The Hidden Key

IT IS 11AM and a crowd has begun to assemble outside a cluster of Dalit homes in Mohla, a village in Narnaund Assembly constituency. The Congress candidate, Jassi Petwar, is expected to reach the village soon. Petwar’s programme is scheduled at a Dalit home in a Jat-dominated village. When he arrives, the first thing he does is touch the feet of the Dalit elders. In no time, there are loud slogans in his favour.

For anyone who has observed Indian elections, such scenes are the stuff of political campaigns. But in Narnaund, the contest has pitted Captain Abhimanyu, the Jat face of the Bharati­ya Janata Party (BJP), against a ‘local boy’ who is much liked in this part of the constituency. It is not a one-sided match, unlike many other Jat-dominated constituencies in this area. The result of this keen contest is that every section, every community of the chhattis biradari, or 36 communities, is being wooed intensively.

The Dalits of Mohla present a framed image of BR Ambedkar in a Buddhist motif to Petwar who touches the frame to his forehead. He goes on to say, “Were it not for the Constitution of Babasaheb, I would still be a ‘slave’ and not in your midst, contesting an election.” These are words that have been designed to appeal to Dalit hearts and minds. But in the din of Sarpanch Dharambir Singh’s home, there are other priorities.

Beyond the symbolic appeals lies a more complex reality in Mohla. Petwar has come to a Dalit home but the crowd that has gathered is almost entirely made up of Jats except for a handful of Dalits. Privately, Jats say that the voting intentions of Dalits are never “visible” and it is clear that few Dalits have come to Singh’s home. Singh himself does not live in the village and prefers to stay in Hisar, some 70km away.

Sanjay, a local school teacher, explains the political equations in Mohla. There are some 2,400 voters in all. He expects some 1,700 to 1,800 people to vote. Petwar is expected to get around 800 to 1,000 votes while Captain Abhimanyu is expected to garner 500 to 600 votes. There are some 300-odd Dalit votes and another 300 others—Brahmins and Other Backward Classes (OBCs)—in play in this election. It is these critical 600-odd votes that can make or mar the chances of either candidate. So are Captain Abhimanyu’s chances low as compared to those of Petwar? Sanjay says, “Look at it this way: had Captain not been there, BJP would have certainly lost; had Jassi not been there, Captain would have certainly won.” It is an interesting assessment, one that bundles caste and party preferences together in a manner that defies parsing of factors propelling support for each candidate.

These are rough and ready calculations that include local biases and probabilities within them. The reality is that Dalits are unlikely to be swayed by Congress’ appeals. But a lot depends on whom you ask the question about their voting choices. Any ‘informed’ Jat observer will say that they vote along patterns marking their sub-castes. This is a coded expression of the fact that Dalits are not wholly with the party. But if the same question is put to a Dalit, he is likely to be diffident in answering. This is obvious given the history of animosity between the two commu­nities. The fact that Selja Kumari, a key Dalit leader in Congress, was ‘sidelined’ has not escaped notice in Mohla.

“My brothers and sisters, if you can manage things until the 5th (October) evening, your son promises that he will hold your hands for the next five years,” says Petwar in a final pitch at the Dalit quarters. He tells Open that he is confident of victory for two reasons: the maltreatment of farmers at the hands of successive BJP governments and massive youth unemployment in the state.

WHEN VINESH PHOGAT filed her papers from the Julana Assembly constituency on September 11, there was a wave of support for her. Julana falls in Jind district, an area dominated by Jats but one that also has a significant presence of OBC communities like Bairagis, Chaudhurys, and others. In the heady days after her nomina­tion, these caste and community distinctions appeared to be irrelevant. The refrain being that a daughter of Haryana had been treated badly by BJP, a narrative that fed on the existing ire against the party for not appointing a Jat as chief minister. A fortnight later, however, the equations have shifted somewhat. Julana is now a crowded field of contestants, with a mix that includes a strong candidate from the underdog Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)—who defected from BJP after it refused to nominate him—a woman Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate who has her own charm and, to top it all, BJP indulging in a gamble.

A day before Phogat filed her papers, Surender Lather—an important BJP leader in Jind—quit the party and joined INLD. INLD, once a party that rotated in power with Congress and governed Haryana for long, is now a husk of its former self and has been drained of all vitality. But Lather joining INLD is not about the party giving him strength. It is about Lather being a force to reckon with in Julana and a potential spoiler. Something similar is at play with Kavita Rani, aka Kavita Dalal, a former WWE wrestler and now the AAP candidate from Julana.

Between them, Dalal and Lather have their own areas of influence in Julana. This has not waned even after Phogat became the de facto frontrunner in the election. The Dalals, a proud Jat sub-caste, wield influence in five-to-seven villages in the area. The Lathers, yet another Jat sub-caste, also have pockets of influence in different parts of the constituency. These sub-castes have their own political dynamics. “The interesting part is that Lather is more likely to damage Phogat than the BJP candidate. Any division of votes here hurts Phogat. Had Lather been the BJP candidate, these votes, the votes of his community, would have gone to Phogat. But now that he is contesting from INLD, ‘his’ votes will go to INLD,” says Pradeep Gupta, a local observer. Kavita Rani’s case is somewhat similar.

But perhaps the most surprising decision was BJP’s, which chose to pit Yogesh Kumar against Phogat. Kumar is a Bairagi, an OBC, while Phogat is a Jat. This is interesting, more so when there are two other significant Jat candidates in Julana. This does not mean that Phogat is in any way in trouble, but now she is campaigning with the kind of gusto rare for a star campaigner or star candidate, which she undoubtedly is in Julana.

Karela is a village tucked in the middle of a triangle with Baas, Jind and Julana as its vertices. Loosely, it is the geographic heart of the constituency. It is also home to a significant concentra­tion of OBCs. It is midday and people are getting back to their homes after the customary game of cards and rounds of smoking the hookah. Hameer Chaudhury, a voluble elder, describes the political situation in Julana to Open: “Look at it this way, when Phogat filed her papers, she was at 80. Today she is at 70, and I think she is heading for 60.” It is an assessment that would make a psephologist blush but it is what it is: an earthy way to express which way the wind is blowing. Phogat is, by far, the favourite candidate here but she is not beyond damage.

Narnaund and Julana are interesting contests in their own right. In many ways they are like typical Haryana constituencies where Jats are dominant. What makes them interesting is that they are at the edge of the Sonipat-Rohtak-Jhajjar belt, the heartland of Jat disaf­fection in the state. While not immune to Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s influence, there are other factors at play in these constituencies. As such, they are an interesting study in how far BJP can contain Jat ire, if at all overcome it in what is a difficult election for the party.

In Baas, a hamlet in Hisar district that falls in the Narnaund constituency, Congress activists say the two factors driving Congress’ fortunes are the farmers’ unrest and unemployment. There is some truth to the farmers’ angle: since the first agitation against the three farm reform laws passed in September 2020, there is a general sense of unease among farmers in North India. But what makes the case of Haryana farmers significant is that, after the first blockading of Delhi that lasted until the end of 2021, they have not joined hands with their counterparts from Punjab. If this was indeed a purely farmers’ issue, these agitations would have continued in Haryana as well.

What is left unsaid in these types of analyses is that there is also a caste angle layered over the farmers’ angle. Practically, all these farmers are also Jats. It is considered impolite or politically incorrect to highlight the caste angle. ‘Farmers’ is code or caste: ask anyone in the old Rohtak district and it is clear that the ire against BJP is for one simple reason—that it did not make a Jat chief minister during its 10-year stint in power in Haryana.

Something similar is at work in the case of unemployment. The reality is that during BJP’s tenure, as compared to earlier governments, appointments to government service have been largely free of corruption, political influence and—above all— caste discrimination in favour of the dominant community. For a long time, the channel of discrimination ran through the politi­cal parties. One’s chances of gaining government employment improved dramatically if one were backed by a party. BJP more or less ended the system of ‘chits’ whereby a candidate would reach the job selection centre with a recommendation from the local MLA or party bigwig. This, in many ways, is costing the party dearly. While job selections have become fair, they have also antagonised a vast section of ill-prepared youth barely capable of competing for low-level jobs, let alone sit in competitive examina­tions. Viewed dispassionately, the unemployment issue also boils down to a caste issue. All the people Open spoke with in Julana and Narnaund, who had one or the other family members in govern­ment service, said that selections in the past 10 years had been fair. Well, almost everyone, except people from the Jat community.

In many ways, Congress and BJP strategies mirror each other. Congress has waited in the wings for Jat ire to reach a tipping point; BJP, in choosing a non-Jat chief minister and wooing all other communities, hopes to keep its flock together. Each strategy boils down to slicing away bits and pieces of the other side’s support base.

Indian elections are hard to understand, let alone predict, as psephologists have learnt to their cost. All these factors are at play for polling on October 5. Congress is witnessing a groundswell of support in Jat-dominated pockets across the state but especially in the Sonipat-Rohtak-Jhajjar belt. BJP supporters are scattered across the state but concentrated in the non-Jat periphery. This is a tough battle for BJP but it is not a one-sided match.

Assembly elections 2024casteCongressfarmersHaryanaVinesh Phogat