Meerut: Ajit Singh, the patriarch of the Rahstriya Lok Dal (RLD), has been a busy man these past few weeks. Around 3 pm on Wednesday, his helicopter landed near sugarcane fields in Rohta, a Jat-dominated town in western UP, where the 77-year-old is set to address a rally.
After all, he has a lot to make up for. In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, which were conducted in the aftermath of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, RLD failed to win even a single seat. Ajit Singh lost his own seat of Baghpat, a seat once represented by his father Chaudhary Charan Singh – the only Jat leader to ever hold the office of Prime Minister. The main reason for RLD’s poll debacle was that Jats, the party’s core vote base, deserted their “Chaudhary” and voted in droves for the BJP. Less than three years after the Lok Sabha polls, the political landscape of western UP is shifting and Ajit Singh, a veteran from this region, has sensed the shift.
“In 2014, BJP would not have lost the election had the Muzaffarnagar riots not broke out. They came to power on the back of broken promises and polarisation! The riots were planned and executed by the BJP. Their only job is to divide the people” he roars as his supporters break into thunderous applause.
Ajit Singh is only taking advantage of the discontent that has been brewing against the BJP for over a year now, ever since the Jat Reservation stir broke out in neighboring Haryana. Yashpal Malik, the Jat leader who spearheaded the agitation, recently organized a ‘Jat Sankalp Rally’ in Muzaffarnagar’s Kharad village and urged Jats to vote for the “strongest non-BJP candidate” in the polls.
“Last year, after the agitation, I met Prime Minister Narendra Modi who assured us that reservations would be given to Jats but the government never fulfilled its promise. They will now learn that Jats across the country stand in solidarity with each other. If they oppress Jats in Haryana, their brothers in western UP will not stay silent. Jats here will vote against the BJP en mass,” Malik told News 18.
The quota agitation, however, is only the last straw for Jats. For a community that produced not only Chief Ministers but also a Prime Minister, the political marginalization after the Charan Singh’s death has not gone down well. Sandeep Chaudhary, a Jat resident of Rohta, says, “Jats made a big mistake in 2014. We voted for a party for whom we were nothing more than a vote bank.
There is no connection with the BJP. The old ties between the leader and his people are not there with BJP leaders. When we voted for Ajit Singh and he became a Union minister in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet, at least we had some leverage at the top. Now nobody listens to us. We will support RLD this time and bring them to the position of a kingmaker. The key to Lucknow will be in the hands of Jats again. RLD alone will ensure who becomes CM.”
Gajendra Singh Neelkanth, who joined the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) after the Muzaffarnagar riots, said he came back to the RLD fold in less than four years. “I joined VHP after the Muzaffarnagar riots because I thought it was a social organization that would work for the benefit of society at large. However, as a member, I noticed that they would only talk of polarizing issues. Jats were never communal. It is because of the BJP that we are being painted as such. We are a peace-loving farming community.”
Western UP is one of the highest sugar-producing regions in the country. Over the last three years, the sugar industry had faced a serious crisis of overproduction. The supply of sugar in the market had far outstripped the demand. According to sources in the UP Sugar Mills Association, mills have only managed to pay around 63% of the arrears they owe to farmers. All this has made sugarcane farming, the Jat community’s main trade, an unviable profession. This has only added to the community’s frustrations. The Muzaffarnagar riots ruptured the relationship between Jats, traditionally land owners, and Muslims, who traditionally worked as farm hands on Jats’ land.
On the morning of September 7, 2013, people returning from a BJP Mahapanchayat were allegedly ambushed and attacked by an "armed mob". News of the "massacre" of Jauli Canal in Muzaffarnagar spread like wildfire and soon fires were raging across the strife-torn district.
Yoginder Singh, a farmer in Jauli village, used to consider himself “prosperous” before the riots. Now, he said, things aren’t so good. “The canal cuts across the centre of the village and divides the Jat and Muslim areas. Most land owners here are Jats and agricultural laborers are Muslims. Till 2013, there was no bad blood between the two communities. In fact, we were all very good friends and worked together. After the riots, everything changed,” he said.
“I own about 50 bighas of land and used to employ 5-6 boys to work on my farm but finding Muslims to work on my farm is virtually impossible. Even if I find them, I cannot scold them for not working properly since that could lead to a communal flare up. They have also started charging much more. The result is that my yield has gone down significantly and I earn much less. My son is studying in the city. I want to sell off all my land and live with him but who will buy land in such a tense area,” he asks.
Officially, the BJP says it will retain most of its support from 2014. Muzaffarnagar MP and union minister Sanjeev Balyan, a Jat himself, said, “Those who say the BJP has backstabbed a certain community are wrong. The BJP has supported Jat reservations for a long time but the issue is with the courts. The government has nothing to do with denying anybody their rights. I don’t think people will vote along caste lines this time. They will vote for development and the BJP is the only party that can assure that. They will vote for change.”
Behind closed doors, however, BJP leaders admit that its gains are slipping away. BJP president Amit Shah reportedly held a meeting with Jat leaders and presented the BJP as the community’s best bet. On the ground, too, BJP leaders have been trying to woo the community.
Vinod Jatoli, a Meerut-based Jat farmer, attended one such meeting. “BJP leaders addressed the community on Thursday. Sanjeev Balyan said that we should vote for whoever we want but stop spreading rumors that BJP is losing support among Jats. We told him that these so-called rumors are based in reality. Jats are angry with the BJP. They will not even win one seat in Meerut district. In other parts of western UP, too, they will lose big.”
According to Ajatshatru Panwar, the western UP president of the Jat Mahasabha, they will continue to campaign against the BJP. “Jat ke bina Muslim kuch nahi hai aur Muslim ke bina Jat kuch nahi hai. (Muslims here are nothing without Jats and Jats here are nothing without Muslims). Our region was prosperous because Jats and Muslims worked together and had a deep relationship. BJP ruined that relationship and that has caused irreparable damage to agriculture in western UP. They have isolated Jats from all communities. We will punish them for this.”
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