Mulayam Singh Yadav’s politics of secularism, socialism and social justice remains relevant today

A seminal feature of Yadav’s career was that it paralleled and shaped UP politics. He shrewdly deployed three ideologies-cum-strategies — socialism, backward caste mobilisation and social justice for the underprivileged. During his college days, he was influenced by Ram Manohar Lohia’s socialism, an ideology he espoused throughout his life. He first became an MLA in UP in 1967 on a Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP) ticket.

A second major influence was the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s which led to the ascendancy of the backward classes. Yadav joined Charan Singh’s BKD/LD, winning from Etawah’s Jaswantnagar constituency in 1974 and 1977. He emerged as an OBC stalwart and was amongst those who occupied the space vacated by the Congress as part of the V P Singh-led Janata Dal. He became the UP Chief Minister in 1989. During his regime, the police opened fire on kar sevaks who had gathered in Ayodhya on October 30, 1989. Faced with criticism, Yadav justified his action as necessary to protect the integrity of the country. This political stance drew the ire of the BJP which described the UP CM as “Mullah Mulayam,” but it helped him to form a Muslim-Yadav support base that proved useful when he formed his own party — the Samajwadi Party (SP) — in 1992.

A third decisive step that profoundly impacted UP politics was his decision to join hands with Kanshi Ram, founder of the BSP, to attempt a “bahujan samaj” or an alliance for social justice for the lower castes. This was also an attempt  to “contain” the BJP. Politically, this was a correct strategy as the confrontation between the forces of Hindutva and the backward castes and Dalits had sharpened, creating communal tension and leading to the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. In the 1993 assembly elections, the SP won 106 seats, the BSP 66, while the BJP tally fell to 177 from the 221 it won in 1991. Yadav contested from three seats — Shikohabad, Jaswantanagar and Nidhaulikalam — and won all of them. Unfortunately, the SP–BSP coalition lasted only from November 1993 to June 1995. The infamous June 2, 1995 Meerabai guest house incident, following the BSP’s withdrawal from the coalition, created bad blood and lasting enmity between the SP and BSP. During Yadav’s third stint as CM in 2003, after the BSP-BJP coalition fell apart, he was influenced by Amar Singh who introduced him to the corporate world — this attracted criticism that UP was being “corporatised”.

An analysis of Yadav’s legacy points to his central role in UP and his considerable success in building a strong backward-castes’ party, but also the limitations and disappointments of his politics. In the early 1990s, when both the Mandal and the Ram Mandir projects were initiated, the BJP, after the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and losing the assembly election in 1993 to the SP-BSP combine, went into decline in UP. However, despite efforts throughout the decade, Yadav could not weld the backwards into a homogeneous, cohesive political community. Political change was rapid in UP, leading to the break up of the backward caste bloc by the end of the decade and the emergence of a post-Mandal phase in state politics. Class-based changes due to education, urbanisation, rise in regional newspapers, and satellite TV sharpened the already existing divisions — such as rural/urban, poor/affluent — among the backwards. Mandal and Kamandal divided the BCs and upper caste Hindus, as Yadav mobilised a section of the backwards and the Muslims against the BJP. Consequently, he lost the Hindu upper caste support, which led to a consolidation of the Hindu vote behind the BJP.

During his three stints as CM, Yadav introduced several welfare schemes for the empowerment of backwards and poor Muslims, including increasing OBC reservation from 15 per cent to 27 per cent based on the basis of Mandal Commission recommendations. However, he also indulged in “competitive populism”, providing largesse to the SP’s core constituency in order to consolidate it and capture power. This firmed up the perception of the SP as a Muslim-Yadav party.

Consequently, despite the strong organisation that Yadav built, the BJP under Narendra Modi has been able to defeat and marginalise the SP. In the 2012 polls, when the SP under Akhilesh Yadav won a majority, the party succeeded, to an extent, in widening its base by gaining support from across castes and Muslims. But from 2014 onwards, the BJP has succeeded in gaining the support of large sections of the non-Yadav OBCs by using a heightened communal agenda combined with generous welfarism. The recent 2022 assembly election witnessed a challenge to Hindutva by the forces of Mandal, as the SP succeeded in gaining the support of a section of the aspirational, numerically smaller OBCs who were unhappy with the BJP. But this did not help the SP since a large section of the electorate feared the return of Yadav-Muslim dominance. Also, the SP polled only a fourth of the Hindu vote, while gaining over three-fourths of the Muslim vote. This led to counter-mobilisation and consolidation of Hindu votes behind the BJP.

Clearly, UP politics has undergone a profound change. Yadav’s politics of secularism, socialism and social justice for lower castes and minorities remains highly relevant. However, right-wing Hindutva politics, combined with promises of development, projected by the Yogi Adityanath government, has succeeded in obtaining the support of lower OBCs. It remains to be seen if Akhilesh Yadav can broaden the base of the SP, revive (Mulayam Singh) Yadav’s ideological legacy, and meet the challenge of right-wing hegemony.

The writer is former professor, JNU