Opinion National Interest: Akhilesh,young and listless

This isn’t only about the last several days of riots in Muzaffarnagar. Although the fact that the army has had to be called out in Uttar Pradesh to control communal riots after 21 years (the Babri demolition,1992,was the last time),is a giant black mark on the report card of any secular government. This isn’t even about the earlier,so incredibly idiotic and self-defeating,suspension of a still rookie IAS officer for the “crime” of demolishing a wall at an unauthorised place of prayer in the month of Ramzan. Nor is it about continuing electricity failure,inability to build new infrastructure,the rehabilitation of the same old liquor-and-real estate empire even after its master and commander Ponty Chadha’s death. So what is it that we are complaining about?

It is the change in our biggest state’s political discourse. Taking it back by 21 years is a bigger calamity than the return of the army to control riots in as many years. Earlier this week,Samajwadi Party leaders mocked Akhilesh’s government by saying,don’t give us laptops,give us security. Do we understand the significance of that? The shift backwards in time from laptop to skull cap?

Read this along with Akhilesh’s embarrassingly mindless act of turning out in a Muslim skull cap at the peak of the riots. It was politically and symbolically even worse than Narendra Modi refusing to wear a similar cap presented by a Muslim clergyman. Let me try to explain why.

First of all,when riots are raging,involving two communities,you can’t make a public display of which side you are on. That would be as violative of rajdharma as Modi’s performance during the 2002 riots. Second,this indicates a kind of frivolous,trivialising,OB-van directed approach to what is,after all,your first big political and administrative challenge. Third,in any communal riot,no matter what the score (and surely Muslims have suffered much more in Muzaffarnagar),there are innocent victims on both sides. If a ruler tries to finesse this,between them and us,mine and theirs,he needs to get his head — and heart — examined.

Modi has an arguable defence that he doesn’t believe in “hollow” symbolism,that he detests minorityism,etc,etc. He,at least,has that argument,though I would contest it. In a diverse democracy,symbolisms are also important,and you have to reach out to the minorities,to reassure them that you won’t allow any majoritarian excess. This is not appeasement politics. Or Vajpayee would not have been holding iftars. But then Narendra Modi never claimed to be particularly a friend or protector of Muslims to begin with.

But we are complaining about something even more serious. The changing of Uttar Pradesh’s Muslims’ political discourse from the laptop to the skull cap. From aspiration back to fear and grievance. That is a big step back in time and history. It negates India’s greatest secular success of the past two decades.

This has come just at a time when more and more Muslims were feeling reassured enough to ask their leaders for something more than mere physical survival. In Uttar Pradesh in particular,Mayawati had now given them five perfectly peaceful years. The state’s Muslims,therefore,among the poorest Indians anywhere,had begun to move towards the social and economic mainstream. This applies particularly to western Uttar Pradesh,where Muslims have,by and large,seen themselves as equal to fellow Jats and have enjoyed an excellent relationship with them through the centuries. They have been serving in the army and rivalling the Jats in agricultural yields. They happily and confidently drive their motorcycles into neighbouring Delhi,nonchalant in their traditional loose pyjamas,seeing no need to hide their identity,or to “merge”. Over the past few years,in fact,you have seen a new phenomenon: of young Muslims,mostly riding motorcycles,in raucous — and peaceful — groups,burning the rubber on Delhi’s main avenues late at night to celebrate Shab-e-barat. They wear skull caps for sure,but they are aspiring for the laptop-carrying middle-class status. Akhilesh may have reversed some of this mood now.

Are we being too tough on young Akhilesh? After all,his father has never given him any space. His uncles,by DNA as well as ideology and politics,have mocked and sabotaged him. It’s a bit like if Rahul Gandhi became prime minister tomorrow and Sonia headed another NAC to keep him on “the straight and narrow” and if his cabinet committee on political affairs included five of his uncles.

There is some merit in them but these can’t be mitigating factors when you have been elected — and not just by your traditional voters — to govern. This is not just the fastest decline in an elected leader’s fortune,it also threatens the very basis of any liberal,genuinely secular politics in the run-up to 2014. That is why analysts like me,who

saw so much hope in Akhilesh and his new SP,should be feeling stupid.

sg@expressindia.com