MOHAMMAD NAUSHAD KHAN analyses the communal flare-ups threatening peace at various places in Uttar Pradesh vis-à-vis the upcoming Assembly elections in 2017.
Uttar Pradesh has turned a fertile ground for communal polity. Communal and caste politics has dominated the political scene over there for decades down the line. Hate polity and divisive agendas are played out at equal intervals to keep the political pot boiling. With political parties gearing up for the 2017 assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh is most likely to be on a communal tinderbox till assembly elections gets over.
We already know how Muzaffarnagar riots vitiated communal amity and politically changed the rules of the game. The hatred and animosity fuelled in the minds of the people helped polarise the sentiments vertically and horizontally. The method these days to incite communal violence or instigate riots have changed drastically. Earlier it was orchestrated in a hidden manner but now it is more open and target-oriented with a definite purpose. Violence, one after another, is aimed at hampering the morale of the minority communities and to make them feel isolated and vulnerable of further attacks.
The fissure created as a result of it in people’s mind refuses to die down because of the volatile situation simmering out of hate and irresponsible statements which many believe are made under the patronage of their peers. Riots have the tendency to affect either way. Sometimes, it is for personal political gains and sometimes to harm other’s gain. Uttar Pradesh is the best example of this divisive politics. In Uttar Pradesh there seems to be a method at play behind the madness aided and abated to incite communal violence.
Professor Imtiaz Ahmad, renowned social scientist, told Radiance, “I have always maintained that communal violence/ riot is never a sporadic outburst of madness. It is a goal-driven event with a definite goal. All parties in India have used it to suit their purpose. Such violence has been bound to be closely related to election process.
“From this point of view, I would not be surprised if there would be outbreaks of riots in different parts of India. Situation this time would be more dangerous as the RSS and its cadre trained to instigate violence enjoy the support of the government. They may become active to polarise the communities so that they can reap the harvest of a consolidated Hindu vote bank.”
The apprehension that has been put forth here sounds true because very recently the intelligence agency has issued advisory to the state that if small and stray communal violence is not controlled quickly, there is possibility of large scale violence. Recently, incidents of communal violence reported from various places like Saharanpur, Kasganj, Faizabad, Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr might have sent alarm bells ringing in the government corridor in Lucknow if the alerts are to be taken seriously.
With this, it appears that Uttar Pradesh is on a tinderbox and had to be dealt with accordingly. For Samajwadi Party, the law and order will become paramount as the assembly elections draw closer. Mirza Asmer Beg, Professor, Department of Political Science, Aligarh Muslim University, on apprehensive note told Radiance that communalism is the easiest route to make people vote for. Hence, communal forces would become more active as the elections of 2017 come close.
In the last general elections, BJP won 71 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats, while five seats were won by the Samajwadi Party and the Congress won only two. No doubt, the outcome was a political disaster for both the Samajwadi Party and the Congress. A study conducted by three political scientists of the Yale University, Gareth Nellis, Michael Weaver and Steven Rosenzweig, in their paper titled “Do parties matter for ethnic violence? Evidence from India” said, “The BJS/BJP saw a 0.8 percentage point increase in their vote share following a riot in the year prior to an election.”
Riots might have helped but on the contrary if we analyse the outcome of the bye-polls in the state the BJP lost five seats in places where its MP Yogi Adityanath campaigned and made controversial references to “Love Jihad”. If Lok Sabha polls were a lesson for other parties, it was the bye-election in Uttar Pradesh that served as a lesson for the BJP that hate mongering and divisive agendas are not always productive and can boomerang as well.
Now the onus of keeping the state in peace with cordial atmosphere lies with the ruling party, which has to remain vigilant against such nefarious designs, if any, by any political party, even by its own party cadre. Notably, UP leads the number to be allotted to develop 13 cities as smart cities which is higher than any other state. One thing to be considered here is that only infrastructure will not be enough to develop smart cities unless and until the people become smarter with a sense of responsibility towards the place and the people they belong to. How can we think of smart cities to be practically viable when communities keep on fighting at equal intervals?