One of the most remarkable political success stories this May has been Haryana where BJP scored what is called in Gymnastics parlance as a perfect 10, winning all the seats at stake, defying not only conventional political wisdom but also breaking the narrative of “dominant caste” like never before.
Distrusted by a large section of the socially dominant Jat community, BJP assiduously wooed the non-Jats and built a caste algorithm which pitted the Jats versus the Non-Jats and obviously in such a scenario, the party’s narrative got a resounding electoral approval. The new caste arithmetic in the state was perhaps similar to the rainbow coalition of Non-Jats built by Congress leader Bhajan Lal in the late 1970s and 1980s but with a success rate which is unparalleled in Haryana’s electoral history.
Securing a 58 per cent vote share as compared to its nearest rival Congress at 28 per cent was in itself a clear indicator of the dominance of BJP in urban as well as rural areas of the state. The main opposition Indian National Lok Dal has been practically decimated after the JJP walked out of it as it managed just 2 per cent of the vote share, losing its political relevance in the state. The Jan Nayak Janata Party (JJP), the breakaway faction of the INLD managed 9 per cent votes and the political equations clearly suggest that this party led by jailed Ajay Chautala and his sons would be the successor to the legacy of Chaudhary Devi Lal and not Abhay Chautala, his brother who has the blessings of family patriarch OP Chautala, also in jail.
Like every state, there is macro as well as micro factors to explain BJP’s striking success story. The victory of BJP, at least in Haryana, cannot be seen in terms of the narratives of muscular nationalism or an undercurrent of communal polarization which may be the case in some parts of the country. Muslims are electorally not significant in the state for polarization to take place and the angle was not even explored given its limited appeal. Muscular nationalism, of course played a role post Balakot strike but that was the macro factor. But more than anything else, it was caste polarization taking place at the grassroots, at the micro level, which immensely helped the cause of BJP in completely decimating the opposition to smithereens.
What could explain the fact that in eight of the 10 seats, the margin of victory for the BJP was more than three lakhs. The margin extended up to six lakh in Faridabad and Karnal, amongst the highest in the country. Only in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-Deepinder Singh Hooda family bastion of Rohtak did Congress put up a fight and in Sonipat where the victory margin was less than two lakhs. Just compare the figures of 2014 when the BJP got 34.8 per cent of the votes and one realizes the magnitude of its success in 2019.
The seeds of the massive BJP victory in 2019 and caste polarization were sown in the aftermath of the violent Jat protest seeking reservation in February 2016. Rohtak, Sonipat and some other Jat dominated areas burned for days as the law enforcement agencies abandoned them and retreated for over a week. In fact, the house of a Haryana minister, Capt Abhimanyu too was not spared in Rohtak by the violent mob.
Since then, BJP assiduously made it a point to remind the non-Jat voters that it was Congress leaders and to some extent those from INLD who had terrorized them through these violent incidents. The business establishments of the non-Jats bore the brunt of the agitation and they easily bought the narrative that the dominant community was against them and unless they protect themselves politically, such incidents would be repeated. This narrative that the Jats or the dominant community are against other castes and are out to protect their dominance by seeking reservation, spread in no time in all parts of the state simply because of the violence.
BJP projected itself as the protectors of the interests of all non-Jat communities in a big way at the local level, both in urban and rural areas. No wonder, almost every election since the violent Jat protests has seen BJP gaining ground in hitherto unchartered territories—elections for local bodies, municipal areas and bye-election to the Assembly. In January this year, the new political equations in Haryana became evident in Jind Assembly by-poll in which a little known non-Jat BJP candidate Krishna Middha defeated two prominent Jat heavyweights—Randeep Singh Surjewala of Congress and Digvijay Chautala of the JJP and gave the first clear electoral hint of the outcome in May 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Clearly, the 2016 violent protest of the Jats acted as a catalyst in the formation of a new caste alliance and arithmetic in Haryana which is state specific and unique to the state. The non-Jats perhaps thought that in the backdrop of violence, their interest lies protected in the BJP regime alone which has a Punjabi as chief minister in Manohar Lal Khattar. Local level BJP workers all across the state built this narrative that the political clout of the Jats can come down only in a BJP regime and not with Congress or the regional family owned parties led by Jats—INLD and JJP.
Of course, this narrative being played out in Haryana is entirely different from the one in Jat dominated western UP where BJP dominated the political discourse for a different reason. In fact, Jats voted overwhelmingly in western UP and Rajasthan for BJP but for entirely different set of factors. In any case, electoral history of the last half a century has shown that Jats in neighbouring western UP vote differently on different issues than that from Haryana. This time, they voted on similar lines—for the BJP—but the reasons are of course entirely different.
This is not to say that the Jats did not vote for BJP. Of course, they did. BJP could never have got 58 per cent of the votes polled if they hadn’t. But this was largely those living in urban areas and drawing their strength from new age economy and not agriculture. For this section of Jats, caste based politics, rooted in rural areas, has little or no value in this age or era. The division of votes of the Jat community between Congress and the JJP-INLD too played a major role in the victory of the saffron party as even the fence sitters within the community decided to go for the dominant BJP-Modi-muscular nationalism-national security narrative.
In the context of Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that chemistry was more important than arithmetic, suggesting how the SP-BSP alliance in India’s largest state came crashing down. But in Haryana, caste arithmetic played out differently. Jats constitute around 26 per cent of the population and the BJP simply decided to woo the remaining 74 per cent in the backdrop of violent reservation agitation and it hit the jackpot. The more rural Jats hate BJP, the more it will endear itself to the Non-Jat communities, the fault lines suggested in 2019.
Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in Haryana in four months from now, in October this year and the Opposition parties are in for a long haul. Political equations and arithmetic in the state has changed for all times to come. Regional parties have been decimated and Congress is still smarting from the humiliating defeat and has to go back to the drawing board to devise some strategy of sorts to counter the social narrative of the BJP. It still hasn’t got a clue how to move ahead—whether to go with wooing the Jat community or spread themselves amongst other castes and groups through a network of local community leaders.
Till the time, Congress comes out with a political discourse of any substance; it seems to be BJP all the way if it continues with the present narrative, clearly a winning one.