It can even be termed ‘a run-of-the-mill riot’. Marriage party revellers in Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh clash with participants of a Moharram procession over a trifle. One of them gets killed, some vehicles are burnt, some shops torched. Curfew is clamped. This riot too could have been passed off as one of the innumerable communal skirmishes that the state is witness to. What gives importance to the Gorakhpur riot is the fact that it took place against the background of a prospective and crucial assembly election.This also explains why the retaliatory attacks by both communities lasted for no longer than a day. There was a second phase of violence — bigger and more widespread — which was over the arrest of Mahant Yogi Adityanath, the powerful BJP MP from Gorakhpur, who had called for a bandh in eastern UP, demanding the arrest of those “responsible for the killing of a youth in the presence of policemen”.Yogi Adityanath was arrested to ensure that he and his brigade didn’t vitiate the atmosphere by making incendiary statements. Ironically the arrest stoked the violence. In a display of quick action, the Mulayam Singh government suspended the entire district administration and police team. It may not have helped control the violence, but the purpose was served.In the hurly-burly of Uttar Pradesh politics, it doesn’t surprise anyone if the politics of an avowed secularist and that of a confirmed communalist feed on each other. The commonly accepted logic in UP is that a communal divide in the eastern province, whose centre is Gorakhpur, directly helps the BJP. This also, indirectly, goes in favour of the Samajwadi Party, because it helps polarise the Muslim vote across the state. The hardening of the divide also undermines Mayawati’s base. Half of the Bahujan Samaj Party’s 37 seats in the state assembly came from this region in 2002.But things this time are far more complicated. Mulayam Singh’s calculation that the BJP’s upsurge may help him may not quite work. For one, the Muslim vote is no longer in auto mode. In Gorakhpur and eastern UP, the riots after Yogi’s arrest have angered local Muslims, who perceive it as an incident that helped the BJP. The BJP, for its part, is making the most of it, and the BSP and Congress are shouting themselves hoarse about an “unholy SP-BJP nexus”.Before Gorakhpur, there was the madrassa rape case in Allahabad. The general allegation is that those involved are supporters of the local Samajwadi Party MP, mafiosi-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed. Political parties are also making the most of the image of Mulayam Singh Yadav taking a dip in Allahabad during the Ardh Kumbh, and point out that he had avoided paying a visit to the madrassa, although the incident had occurred a day or two earlier.The feeling of disenchantment among UP’s Muslims has already manifested itself in the formation of various political fronts, like the People’s Democratic Front and United Democratic Front. V.P. Singh’s Jan Morcha has also held successful rallies in Muslim-dominated areas. While none of these parties will bag many seats in the elections, they could prove their nuisance value for the SP.But Muslims in UP remain confused in the absence of a viable alternative to the SP. The Congress may have made inroads in quite a few Muslim-dominated areas in the state, going by the recent polls to urban bodies. But, thanks to its Delhi-centric structure, the party lacks the ability and pace to take on the SP frontally. Mayawati senses an opportunity in the post-Gorakhpur riot mood. She is desperately trying to woo the Muslims and was the first leader of her stature to reach the Allahabad madrassa. She also made a special reference to Gorakhpur in her recent press conference. Whether she will be able to reap the benefits of Muslim disillusionment with Mulayam Singh Yadav is yet to be seen, but the faux pas she committed after the local elections of describing Muslims as fundamentalists has certainly adversely affected her image in the community. In any case she has always been viewed by Muslims with suspicion for her coalitional arrangements with the BJP.The fact that both Mulayam and Mayawati have lost a lot of Muslim goodwill will benefit only one party. It is the BJP — which stands to gain the most from both the allegations of misrule (including the horror of Nithari) by the Samajwadi Party and the present churning among the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh.
