Jat Community and politics
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The Jat vote
MUCH ADO ABOUT JAT VOTE?
Community Must Prove It Is Critical To Parties Who Invested In Them
Subodh Ghildiyal | TNN
2008: Mahendra Singh Tikait vs. Mayawati
New Delhi: Date: April 1-2. Year 2008: That was when a battle of wits that pitted Jat stalwart Mahendra Singh Tikait against dalit icon Mayawati broke out.
Tikait had hurled a caste slur against the then CM and found policemen snapping at his heels. He smirked and dug himself in at Muzaffarnagar’s Sisauli village with clansmen and loyalists, brazenly challenging the state. An unrelenting Mayawati dispatched a 6,000-strong force to lay siege to the village. For two days UP worried bullets would rain and blood would flow.
The confrontation ended in a whimper. A chastened Tikait apologized and made up with Mayawati calling her his daughter, “beti”. That surrender shrank the Tikait’s stature. In social discourse, a dalit – weakest placed in feudal West UP – had called the bluff of the dominant Jats. This was a watershed moment. Observers called it “righting of the demographics” – 3.6% of UP’s population that had appeared so disproportionately large because of its social clout, had been found out.
2009: vs. Ashok Gehlot’s Cogress government in Rajasthan
Not that the community was any less helpless in Rajasthan and Haryana where it has more impressive numbers. In 2009, Jats declared war on Ashok Gehlot’s Cogress government in Rajasthan. Yet Cogress won the state and parliamentary polls without much sweat. So did Cogress in successive Haryana polls against Jat leader of standing OP Chautala heading INLD.
For a good decade, Jats raised the pitch to regain relevance in their strongholds but were shown up, their political chip in a tailspin.
2013 and after
Come 2014 and the wheels seem to be turning again. Once again, there’s a Jat buzz – they’re dominating headlines, political parties are lining up to placate them like UPA granting them national OBC status. They’re being talked about as a swing bloc that can shape fortunes in Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana and West UP.
Between their marginalization and return to centre stage lies, as ironic as it is tragic, the Muzaffarnagar riots [of 2013]. “The riots caught the imagination of the political class (BJP, RLD and Cogress),” Jawaharlal Nehru University sociologist Vivek Kumar explains. He seems to be alluding to the reason that made Jats enjoy outsized importance postindependence – the ability to “influence” voting of communities lower in the social or economic order.
The riots showed Jats turning against the historical religious mix of west UP villages. If Jats and Muslims are antagonistic, the “secular” RLD that polls both blocs together crumbles. It provides an opening to BJP that thrives on religious consolidation.
No wonder, BJP toasted its leaders accused of engineering the clashes. The “secular” RLD sought an antidote in “job quotas” to quell Jat anger. The rush for Jat attention brought the community back from oblivion and the community is relishing this newfound salience. It cleverly coupled its grievances against the Centre to the riot debate and RLD chief Ajit Singh pushed “quota” as the corrective. “It’s the ‘riots cause’ and the ‘reservation effect’,” a leader explained.
Even as the community savours the importance, one cannot help the doubts about their “swing” factor. Experts argue BSP has reworked West UP caste equations irreversibly. Marrying of dalit votes with Muslims, backward groups like Gujjars and the ‘most backwards’ weaning them away from the traditional Jat grouping has dented the latter’s clout.
Social engineering and the Jats’ ability to win elections
Sample this: In 2007, 16 Jats were elected to UP assembly. Five years later, after Mayawati worked on social engineering minus Jats, community MLAs were down to 4.
With the Muzaffarnagar riots increasingly seen as limited to Jats, many feel they may not bring the wider Hindu consolidation BJP is banking on. Just as few think the OBC status would soften the community’s anti-Cogress mood in Delhi and Rajasthan or stop Haryana Jats from rooting for Chautala or BJP.
Therein is the test of Jats this election – of proving their criticality to each group that has invested in them. They know another failure to prove political heft at the hustings may push them down the slope of irrelevance.
Prominent Jat politicians
THE TOP GUNS
Charan Singh
A towering leader who rose to become PM, credited with forging backward class unity that found an echo across states
Mahendra Singh Tikait
Powerful farmer leader of west UP. Massive Delhi Boat Club stir in Oct 1988 took him to national stage
Devi Lal
Tau to masses, he held Janata Dal together while making VP Singh PM in 1989. Known for his earthiness, he became Dy PM
Kumbha Ram
Went on to become a top Cogress leader from Rajasthan
Nathu Ram Mirdha
Influential among his people, he went on to become a top Rajasthan Cogress leader
