Re-emergence of Jat-Gurjar alliance in western Uttar Pradesh

West UP has seen a revival of the agrarian caste politics under the umbrella of farmers' movement

Caste, a deeply grounded and lived reality, is crucial in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Caste sentiments have the power to turn the election to one side or the other, even on the polling day. Its interplay with other factors, such as religion, language and issues of regionalism in Western UP, often called the Jat belt, farmers' belt and sugarcane belt, does determine voting behaviour.

However, these descriptions of Western UP have become synonymous with only one dominant agrarian caste, the Jats. The community has a decisive say in every election in the region by it being a dominant rural caste and still enjoys the social and political inheritance of the farmers' movement and politics of the 1970s.

The principle nature of any dominant rural caste is that it influences the decisions of other marginalised castes, which any other political groups do not represent. In the process, other castes get marginalised from the political discourse despite good numbers, which are crucial in winning an election.

One such caste in Western Uttar Pradesh is Gurjar, an agrarian caste with a sizable electorally decisive population. Gurjars are primarily located in the Upper Doab area of Western Uttar Pradesh and also populate other parts of the state. Some converted to Islam, and Muslim Gurjars are also politically dominant in parts of UP. They are listed as an other backward class, or OBC, in the state list.

While all political parties in UP vie for Gurjar support for the community's en-bloc voting pattern, not a single party has produced any state-level leaders from among them. Gurjar leaders are mostly constituency-based leaders and are unable to reach out to the entire population of their caste. Since Gurjar is an agrarian caste and also dominant in some parts of Western Uttar Pradesh, its voting behaviour depends upon the other dominant and agricultural castes, and this contradictory relation has a specific regional history.

Charan Singh mobilised all-agrarian castes in his farm politics in Western UP. After independence, the Socialist parties, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Jan Sangh occupied the opposition space in UP until 1967. This changed after Charan Singh broke away from the Congress and formed the Bharatiya Kranti Dal, and in the 1969 Assembly elections, this party became the major gainer in Western UP.

Another farmer leader of that time, Ram Chandra Vikal, a Gurjar from West UP, an Arya Samaj member, became Charan Singh's deputy chief minister from 1967 to 69. In the 1960s, before aligning with Charan Singh, Vikal had founded the Kisan Mazdoor Party. Both Charan Singh and Vikal had similar constituencies, as both were from farming backgrounds and invoked that identity. In 1967, Vikal had proposed Charan Singh's name for the chief minister's post. However, in 1977 and 1980, they each other in the electoral arena on the Baghpat Lok sabha seat with the Congress fielding Vikal against Charan Singh. Vikal lost on both occasions.

Eventually, the farmers' vote base came to be dominated by just one farming caste, the Jats, with Charan Singh as their political leader and Mahendra Singh Tikait as their social leader. After Vikal's career declined, there was no accepted leader of Gurjars in Western Uttar Pradesh. Their electorally decisive population was taken for granted, but several constituency-based leaders did emerge.

Gurjars of the state even welcomed the political interventions of Gurjar leaders from outside the state. The Bhadana brothers are more influential in Western Uttar Pradesh than their native Haryana. Hindutva also influenced Gurjar leaders to associate with the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) after the 2012 Assembly elections. This temptation worked at two levels - cultural and political. It has also made a section of Gurjars veer away from their farming identity, giving Jats a bigger space to capture the claim over the farming identity.

The cultural contradiction of Hindutva was visible when BJP MLA Nand Kishore Gurjar from the state questioned the local administration's dealing with the issue of the funeral rites of the Dalit girl in Hathras after sunset, contrary to Hindu tradition. Intriguingly, the same MLA was also allegedly involved in mobilising BJP workers at Delhi's Ghazipur border on January 27, 2021, to violently oppose the protesting farmers and directly confront farmer leader Rakesh Tikait. This incident reinvigorated the farmers' movement after Rakesh Tikait delivered an emotional appeal for farmers across India, especially Jats of Western UP and Haryana, to unite. Rakesh Tikait-led Bhartiya Kisan Union tried hard not to make it a Jat vs Gurjar debate because that would have harmed the larger solidarity of the agrarian castes.

Gurjars of UP are upset with the Yogi Adityanath government's handling of the event to inaugurate the statue of Mihir Bhoj, a ninth-century king upon whom Gurjar contest claim with Rajputs. The incident brought them closer to the other castes for an alliance against Yogi Adityanath. The current Assembly election has also witnessed unity between Jats and Gurjars through political relations invoking social solidarity of agrarian castes.

Recently, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Choudhary, the grandson of Charan Singh, had announced during his election campaign for the party's Gurjar candidate that the under-construction international airport at Jewar would be named after Gurjar Samrat Mihir Bhoj.

While the BJP is trying hard to regain the support of Gurjars, it is an arduous task for the party because of the rural solidarity alliance of agrarian castes and newly emerged politics attached to it.

(Shivam Mogha is a research scholar at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.