Revelations In Jatland

MOHLA IS A village at the edge of Hisar Lok Sabha constituency. The village is sandwiched between the Sonipat, Rohtak and Hisar parliamentary constituencies. As one enters the vil­lage, one can see a tractor ploughing an empty field. The wheat crop has been harvested and the farmer on the tractor is doing something else. But one thing is noticeable: at the front of his tractor is a large flag with Congress’ hand in the middle of it. This farmer’s political affinities require no elaboration.

Hisar is witnessing an interesting contest in which three members of the Chautala clan—one of the powerful political families of the state—are pitted against each other. The fourth key contender is Jai Parkash, or JP, a Congress veteran. On one side is Naina Singh Chautala, the mother of former Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Singh Chautala. Another contend­er is Sunaina Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and, finally, Ranjit Singh who is contesting on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. The Chautalas hail from Sirsa district but are fighting from Hisar. Sirsa is a reserved constituency. The constituency polls on May 25 in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls.

At his home, Sunil Luhach, one of the panches of Mohla, explains the political situ­ation to Open. The village has some 2,200 voters. Fifty per cent of those voters are Jats while the rest are Dalits, Dhanaks (weav­ers) and Brahmins. This time, the Jats have made up their mind to vote against the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and BJP and in favour of the Congress candidate Jai Parkash. JP is a three-time MP from Hisar and was an MLA from Kalayat constituency from 2014 to 2019.

“There is anger against Dushyant Chautala and JJP. The man­date given to him in 2019 was not to align with BJP. But he did that. Now he has resigned from the government but no one believes his actions. This looks like a ‘fixed match’,” he says.

What about Ranjit Singh, the BJP candidate? Here, Luhach nar­rates an interesting story: “Ranjit was in this belt around May 6. His original plan was to visit Puthi and Sisar, two nearby villages. He was shown black flags at Puthi and was not allowed to enter Sisar. On his return he decided to visit Mohla. While there were no protests on his visit here, he did not attract a large crowd as the timing of his visit was not convenient.”

On the face of it, Jat ire against BJP and JJP, the ruling parties of Haryana, seems gener­alised and vocal to the point that it seems detrimental to their fortunes. But scratch the surface and you see wheels within wheels. An­other notable in Mohla gives a different spin to the story. “The effort now is to ensure that the Jat vote does not get splintered. But that is easier said than done.” Mohla, like most villages in North India, is faction-ridden and Jat factional­ism—in Punjab and Haryana—is infamous for its feuds. Then there is another “complication” he says: “Jats don’t make any bones about their political choices. Look around you and you will see flags of Congress. But this puts off ‘others’—Brahmins and Dalits—and there is no way of knowing what choices they will make. They simply go to the polling booth and press the button. They don’t discuss anything with us (Jats).”

It is in the interplay of these forces and countervailing forces that BJP and other parties have a chance and Congress’ chances could get spoiled. Unlike an Assembly constituency where one dominant caste or a swing in key villages and townships can make or break a party’s chances, different forces even out in a parliamentary constituency. Hisar has nine Assembly segments. Mohla falls in the Narnaund Assembly segment on the eastern edge of the district. This belt (running north to south) from Ucha­na, Narnaund and Hansi segments is dominated by Jats. But on the western side, especially in the Adampur Assembly segment, castes such as Bishnois have a large presence. Then there are pock­ets with a large Dalit presence as well.

In Hisar city, Shakti Singh Lather, a farmer-cum-businessman who is also an observer of local politics tells Open, “There are ef­forts to consolidate the Jat vote behind a ‘winning candidate’ and that person is thought to be Congress’ JP. But the fact of the matter is BJP’s winning margin was huge last time (in 2019). It is hard to turn that advantage into an outright loss. In spite of the voices against BJP, chances are that the party will scrape through but with greatly reduced margins.”

Barely 13 kilometres from Mohla lies Julana, a market town with a large grain market where farmers from nearby districts gather to sell their produce. Julana lies in Jind district but falls in the Sonipat parliamentary constituency. There are two other As­sembly segments of the district—Jind and Safidon—that also fall in the Sonipat Lok Sabha constituency. Much like Hisar, Sonipat, too, has its mix of political attitudes. In recent days, the BJP can­didate Mohan Lal Badoli has faced black flags in villages he has toured. But in Julana, the political situation is somewhat different.

Pradip Kumar is an arhtia (grain commission agent) in the Julana mandi. He tells Open that protests are now a regular feature of the political landscape in Haryana. “The kisan andolan (farm­ers’ agitation) has had a lingering effect here and these farmers unions have been active in persuading farmers to vote against BJP. Par Punjab mein aur Haryana mein zameen asmaan ka antar hai (There is a world of difference between Punjab and Haryana). Our unions are relatively weak and their staying power is low.” He adds that a lot of work has been done in Sonipat constituency and that has been “noted” by farmers here.

“Dalits, OBCs and other non-Jat castes are in favour of Narendra Modi. They will vote for him.” By Kumar’s estimate, 10-20 per cent of the Jats in Julana are against BJP and that is due to the lingering effect of the farmers’ agitation. “But it is not true that all Jats are against BJP. A part of the anti-Modi sentiment is due to the ‘herd effect’ created by (Bhupinder Singh) Hooda. Ninety per cent of Dalits, Brahmins, Dhanuks and other castes will go with Modi. There is a 50-50 split in the trading community,” Kumar adds. While these numbers ought to be taken with a pinch of salt, they give a sense of the ‘direction’ prevailing in Julana.

In Rohtak, Congress has an edge of sorts. Last time, the Con­gress candidate—Deepender Hooda—lost by a narrow margin of 7,503 votes to his BJP rival Arvind Sharma. This time a ‘wind’ or sorts is blowing in favour of Hooda who is contesting again on the Congress ticket. Hooda is the son of former Chief Min­ister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the family is influential in Rohtak. Hooda Sr’s constituency—Kiloi—lies to the northwest of Rohtak town. Their village, Sanghi, lies nearby. This is the ‘Hooda belt’ where the influence of the clan is the strongest. On the other side of Rohtak, to the south and southwest, their influence wanes.

This time, however, things are changing. At Maroudi vil­lage in Kalanaur Assembly segment, an area not quite a Hooda stronghold, too, is witnessing a wave in his favour. Ajmer ‘Fauji’, an ex-serviceman, who is an activist for Dushyant Chautala’s JJP, says he is having a tough time convincing people in his vil­lage to fall behind JJP. “It is difficult. Even if people shy away from openly opposing my party, I know they are going to vote for Deepender (Hooda),” he says. The same situation prevails on the other side of the district, in the Meham Assembly seg­ment. Open spoke to a number of people; some of them openly spoke in favour of Hooda and others, while not being categori­cal about their choices, did not find anything favourable to say about other parties like BJP and JJP.

BJP HAS BEEN in power in Haryana for a decade now. In Lok Sabha, the party has similarly dominated the scene in the state since 2014. In 2014, it won seven of the 10 par­liamentary constituencies and in 2019 it won all 10. The interplay between the state and national dynamics is interesting—as the party has gone from strength to strength in Lok Sabha, its hold in the Assembly has weakened over time. In 2014 it won 47 of the 90 seats in the Assembly, forming a government on its own, something considered unthinkable at one time. In 2019, its tally came down to 40, necessitating a coalition with JJP that had 10 seats. JJP, seen as a successor to INLD, had nowhere else to go. While Congress managed to increase its tally to 31 seats (up from 15 in 2014), it was inconceivable that Dushyant Singh Chautala would go anywhere close to Congress for that would be the very antithesis of regional Jat politics in Haryana.

That tie-up was smooth until the farmers’ protests erupted in 2020. At that point, Chautala’s base wanted him to quit the alli­ance with BJP and go on his own, something he did not do until very recently, on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls and just months away from the Assembly election due later this year. That ‘timing miscalculation’ has now led to charges of a ‘fixed match’ between him and BJP, a claim that has been vented regularly by Congress in this part of Haryana. That has created problems for JJP. It is interesting to note that people rank JJP and BJP very differently. In Mohla, for example, when asked about how people differenti­ated between BJP and JJP, Sunil Luhach said the anger was much greater at JJP. “(Ranjit Singh) Chautala is only standing for the first time as an MP. But Dushyant knows the ground situation. That is why he is facing protests,” he said.

BJP is in a different situation. Through the thick-and-thin of Haryana’s ‘rough’ politics, the party has not given in to doing caste politics. Some would say that it would have been easier for the party to rule the state had it appointed a member of the dominant caste as chief minister. But that would have ended up eroding any difference between BJP and other, regional, formations that do caste politics overtly. The 2016 riots in the state were in no small measure due to the ire against a non-Jat chief minister at the helm of the state. These facts are discounted by ‘analysts’ of Haryana’s politics but they are obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with what goes on in the state.

What will determine outcomes this time is not very differ­ent from what did so in the past—the relative distribution of Jat versus non-Jat votes and rural versus urban votes. What is different is the overt antipathy of Jats towards JJP and BJP. Con­gress hopes to somehow ‘bridge’ these differences and ensure that Jats vote ‘strategically’.

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