too, opportunism more than ideological considerations has guided his alliance making. In 1989, he entered into alliance with all anti-Rajiv forces except the BJP; in 1993 he entered into alliance with the BSP; and in 2003 he accepted the help of the BJP in forming his government, with the Congress giving outside support.

 

The SP government hopes to convert Uttar Pradesh into ‘Uttam Pradesh’, but has never explained its plans. The state remains severely deficient in all infrastructure, in particular power production, and so far has failed to make any headway in improving both production and distribution. The state of road infrastructure also remains abysmal. The SP government has constituted the UP. Development Council headed by SP General Secretary Amar Singh, and various members of the Council have promised major investments in UP. Unfortunately, the composition of the council reflects a political bias, leading to apprehension that ‘connected’ corporates will be provided favourable deals. This has contributed to other business houses staying away from UP.

Moreover, all industrial development is planned for Noida and western Uttar Pradesh, while neglecting central, southern and eastern UP. In the event of the demand for a Harit Pradesh materializing, Uttar Pradesh would be faced with a severe crisis as its most developed region would suddenly be separated. Despite the World Bank giving a clean chit to the UP government in respect of fiscal discipline, and the Planning Commission conceding to all demands for resources, the ground reality fails to match the perceptions of these institutions.

As the state gears up for elections, the prospects of the SP retaining power do not appear bright. For a start, Mulayam Singh Yadav faces a formidable adversary in Mayawati. Not only is her dalit base more secure than the OBC constituency of the SP, earlier electoral arithmetic has become unreliable in the face of moving loyalties – the brahmins are shifting to the BSP; the thakurs to the SP; the banias are split between the SP, BSP and the BJP; and the Muslims appears to be drifting back towards the Congress. Moreover, Mayawati’s decision to stay away from the recent municipal elections has served to give a new boost to both the Congress and BJP, thereby ensuring a quadrangular contest for the assembly. Overall, with a solid dalit base and an electoral arrangement with the brahmins, the BSP seems to have an edge. Without either a well-defined socialist agenda or a clear socialist ideology, and the handicap of a soiled image, the Samajwadi Party faces an uncertain future.

 

Footnotes:

1. A.K. Verma, ‘Uttar Pradesh: Politics of Social Polarisation and its Limits’, Journal of Indian School of Political Economy 15(1&2), January-June 2003, pp. 249-277.

2. A.K. Verma, ‘Municipal Elections in Uttar Pradesh’, Economic and Political Weekly, 23-29 December 2006, pp. 5218-5221.

3. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, ‘From Hegemony to Convergence: Party System and Electoral Politics in the Indian States, 1952-2002’, Journal of Indian School of Political Economy 15(1&2), January-June 2003, pp. 5-44.