UP

The changes in landownership pattern, educational mobility, and occupational diversification among socio-religious groups in Uttar Pradesh provide crucial insights into the contemporary nature of political mobilisation in UP. Based on a survey of over 7,000 households, representing all socio-religious groups in 14 districts of the state, the article assesses these changes and points to the disparities between the various groups and, more importantly, to the intra-group inequalities that exist within each group. To effectively mobilise support, political parties will have to look beyond the numbers and recognise the acute differences existing within castes.

There is a widely held belief that Muslims in India vote en bloc and strategically to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. This misconception has given rise to several wild theories about how Muslims participate in electoral arena—that they vote in large numbers, their decision of whom to vote for is influenced by clerics, they are more concerned about religious issues while voting, and are less supportive of India’s political institutions. This article presents a body of evidence using public opinion and election returns data from Uttar Pradesh to show that the political and electoral behaviour of Muslims is no different from that of any other major community in the state.

The upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh point to an electoral battle between the incumbent Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which swept the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. With a decline of identity politics in the state, the major political parties are trying to outdo each other in engineering alliances, reaching out to hitherto neglected, marginalised groups, under the garb of inclusive politics. Sensing an opportunity, these backward groups are turning away from their identity-based political anchors and being drawn towards parties that promise political and economic empowerment, signalling the beginning of the “third democratic upsurge” in UP.

Uttar Pradesh has one of the lowest enrolment rates for economically weaker section and disadvantaged category children under the 25 percent reservation clause in the RTE Act. Yet the state government has issued multiple regressive notifications that inhibit these children from seeking admission under this clause. These notifications not only fail to satisfy the equality principle under the Indian Constitution but are also beyond the jurisdiction of the parent statute. 

The new emergence of the educated and politically conscious middle class of dalit-bahujan origin in UP and Bihar active in writing, propagating and publishing literature, with a view to creating awareness among the backward classes coincides with the rise of bahujan politics through the early 1980s. The emergence of new heroes in literature and hitherto neglected and ignored traditions is related to the need to acquire self-respect and social acceptance. But in its search for identity, dalit-bahujan literature, by propping itself up as counter-literature, also seeks realisation by a negation of brahminic literature.