Uttarakhand: The Hills Have Eyes

IT IS ONE of those days when fruit farmers wait for snow in the mountains of Kumaon in Uttarakhand. In the intermittent rain, temperatures dip to zero-degree Celsius around noon. Bachi Singh gets off a passenger pickup van where the road ends at Pata, a hamlet in the backwoods of Nainital district. His is the last village on the road, nestled among oaks. He is returning from Batelia, a town over an hour’s drive where he went to pick up medicines for his family. “Everyone is falling ill because of the weather,” he says.

On the horizon, Nanda Devi, omnipotent in the region, has vanished behind the clouds, leaving no visible trace of its existence. For 70-year-old Singh, who has been seeing it ever since he was a child, it goes unnoticed. It does not matter if the peak, the second highest in India, is seen or hidden. He is more worried about the road, which has been eluding the village for nearly two decades. It will cut down travel time for the villagers by about two hours. “During the fruit season, the road connectivity to Ramgarh or some other place will help us in transportation of the produce to the plains, cutting the journey short by 28 km,” says Singh, a farmer like most others in the village. On the terraced farms in the village, peach, plum, apricot and apple trees, the main source of income for the villagers, stand lopped and denuded. It is also the time for planting new fruit trees. The inhabitants of Pata and nearby villages began fruit cultivation about two decades ago when a network of rural roads was built after 2000, the year Uttarakhand was born following the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh.

As snowflakes start falling, Singh’s eyes light up. “It should snow. It is good for the fruit trees, the peas and potatoes,” he says. The fruits of development take a long time to reach Pata, in the far-flung Satbunga village which falls in the Bhimtal Assembly constituency. But Singh is happy his old-age pension has been increased from ₹ 1,200 to ₹ 1,400 per month by the Pushkar Singh Dhami government in the state about three weeks ago, just ahead of the announcement of elections in the state on February 14th. Dhami is the third chief minister to take charge of the state in the last five years, despite the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) having won 57 of the 70 seats in the 2017 state elections. Sworn in just about seven months before the election, Dhami, the state’s youngest ever chief minister at 45, was faced with the challenges of the party’s waning popularity, anti-incumbency and natural disasters. He had no time to waste. By November, within four months of being in the chair, he claimed that his government had taken over 400 decisions benefiting the common man.

Word has reached Pata that Dhami has taken quick decisions and implemented several of them. “The BJP will benefit from the Modi Government’s schemes like free rations and farmers’ pension. On the other side is Congress’ Harish Rawat. He is good but how much can he do all by himself?” asks Singh, a beneficiary of Central schemes announced in the time of Covid.

A few metres ahead inside a provision store, four youngsters are playing carrom under the warm glow of a bulb hanging from a wire. “These boys brush their teeth in the morning and come here and play. There are no jobs here. Unemployment is our major concern,” says the shop owner Kishan Singh Gaur. He estimates that in the village of around 240 houses, there may be nearly 30-40 youth who have lost their jobs and returned from cities during the pandemic, a problem that villages all over the state have witnessed post-Covid. One of the carrom players asks if there is any job for him.

The youth say that as in every election in the state, there should be change. Tara Nayal, a Class 10 graduate who had been working in Gurugram is now helping his family in the orchards, but because of the rain he decided to play carrom instead. “Nothing changes here, whoever comes to power,” he says. Nayal echoes the sentiments of most villagers. Like everyone else in the village, he too is waiting for the new road. The villagers believe it will change their lives. Gaur says it will also reduce the time to reach medical help, with the nearby Primary Health Centre (PHC) in total disarray. The last time he went there, an hour-long climb, a sweeper gave him the wrong medicine. The hurdle in the way of the road is being caused by a few farmers refusing to give up their land for it, but the villagers say if the government gives adequate compensation or promises employment, they may agree. An independent candidate from Bhimtal, Lakhan Singh Negi, a former block chief and district panchayat member of Ramgarh, who was earlier with BJP, has promised to fulfil their dream of the road. He walks from village to village, trekking through the mountainous terrain, meeting people, addressing each by name, and sends a campaign song tuned to Kumaoni folk music on their smartphones. When unprecedented rains lashed the region, leaving a trail of devastation, Negi, wearing jeans and a padded gilet, was seen trekking from his home in Nathuakhan, organising JCBs to clear the roads.

In 2017, Bhimtal had voted for an independent, Ram Singh Kaida, who joined BJP in October last year and is now the party’s candidate for the seat. Kaida had polled 18,878 votes, defeating BJP’s Govind Singh Bisht by 3,446 votes. The margin between Bisht and Congress’ Dhan Singh Bhandari was 730 votes. Kaida’s candidature has upset BJP aspirants for the Bhimtal ticket, sparking a rebellion within the party in the hill constituency. Manoj Sah, who was hoping to contest as BJP candidate from the seat, with one of the highest numbers of candidates in the fray, quit the party along with almost 300 supporters. Congress, too, had a list of about a dozen ticket-seekers from Bhimtal. In a state which has witnessed internal strife in both the major political parties, leading to defections from one to the other, candidate lists have often deepened the fissures within. BJP’s first list of 59 candidates, which favoured Congress defectors in some seats and denied tickets to 10 MLAs, has led to disgruntlement among BJP cadres.

Ganesh Singh, one of the BJP workers who quit along with Sah, admits that the resentment within could give an edge to Congress’ Dan Singh Bhandari or Negi in the seat. He, however, adds that at times voters do not even know who the candidate is and when they look at the lotus while voting, the image before them is that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “During the lockdown, rations had stopped coming from Haldwani and whatever was reaching us was being sold at much higher rates. But the Modi Government started giving free rations—50 kg of rice and 75 kg of wheat—for a household of 10 every month. It came as a huge relief,” he says.

IN DECEMBER, CHILDREN studying in Classes 10 and 12 received ₹ 12,000 in their bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to buy tablets, a scheme costing the state exchequer over ₹ 190 crore a year. This was one of the schemes announced ahead of the elections by Dhami, who is hoping to break the trend of Congress and BJP coming to power alternately in the state. The 11th chief minister in the state’s history of two decades, Dhami has raised the ambitious slogan of “Ab ki baar 60 paar (More than 60 this time)”, a figure surpassing BJP’s 2017 tally of 57 seats, which was a record victory in the state. Barring ND Tiwari, whose term lasted from 2002 to 2007, no chief minister has completed five years in Uttarakhand, where infighting in Congress and BJP has marred state politics. The first chief minister, Nityanand Swami, had to step down to make way for Bhagat Singh Koshyari, whom Dhami had incidentally served as Officer on Special Duty (OSD). After Tiwari’s full tenure, when BJP came to power in 2007, the post was shuffled between BC Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, amid rivalry and factionalism. Villagers in the hills still recall that it was Khanduri who started the 108 ambulance service, which came as a lifeboat for people who have to travel miles to reach medical help. In 2012, Congress’ Vijay Bahuguna became chief minister, but two years later Harish Rawat wrested the chair from him with the help of some MLAs. In 2016, the tables were turned and Rawat’s government was reduced to a minority when Bahuguna walked out with nine MLAs, including Harak Singh Rawat, and joined BJP. A minister in the Dhami government, Harak Singh was expelled from BJP for anti-party activities recently and rejoined Congress despite differences in the party over his return. Dhami, a Thakur and the fourth chief minister from the Kumaon region, others being from the Garhwal side, has decided to contest again from Khatima, a seat he won in 2012 and 2017. During Harish Rawat’s tenure, he was given the best MLA award for his work in Khatima, a foothill town of Udham Singh Nagar district. Congress has again put up Bhuwan Chandra Kapri, who had lost by 2,709 votes to Dhami in 2017, who had got 29,539 votes.

Besides announcing a spate of welfare schemes to regain voter confidence in his party, Dhami, who took over from Tirath Singh Rawat, chief minister for a spell of only four months, reversed certain decisions taken by his predecessors in the BJP regime. He rolled back Trivendra Singh Rawat’s proposal to bring the four shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, as well as about 45 other temples, under one board, withdrawing the 2019 Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act, in November, giving in to angry priests who feared losing their land rights. Dhami also overturned Tirath Singh’s move to turn the 60-room pahari style chief minister’s official residence into a Covid centre. Tirath Singh decided against moving into the bungalow, apparently because of a belief that chief ministers who lived there could not complete a full term. Dhami moved into the bungalow, while Tirath Singh could not complete his tenure as chief minister. After taking charge, Dhami asked all departments to prepare a roadmap for the state for the next 10 years.

“From BJP’s point of view, Dhami has done a good job as far as damage control is concerned, after a lacklustre performance of previous BJP chief ministers. In six months he reversed some unpopular decisions,” says Anoop Nautiyal, founder of Dehradun-based Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation, engaged in issues related to the development of Uttarakhand.

According to Nautiyal, it will be a close bipolar battle between Congress and BJP, with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has projected a retired colonel, Ajay Kothiyal, as its chief ministerial candidate, being on its ‘weakest wicket’ in Uttarakhand in comparison with other states where it is contesting. “The prime minister remains popular, but it’s not the same atmosphere as in 2017. The trend of alternate government formation in the state is in the psyche of the people. It’s a perception. What happens is anyone’s guess.”

BJP is banking on its “Double-engine ki sarkar” slogan, implying the effectiveness of the same party being in power in the state and at the Centre, amplified in the 2017 campaign in a Modi wave. Though caste does not play a predominant role in the state’s Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, unlike in its local body polls, caste equations have been kept in mind in BJP’s first list of 59 candidates which has 22 Thakurs, 15 Brahmins, six from the reserved category and three from the Baniya community. In BJP’s assessment, Dhami has regained lost ground for the party. Rajya Sabha member and party leader from the state, Anil Baluni, says, “The BJP government in the state did good work all through the five years. The Centre has done a lot for people and they realise that the double-engine government has helped them.”

In December, Modi held a rally in Dehradun, the state capital which falls in Garhwal, where he launched projects worth ₹ 18,000 crore, including the Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor, followed by one in Haldwani in Kumaon where he laid foundation stones of 23 projects worth over ₹ 17,500 crore. These include three different stretches of the Char Dham all-weather road which have been widened, a branch of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Udham Singh Nagar, the Suring Gad hydel project and sewage works under the Namami Gange programme in Nainital. While environmentalists have raised concerns about the impact of largescale road construction in the ecologically fragile Lesser Himalayas, political parties have steered clear of these concerns. With BJP blending in issues like Hindu shrines and temples with the development agenda, Congress is also tuning into religious politics. Before the Dhami government withdrew the Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act, Congress had promised to repeal it if it came to power in the state. The party recently launched its campaign with the slogan “Uttarakhand Swabhiman—Char Dham, Char Kaam”, with four promises—keeping the price of LPG cylinders below ₹ 500, helping five lakh families annually with ₹ 40,000, four lakh jobs over the next five years, and health facilities for every family in the state.

The same day, on its second list, the party’s tallest leader in the state, five-time MP and former Chief Minister Harish Rawat was fielded from the Ramnagar seat which another Congress leader, Ranjeet Rawat, was keen on contesting from. Harish Rawat, the 73-year-old veteran, a Kumaoni Rajput, had lost both the seats he had contested— Haridwar Rural and Kichcha—in 2017, when his party was reduced to 11 seats. Rawat is still a popular figure in the state, though some see him as a spent force. The name of Harak Singh Rawat, whose return to Congress Harish Rawat was against, has not yet figured on the party lists but his 27-year-old daughter-in-law, Anukriti Gusain, a former Miss Uttarakhand, has been given a ticket for the Lansdowne constituency in Garhwal, where she was born.

“The people of Uttarakhand want change. Congress will provide good governance and development, focusing on employment, healthcare, education, etcetera, in the state. Our slogan of char kaam includes a thousand things,” Harish Rawat tells Open.

NAUTIYAL DUBS BJP’S advantages as it’s ‘Five Ms’—manpower, in the form of cadre; muscle power, in terms of being in power at the Centre and in the state; money power; management power of running an effective election machinery; and Modi power. On the other hand, he says, Congress has in its arsenal issues like unemployment, one of the biggest concerns in a state where 50 per cent of voters are in the age group of 18-39, accusations of illegal mining against BJP leaders, inflation, developmental issues like migration, public health and education, and a resurgent Congress fighting a more original battle.

Back in Pata, where villagers are waiting for a simple road to cut short the three-hour journey to Haldwani, it’s getting colder. Anand Singh Gaur, a farmer, is just finishing his daal-chawal sitting before a sigri, an iron tray with wood cinders, in the warmth of his mud-coated kitchen adjoining his over 100-year-old house made of wood, stone and slate. Gaur is among the few in the Thakur-dominated village who have retained the architecture of the old house, with most villagers bringing down the traditional wood and slate roofs and replacing them with concrete. “Last time, the voting was one-sided. This time it may not be like that,” says Gaur who, at 60, is hoping he will soon start getting his old-age pension. He is already getting the farmer’s pension of ₹ 6,000 a year. His daughter Vinita, a Class 12 student who walks for nearly 90 minutes to reach her school in Supi, plans to take up computers at ITI if she is unable to get “good subjects” at college. Her mother Nandi looks up as she washes vessels from a pot filled with hot water to say nobody wants to do farming.

About four kilometres ahead of Pata, Bhupal Singh Bisht, a 65-year-old stone mason, sips a hot cup of tea. It was getting too cold to work with stones. Bisht, one of the few experienced stone masons left in the region, recalls the time when the state was formed and expectations and hopes ran high. Villagers had celebrated drinking the local brew gulab bought in pouches of 250 ml for ₹ 20 each and singing Kumaoni songs. “We expected roads, power, water and health facilities. It’s all there in bits, but none of these has been addressed completely in the past 21 years. We get water once or twice a week. The road contractors are corrupt, so the roads disappear with the rains and there’s nobody to say anything to them. There are government schools but the quality of education is poor. The rural health infrastructure has not improved.” He adds, however, that toilets in every home, free rations, the farmer’s pension and houses for the poor—schemes launched by the Modi Government—have helped people.

Lalit Bisht, a farmer, recalls walking for six hours from a hospital to a village in Garhwal. “The lack of health facilities is one of our biggest concerns. So many patients die on the way to hospital. It happened even during the second wave of Covid,” he says. The younger villagers say what has really changed their tough lives is the internet, making it easier to communicate and access things. Bisht and other villagers recall that before the road connected them to the rest of the state, after Uttarakhand’s formation, people ate what they grew and used a barter system. People had little cash, so they exchanged the vegetables they grew and dairy products. It was only after fruit cultivation started with the road reaching them that the villagers started earning money. Lehrik, a village on the hill across, is yet to be connected by road. The soil in the village is fertile but it takes nearly two hours to reach the nearest road. So, most villagers have migrated.

Demographics tell the political story of the state. Of the 13 districts in Uttarakhand, only four are in the plains, yet the nine hill districts—five in Garhwal and four in Kumaon—account for just 40 per cent voters going by the voting list. The migration from the hills reflects in the voting pattern of the state, with the constituencies in the hill districts recording lower voting percentage than the state’s average. “Is the voice of democracy weakening in the hills?” asks Nautiyal. According to him, data shows that in the 34 constituencies in the nine hill districts, an average 5,116 more women voted than men, an indication of the extent of migration of men from the hill constituencies.

Garhwal or Kumaon, in the battle for Uttarakhand, at times simple demands are eclipsed by big-ticket announcements and freebies. As dusk sets in and the clouds mask the mountains, the villagers move closer to the sigris, smoke escaping from every home dotting the landscape. It’s another day in paradise, but a paradise from where the cry for basic amenities is lost somewhere in the valleys below.

But they are hoping that promises will be kept. As the stone mason says, it’s not important how well a candidate fights an election but what the winner does after that.

BJPCongressElection 2022Narendra ModiPushkar Singh DhamiUttarakhand