JOIN USUttarakhand polls: Can AAP alter a bipolar polity?
Earlier this week, Congress leaders of all hues gathered at Haldwani near Nainital to pay tributes to N D Tiwari, the late three-time chief minister of the undivided Uttar Pradesh. Fresh from his recent Punjab exploits, Harish Rawat lit a joss stick in front of a garlanded picture of N D Tiwari, who had passed away on October 18, 2018. N D Tiwari also holds the record of being the only chief minister of Uttarakhand, the state carved out of UP in 2000, to complete a full five-year term in office.
About a furlong or so from the venue of this remembrance meet, the new kids on the block -- Aam Admi Party (AAP) volunteers donning trademark inverted boat-shaped caps were knocking on the doors to canvass for their party. This would be AAP's first election in the hill state where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress have taken turns at power for the last two decades.
In a state which has seen massive outward migration of its youth in search of jobs, the AAP seems to be focussing on this same voter group to make inroads. It has promised a dole of Rs 5,000 for all unemployed youth between 18 and 40.
It is issuing employment guarantee cards to lay its hands on precious data and phone numbers of voters, which will come in handy for micro-messaging and targeted online campaigns closer to the elections early next year. The party has also declared its chief minister candidate in an army officer turned social worker Colonel Ajay Kothiyal.
Freebie apart, does Uttarkhand offer space to a third-party intervention as is being attempted by Arvind Kejriwal, an encore of sorts after its success in replacing the Congress as the alternative to the BJP in Delhi?
Like its treacherous terrain, the youngest hill state carved out of UP offers unique challenges -- both historical and contemporary -- to political hikers. To understand the complexities of this region as they have shaped up in post-Independence India, we may have to travel back in time by a good four decades and more.
The demand for a separate hill state of Uttarakhand comprising the two administrative divisions of Kumaun and Garhwal was raised in 1979 when a small group of activists and intellectuals met in the hill station of Nainital. The then vice-chancellor of Kumaun University, Prof D D Pant, chaired this convention called in to discuss the socio-economic situation in the region.
The Nainital conclave was the precursor to the formation of Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, or UKD -- a political party seeking to represent the political aspirations of the people of the hills. It was a time when the strong winds of change were blowing in other parts of the country. The Janata experiment, though on its last leg, had given a fillip to regional aspirations. It was also the year All Assam Students Union (AASU) was born out of public discontent against the influx of Bangladeshi migrants in the north-eastern state. It was also the same period when Shibu Soren mobilised tribals, trade unionists and others to consolidate the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in south-Bihar.
In retrospect, some of these experiments tapping regional and sub-regional experiments were highly successful in mobilising the masses and providing political alternatives to hegemonic power structures. In Uttarakhand, however, that was not to be. Why and how regional political identity has failed to take roots in the hill state is an interesting case study unto itself.
Scholars who have studied the socio-economic and political landscape of the twin divisions of Kumaun and Garhwal as part of the undivided Uttar Pradesh provide a fascinating peek into the alienation experienced by the region in the first three decades after Independence. Though recognised as backward and under-developed, no planned strategies were initiated by either the Centre or the state to develop the region. After the 1962 China War, the sudden spurt in growth activities aimed primarily at securing borders complicated the situation further.
The government acquired land, built roads, felled trees as skilled and semi-skilled workers travelled up the hills with private contractors. The development activity coinciding with the Third Five Year Plan was primarily confined to work taken up for strategic fortification of the borders. It did not benefit the local population by any stretch. The alienation was perhaps more accentuated and complete with the exclusive rights to forest resources granted to the non-local entrepreneurs and the promulgation of the New Forest Policy of 1976. The Chipko movement in Chamoli district was a direct reaction to the government's policies on forest management.
So, the situation was just ripe for a player to step in to fill in the political vacuum against a well-entrenched Congress. The genesis of Uttarakhand Kranti Dal in 1979 was thus an impending event waiting to happen. Jaswant Singh Bisht was the first UKD MLA to enter the UP Assembly in 1980. The young and redoubtable Kashi Singh Airy followed suit, winning consecutive terms from the Didihaat seat.
However, the UKD has remained on the fringes of state politics despite being the first political entity to demand a separate hill state. According to some scholars, the UKD's marginalisation is because Uttarakhand's inherent centripetal tendency gravitates towards the political centre and thus towards national parties. The reasons for this are both social and religious.
Firstly, as a territorial segment of politically significant Uttar Pradesh, its integration with national politics was reinforced as a part of the large Hindi heartland belt. The fact that leaders from this region with less than 10 per cent representation in the undivided UP towered over the state and national politics underscores this fact. From Govind Ballabh Pant to N D Tiwari, the list is long.
Paradoxically, while the region faced economic alienation in the initial years, a parallel cultural integration at the subconscious level was always on. Interestingly, Pant, the first chief minister of UP and hailed from the hills, contested and won elections from Bareilly in the plains. Conversely, Chandra Bhanu Gupta, the Congress CM of UP in the 1960s, who was from the plains, represented Ranikhet in the hills. Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, from the hilly region, shifted base to Allahabad in the plains quite early in his political career.
Secondly, integration of the hill region with the national mainstream is also on account of the annual pilgrimage lakhs of Hindus make to the religious places in the hills. The larger national identity and affinity to the political centre is reinforced by the state's characteristic demography overwhelmed by upper-caste Hindus.
In 1994, the separate statehood demand gained ground as a reaction to the decision by the Mulayam Singh Yadav government to implement a 27 per cent OBC reservation in the erstwhile UP. The upper caste dominated hill divisions rose in protests which later crystallised into agitation for a separate hill state.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee government created three states in 2000. Uttarakhand, along with Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, thus came into existence. Ever since, the two national parties, the BJP and Congress, have settled down to a cosy arrangement taking turns to govern the state.
In 2021, the AAP is attempting to make the contest triangular. Apart from the novelty factor, it has a certain advantage vis a vis the UKD of the yore. Though confined to Delhi and Punjab, the AAP has sought to project itself as a national player or a party with a national outlook. Unlike the Congress, it has not conceded the right of the centre space to the BJP, which gives it enough elbow room to manoeuvre past attempts at polarisation. With Kothiyal as its chief ministerial candidate, it has tried to reach a large population where nearly every household sends a person or two to the armed forces.
And finally, the AAP is willing to experiment both in content and form its campaign as the Congress tries to put its house in order. The Congress party's most significant challenge this election is to project itself as a credible alternative to the BJP, to convince its cadres and people that it has a chance to return to power. The AAP as a third player offers a choice and creates doubt in the minds of the electorate. A division in the anti-BJP votes will only make the Congress's task more difficult this election.
(The writer is a journalist)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.