Rampur makes it to news these days for only one name — Azam Khan

Recently, the Prime Minister’s Office forwarded a complaint by Congress state minority department coordinator Faisal Khan Lala — alleging a threat to his life from the Samajwadi Party leader— to the Department of Personnel and Training, which in turn sent it to the Chief Minister’s Office in Lucknow.

Azam has attacked Governor Ram Naik this year, accusing him of using comments “that make mainly Muslims afraid”, and he has forced Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to backtrack several times on any action against him.

Earlier last month, in a brash move characteristic of him, Azam took the matter of the Dadri lynching over alleged cow meat to the United Nations. He also alleged he feared an attack from controversial MLA Sangeet Singh Som, who was among the BJP leaders to visit Dadri.

Once Rampur was enclosed within gates built by the Nawabs. Nine of them are now demolished, certified too dangerous for public. Encircled within the remaining, that he is now rebuilding, is Azam ki Sarkar.

The nawabi gates that once enclosed the city are giving way to new ones.

In a state where Azam holds seven portfolios, even as ministers come and go, from Muslim Waqf and parliamentary affairs to Urban Development — and wields disproportionate influence — that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Rampur will soon have Uttar Pradesh’s longest flyover and the country’s lengthiest elevated three-way expressway.

Rampur gets nearly 24X7 power, its municipal board building is shaped like Parliament, the city has two large lakes, a planetarium, and an upgraded 300-bed district hospital. Its roads, rivalling capital Lucknow and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s birthplace Saifai’s, have Victorian streetlights, fountains at crossroads, chairs on side pathways and arches.

The projects in all are estimated to be worth Rs 1,000 crore.

Asim Raja, Rampur SP president and member, State Minorities Commission, reminds you of the time large parts of Rampur were like a jungle, with people scared to come into the city from the railway station.

“Rampur has progressed by leaps and bounds,” Raja says. “All lanes are laid with interlocking tiles, drainage is such that not a single drop of water stagnates, and running water facility is sufficient for 50 years. In education, we have Jauhar University, Rampur Public School and eight new inter colleges, plus one degree college. Shopping malls have started coming up now.”

Faisal Khan Lala, who is also the district general secretary of the Congress, asks you to look at the area of all this new development. “It is a strategy by Azam to develop Naya Rampur — a city on the outskirts and towards his Jauhar University. Just see how much land has been acquired. Houses, religious places have been demolished,” he says.

Congress MLA from Swar (within Rampur district) Nawab Kazim Ali Khan alias Naved Miyan says, “Development in Rampur is a misnomer. All the development has been done for Jauhar University. One bridge in Swar connecting 200 villages requires only Rs 17 crore, but that request was turned down and Rs 20 crore was sanctioned for an artificial lake inside Jauhar University. Rs 198 crore for compensation to farmers has been refused while Rs 200 crore for two flyovers in Azam’s university has been sanctioned.”

Spread over 250 acres, Jauhar University has long been a pet project of Azam. It was first proposed as Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in 2004, but the Bill was delayed by the Governor over Azam becoming life-long pro-chancellor. Now it is known as Jauhar University, with Azam as chancellor, wife and Rajya Sabha MP Dr Tazeen Fatima as pro-chancellor, and Mulayam as visitor.

In 2014, another Bill made it a minority institution.

In February last year, when seven buffaloes were famously stolen from Azam’s farmhouse in Rampur, officials from two police stations were pressed into service to find them, even as three policemen faced disciplinary action for “dereliction of duty”.

He is known to issue diktats and get opponents to fall in line. In 2012, it was made known that Azam wanted private doctors to reduce their fees by 20 per cent; the chief medical officer held a meeting and many complied. He demanded the same of private English-medium schools. Among those who didn’t give in was St Mary’s Convent, and a turn in the road in front of it was closed soon after. Greenwood School, which also held out, faced the threat of its back gate being closed by the municipal board.

In 2012, Azam also ventured into more sensitive ground, demanding that butchers reduce the selling price of buffalo meat. The number of butcher shops has been falling since, and the city now has only 25, from 100 earlier. “We were asked to sell the meat at Rs 60 per kg. It was not feasible. Now there are so many restrictions that we are leaving this profession,” says Zubair Qureshi, president of the Jamiat-ul-Quresh (an organisation of the Qureshi community).

In March this year, an alleged objectionable post against him on Facebook landed a Bareilly youth in jail.

Recently, Azam’s supporters held a dharna to ensure that Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a former BJP Rampur MP, vacated an official bungalow. The old jail located near Azam’s ancestral house is to be shifted here. “We will vacate the bungalow. It is in larger public interest,” says Mukhtar’s brother Athar Naqvi.

However, influence is not the only currency Azam trades in. In Rampur, it is as likely to be fear. Lala, the Congress leader who went to the PMO against Azam, is a classmate of Azam’s elder son Adeeb and they often run into each other around town. However, such is the dread of crossing paths with the Samajwadi Party leader, says Lala, “his son does not get himself clicked with me even during school reunions. Officials stay away from me. The Rampur DM greeted me on Eid, and a resolution condemning him was passed by the SP.”

Claiming “harassment” at the hands of Azam, Lala first approached Governor Ram Naik in March, adding that local police were out to eliminate him.

The fear of Azam is a charge repeated across Rampur. So, in a city where the 67-year-old has spent most of his life, there are few willing to talk about him. Even the stretch leading to his house on Jail Road is blocked by a barrier.
“He is now a modern day pharaoh,” says Manzoor Ali Khan, a former Congress MLA who defeated Azam in 1977.

The SP general secretary says he just ensures that “systems run properly in Rampur”. “This was a city of Nawabs, who had crossed all limits of torture on public. Now, they or their men are nowhere. I do not tolerate harassment of people by any affluent, influential persons. There is no crime or criminal in Rampur. This is the most safe, secure district,” Azam says.

As for the allegations that development is only focused around Jauhar University in Rampur, he says, “Can I shift Jauhar University or other schools established in Rampur to Pakistan? This is for children here.”

In April, Azam was accused of being at the heart of the dispute involving a group of Valmikis, who threatened to convert to Islam to save their homes from demolition. The protest came as a surprise in Rampur. It was the first time in three decades that anti-Azam Khan slogans were heard in the city.

Since 2012, when the SP came to power, Rampur has seen five district magistrates. Officers talk of Azam’s sharp tongue, and the dressing-downs in public, though no complaint reaches Lucknow even unofficially.

In 2013, though, in one public protest, Azam’s secretariat staff in Lucknow refused to work under him, alleging high-handedness by the minister. The work is now managed by employees of the UP Haj Committee, which Azam heads.

Haji Kamal Akhtar, a Rampur-based lawyer who practises in the Allahabad High Court, was once friends with Azam at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). “He made breakfast for me,” Akhtar recalls. Relations later soured, and Akhtar says he paid the price. “He is not bothered about risks or his political stature. Anyone opposing him will face raids from the Power Department, or civil authorities for ‘encroachment’ etc.”

Dr Taj Mohammad Khan, Azam’s roommate at AMU, also claims to know what that feels like. “My father opposed him in one election. After that our land was acquired for a flyover. My 80-year-old father was slapped with charges of preventing government work. He died of the shock. I have approached court.”

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi refuses to comment on him, while even the scion of the once powerful Rampur Nawab family, Kazim  Ali Khan, prefers to stay outside the city to avoid confrontation.

Born to Mohammad Mumtaz Khan, Azam started out as a leader of bidi workers and rickshaw pullers. He would hone his political skills as general secretary of the AMU Students’ Union. During the Emergency, he was detained for nearly three years. Soon after, Azam joined the Janata Party. In the years since, he has won eight Assembly elections from Rampur, become a minister four times, thrice with Mulayam and once with Akhilesh, and been nominated to the Rajya Sabha once. He has lost just twice, both times to the Congress.

The series of victories and the proximity to the SP top order make Azam’s word final in Rampur. There is no second-rung leadership challenging him, and his own unpredictable nature means no one can claim proximity to him either. Cabinet minister Shahid Manzoor once visited Rampur and had tea with Lala. The word reached the CM’s ears, sending Manzoor scurrying for cover.

Azam’s winning formula is simple. Fifty-two per cent of Rampur’s population is Muslim, of which nearly 80 per cent are daily workers employed in tasks such as making beedis, chobkari work (embroidery) and as rickshaw pullers. It is they who form Azam’s steadfast vote bank.

In fact, among them stories of Azam snubbing the rich are legend. Many tell you about the time the minister came to a hospital and gave a shouting to doctors, even jailing one, for carrying on private practice. An executive officer of a local body was imprisoned for reportedly not adhering to an SP leader’s request, they say.

The people credit Azam with ensuring Rampur gets nearly round-the-clock electricity in power-starved Uttar Pradesh, and for getting it water for 13 hours daily where most of the state gets seven hours at most.

“The poor people are the silent workers of Azam. Whatever opposition is there is from upper-class Muslims, who hardly unite,” says Manzoor Ahmed Khan, the former MLA.

SP leaders, who are reluctant to talk about their powerful counterpart, also admit that Azam doesn’t need a party structure to win. Though the party itself believes it can’t do without him.

In May 2009, Azam was expelled from the party amidst the rising clout of Amar Singh and as Mulayam courted then estranged BJP leader Kalyan Singh. Amar Singh tried to corner Azam in Rampur and SP MLA from Mumbai Abu Asim Azmi was sent there to counter his influence. It was open knowledge that Azam opposed Jaya Prada, an Amar Singh protege, who was contesting for the second time from the Rampur Lok Sabha seat.

However, when none of the Muslim candidates fielded by the SP in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in the state was able to win, Mulayam reconsidered his decision. After nearly a year and a half of acrimony, Azam was reinducted in the party, with the same powers and position, while Amar Singh was ousted. It has remained thus since, though Amar has long been knocking at the door.

In 2013, Jaya Prada was even denied a room at the Modi Hotel in Rampur, where she stayed earlier. She told The Indian Express this was due to Azam’s pressure.

Manzoor Ali Khan believes Azam’s winning streak is also due to “luck”. “First he used to win on the Babri Masjid issue, then came development, followed by electricity.”

Dr Taj Mohammad Khan, the former friend of Azam, says few rivals can take him on in terms of speaking power or politically. “Take the case of Dr Tanveer who contested against Azam in the last election. He is a good person but stands nowhere compared to Azam,” he says.

Those leaders who did put up a fight have since crossed sides. Former MLA Afroz Ali Khan, who defeated Azam once, is now a close aide. Abdul Salam of the BSP has also switched loyalties to the SP, while former Rampur Nagar Palika chairman Sardar Javed Ali Khan has left for Mumbai to pursue a singing career.

“Things can change if the Nawab family takes him on, but they too avoid controversies. Right now there is no visible opposition to Azam,” says Manzoor Ali Khan.

Within the SP, his clout with Mulayam remains a matter of constant friction, including with son Akhilesh. He skipped the party’s important national executive meeting held in Agra in 2013, and has missed many Cabinet meetings despite matters of his own department being on the agenda.

When Akhilesh removed him as in-charge of Meerut district after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, Azam offered to resign from other districts he held charge of, forcing the CM to reconsider his decision. He has embarrassed Akhilesh at other times as well, keeping him waiting at official functions or not turning up for them at all.

“In our party, Netaji does not go against Azam’s wishes. We remember that during the Lok Sabha campaign, he spoke after CM Akhilesh, sometimes in breach of protocol,” a minister says.

However, as the BJP consolidates in the state and Asaduddin Owaisi makes an entrance, even Azam may be feeling the heat. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls swept by the BJP in the state, Azam’s confidant Naseer Ahmed lost to the BJP’s Nepal Singh in Rampur. Ex-MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq, who got a ticket on Azam’s recommendation, lost from Sambhal.

Recently, in a statement clearly directed at Owaisi, Azam said, “Uttar Pradesh people do not like Hyderabadi biryani.”

Manzoor Ali Khan says, “The 2012 Assembly elections were the first time Azam went door to door seeking votes.”
The SP itself didn’t do so well in the polls. While it won the Assembly elections, it only has two seats in Rampur district, Rampur City and Milak. Swar and Bilaspur were won by the Congress, and Chamrauwa by the BSP.

For the SP, Azam’s importance is larger than here. In a party that puts so much import on the Muslim vote, he is the only leader with the fiery oratory skills seen as needed to swing the community. He speaks up after every communal incident, and his speeches keep invoking the Babri Masjid. Akhilesh’s new find Javed Abedi, whom he is propping, is still finding his feet.

While he belongs to the Congress, Swar MLA Kazim Ali Khan believes the BSP may finally be gaining ground in Rampur. “I cannot predict anything, but there is resentment (against the SP). The BSP will emerge.”
SP leader Azhar Khan brushes this away. “Before every election, such claims are made. The margin of victory will be even higher (in Rampur). Azam saheb has no opposition at all here.”

AZAM DEFENDS HIMSELF

# On allegations of him striking fear among people in Rampur:

“This city was ruled by nawabs who had crossed all limits of torturing the public. Now, they are nowhere. I do not tolerate harassment of people by affluent, influential persons. I just ensure a proper running of the system here. There is no crime or criminal in Rampur. This is the most safe, secure district here
in UP.”

# On allegations of threat to life from him by former SP leader Amar Singh and BJP MLA Sangeet Singh Som:

“I have written to UP DGP Jagmohan Yadav that Som’s allegation was an attempt to defend himself as he has so much power and wealth that he can actually get me eliminated. And, Amar Singh is an influential Samajwadi. I am too small to talk about him.”

# On allegations that most of the development is happening around Jauhar University:

“Can I shift Jauhar University or other schools in Rampur to Pakistan? This is for children here. Some governors called Jauhar University ‘ISI ka adda’ and even said there was a tunnel inside it. But I do not care.”

# On his approaching the UN over the Dadri lynching:

“I have done nothing wrong. I approached the UN to register my complaint over violation of human rights in India. The PM also writes to the UN but he is never called a deshdrohi.”

# On PMO taking note of Congress leader Faisal Khan Lala’s complaint of threat to life from him:

“He is a history-sheeter, a hardcore criminal. He should be dealt with toughly. He is not even worth mentioning.”

— (by Bhupendra Pandey)