Kalyan Singh
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His life
Meant to rise much higher than he did?
August 23, 2021: The Times of India
Quite simply, there would be no Narendra Modi, or for that matter, Uma Bharati and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, if there was no Kalyan Singh. He was the lodestar for a generation of backward caste leaders who made their mark after him in a conservative BJP which was loath to giving them the space they needed to grow in the late '80s and early '90s when OBC empowerment was embedded as a reality of heartland politics.
At the zenith of his success within and outside the BJP — which he owed to the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992— Kalyan Singh’s fans believed he would go as far as becoming the BJP president. Some even thought he was worthy of being considered as the PM candidate. There was no cyber space for him to work with, no social media to market himself, but when Kalyan Singh addressed meetings in Kerala or Odisha, the crowds cheered and roared. That was the sort of charisma the BJP’s first “Hindu hriday samrat”— the moniker “monarch of the Hindu heart” has since been appropriated by others — exuded.
Kalyan Singh was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister when the Ayodhya mosque was brought down by the largest assemblage of Sangh parivar activists at the “disputed” complex. The build-up to D-day was visible; the crowds from across the country were not there to stage a dress rehearsal or sweep-and-mop the place as an undertaking the CM gave to the Supreme Court suggested, when the court sought an assurance. The temptation to play the martyr is strong for a politician and Singh was not an exception. One of his closest officers swears till today that he did not want the mosque to be razed.
In an interview to me a couple of days before December 6, he claimed he was armed with “proposals” which would be “mutually acceptable” to Hindus and Muslims, pitched for restraint but hinted that the final act could cost him his government. Singh, who had then completed just one year and 165 days in office, stressed he wanted to last his tenure and complete the “unfinished” tasks of developing UP. For me, it was hard to reconcile his assertions with the persona he had assiduously cultivated as a Hindutva votary.
In his first term, when a journalist asked Singh which of his three “avatars” best suited him — a Hindutva proponent, a capable administrator or a backward caste “neta” — he rooted for the first two and pleaded not to be cast as a casteist. Of course, he was aware he owed his position to his backward caste provenance from the Lodh-Rajput community in the face of stiff competition from BJP contemporaries like Kalraj Mishra, a Brahmin. But when the Supreme Court indicted him for contempt, he took the rap on his chin, paid the prescribed penalty, went to prison for a day and emerged a “martyr”. His act was celebrated as “supreme sacrifice” in the cause of the Ram temple.
Singh’s fall was as steep and sudden as his rise. He lost his government in 1992 but fervently hoped he would return, a hero, in the 1993 Assembly elections. In the months to the lead-up, the Hindutva fervour evaporated in UP (the ABVP lost the student elections in the big universities) and the Mandal forces were on the ascendant. The BJP lost the election to the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance, which represented the backward castes, Dalits and Muslims.
Singh was overruled in the candidates’ selection by the then R S S chief, Rajendra Singh; he could not get in as many backward caste nominees as he hoped. The forward-backward caste contradictions overwhelmed the BJP although it held on to its original bastions in west UP and lost by a whisker. Singh’s internal adversaries unsheathed their swords to draw blood but he was saved by LK Advani.
Born on January 5, 1932, to a farmer, Tejpal Singh Lodh, at Mdholi village (Aligarh district), Singh began his career as a teacher after completing BA and LLB. He entered politics through the R S S where he was a “swayamsevak” (volunteer). Singh won his first election from Atrauli (Aligarh district) as a Bharatiya Jana Sangh candidate and never lost until 1996. He was the health minister in the Janata Party government, headed by Ram Naresh Yadav. The firmness that bureaucrats later glimpsed in his working was manifest then. He checked a list of medical officers who served in the same place for long years, especially Lucknow, and ordered their transfers.
One of them, SC Rai (who later became a BJP Mayor), was sent from Lucknow to Kanpur. Rai resisted and mobilised the signatures of 200 MLAs in his support. Singh met him and exclaimed if he had this measure of backing, he would be the CM. Rai was convinced Singh would change his mind, but he was unmoved and ordered him to relocate to Kanpur in 24 hours. Singh returned as the CM between 1997 and 1999, but by then UP politics had become shambolic. Coalition politics had come to stay, and worse for Singh, the prospect of the BJP propping up Mayawati, the BSP president, thrice as the CM was galling. She was Dalit and a woman and the combination was hard to take. Singh, fond of using graphic imagery when he was agitated, once compared Mayawati to a live wire who electrocuted anyone coming in contact with her.
His clout as a “samrat” had declined. His in-house adversaries, who included his peers Mishra and Lalji Tandon, were backed by a younger person, Rajnath Singh. The troika had Prime MInister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s blessings. Unfortunately for Singh, Advani backed him up to a point and withdrew when Singh publicly confronted and abused Vajpayee. An alleged association with a younger woman from the BJP, Kusum Rai, became a talking point in Lucknow and outside. Singh refused to keep their relationship under wraps. It became untenable for the strait-laced R S S to keep him on and he stepped down as the CM. Kusum expediently distanced herself from Singh although she was seen prominently conducting the show at his place today when Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on the family.
After two short-lived and unsuccessful attempts at going solo with his own party, Singh returned to the BJP in 2014, thanks to Modi but beaten and mellow. Not only did Modi rehabilitate Singh as a governor, he ensured his son, Rajveer, got a Lok Sabha ticket from Etah. Rajveer’s son, Sandeep, is a minister in the Adityanath regime, while Sandeep’s wife is in a block “pramukh”. Not a bad ending for a former top league politician who, his colleagues often say needlessly, tempted providence and lost out.
An officer’s recollections
By J S Deepak, August 23, 2021: The Times of India
I never met Kalyan Singh except at official gatherings. During most of his first term as chief minister of UP that began in 1991, I was district magistrate (DM) at Sitapur. This meant there were few opportunities for face-to-face interactions with the CM.
My first direct experience of his style of functioning came early in my tenure. The new government’s pro-farmer agenda was running aground due to mounting cane dues to farmers as sugar mills were lax in paying them. Consequently, the government authorised coercive means and, acting with alacrity, I attached two private sugar mills and impounded their assets. All hell broke loose as this had not happened before and powerful interests were involved. Some mandarins in Lucknow ticked me off for my ‘immaturity’. But the CM, I learnt later, was firm in his support for action taken in public interest. Weeks later, the CM spoke to me and said, “ Aapne jo bhi kiya bahut achha kiya.” (Whatever you did was fine). Imagine how it boosted my morale for the rest of my tenure in the district and beyond.
Kalyan Singh’s fairness and sense of justice and the extent to which he supported sincere officers was evident on another occasion. In one tehsil, there was a huge racket of land belonging to marginalised sections being appropriated through forged documents in collusion with revenue officers. Criminal cases were filed, scores of Pradhans and Lekhpals (Patwaris) terminated, and efforts initiated to restore the land. As expected, there was a strong pushback from vested interests. In an unprecedented move, the local MLA, who belonged to the ruling party, threatened a fast to death till the DM was sacked. But the CM stood firm. Rajendra Gupta, finance minister, who hailed from Sitapur, and was also state BJP chief, later told me that the CM had told a delegation that the MLA was free to resort to a hunger strike, but “yadi koi anhonee ho jai to main zimmedar nahin hoon.” (if there is a mishap I would not be responsible). Such was the mettle of the man.
Kalyan Singh was a big picture person who was willing to take the toughest decisions and go to great lengths to do what he believed was good for the state. His anti-mafia operation was one such initiative and reforming education was another. He, along with education minister Rajnath Singh, ran a statewide campaign to curb mass copying which was rampant in UP. It had an immediate salutary impact on quality of graduating classes even though average marks obtained and pass percentages fell. Many years later, as district magistrate Varanasi, when recruiting clerks on the basis of graduation marks, some candidates said : “Main Kalyan Singh ke zamane ka graduate hoon”, (I am a graduate of the Kalyan Singh era) — protesting being compared with scores of those who had passed when cheating was rampant.
Many have not forgiven Kalyan Singh for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992 on his watch. The jury is still out on whether he could have done more to prevent the demolition. But there can be no doubt that he was one of the tallest CMs UP has had. A man of iron integrity with a strong sense of fair play and justice who did not hesitate in taking the flak. In 1993, I was posted as staff officer to the adviser to the governor, during President’s Rule, imposed after his government was dismissed. Records related to decision making on the fateful day the mosque fell clearly showed how he had completely and unequivocally owned up entire responsibility for all that had happened while a lesser person may have been tempted to pass the buck to the local administration and the police.
Today, Kalyan Singh is no more. UP and India have lost an icon of good governance. But his legacy as an administrator and statesmen live on and many will cherish his leadership. RIP Sir.
(J S Deepak is a retired IAS officer from UP who worked as secretary telecom & IT, government of India and was ambassador of India to the WTO)
