With the election campaign plummeting to no holds barred battle in western UP, the Jat community in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts, particularly the villages affected by the 2013 communal riots, are in a dilemma whether they are first a Hindu or a Jat. Many of these farmers had actively participated in the year-long farmers’ protest at the UP-Delhi border. .
It is this farmer’s identity that has made the Jat community to think about turning away from the Bharatiya Janata Party as they were upset at the way the farmers were treated. However, now there is a `but’ in the mind of the community, particularly the elders.
According to retired police officers from the Jat community, who also served in Lucknow, the dilemma is palpable particularly in villages and surrounding areas affected by communal violence like village of Kutbi, one of the epicentres of the communal riots that tore through Muzaffarnagar in 2013, leaving around 60 dead and 50,000 displaced. Those wounds have not healed, and there is another identity, deep within, that is gnawing at him. “I am a farmer, but I am a Hindu too. There is only one party that protects Hindus and that is the BJP. I don’t know what to do,” is the common refrain.
“Everyone who was not Muslim, voted for the BJP, Jats like me included. Because the BJP was the only party that stood for Hindus then. The Samajwadi Party put Hindu boys in jail, after 2013 communal riots and the BJP freed them. I then resolved that I would vote for the BJP for the rest of my life,” said the police officer.
The electoral fate of Muzaffarnagar, and also the whole of western UP, lies somewhere in personal conflict and the eventual decision that the Jat community will take on polling day. This region sends around 140 members to the 403-strong UP assembly.
Muzaffarnagar was once a symbol of syncretism, with a 41 per cent Muslim population, a small but bustling district headquarters built around small industries, and a village economy built on farming and sugarcane. Elections reflected this mix, with the Bahujan Samaj Party winning three seats, the Samajwadi Party two, and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) one in the 2012 elections.
In September 2013 came the riots that widened the communal fault lines in west UP districts like Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Saharanpur and rural areas. The RLD had then squarely blamed the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP of fomenting the communal violence with the sole purpose of destroying the electoral bases of the Jat dominated party. Late Chaudhary Charan Singh, after coming out of Congress, had forged an alliance of the farming castes drawn from both Hindu and Muslim communities.
The BJP reaped rich political dividends in elections due to the widening of communal fault lines leading to intense polarisation. The BJP won all 10 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 parliamentary elections and repeated this performance in subsequent elections -- the 2017 UP assembly elections and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Two factors have reinforced the dilemma of the Jat community. The outreach by Union Home Minister Amit Shah towards the community and offer to RLD chief Jayant Chowdhary to join hands with the BJP and the inability of SP-RLD alliance to go far political mobilisation by organising `Kisan Mahapanchayat’ due to restrictions imposed by the Election Commission of India.
The ban of physical rallies has hurt the electoral prospects of SP-RLD. During the farmers’ agitation, the RLD’s rise to prominence was fuelled by maha panchayats which had massive gatherings attacking the BJP for being anti-farmer. Most of maha panchayats were organised by Jayant Chaudhary.