From Lucknow to Lutyens: The Power and Plight of Uttar Pradesh

Dedicated to my mother, Rama Bajpai

Contents

Preface

1. The Political Change Agenda

2. The Caste Crunch

3. The Growth and Growth of Caste

4. Collapse of the Congress

5. The Caste-based Criminal Gangs of UP

6. The Polarization Plank

7. The Bastions

8. BJP Is Ram Bharose

9. The Switchers

10. The Agrarian Crisis

Conclusion

Notes

References

Appendix

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Book

About the Author

Copyright

Preface

Why I Wrote This Book

Why did I want to write this book? It was a question that constantly came to mind as I worked on it. The answer, of course, is deep and complex, and several aspects of it bothered me deeply for many years. That I was from Uttar Pradesh, born in Banaras (Kashi or Varanasi) and brought up in Lucknow, and that I had put behind me a good number of years at work and had grown personally, were good enough reasons for me to look at India’s most politically powerful state, one that has supplied the biggest names and most prominent prime ministers in Indian politics. And that, despite UP’s central importance in the Indian scheme of things, in post-Independence India it was still an underdeveloped state, far, far from realizing its full potential for impactful and inclusive socio-political and economic growth. This was puzzling and made me curious about exploring its modern history.

The deep awareness that I am from Uttar Pradesh actually began when I was living outside of it, in one of the most energetic and enigmatic of Indian cities, Mumbai. The journey of this book in fact begins from Mumbai. I had of course never imagined that one day I would land up in this intriguing and charismatic city. But in 2003, I found myself working in Mumbai, setting up part of NDTV India’s operations there.

The initial reason that got me to Mumbai was very painful and very personal. I was working in Delhi at the time but had to keep visiting Mumbai to attend to a family matter. Over time, my visits to the city became more frequent, and I was meeting many more people there. Several of those friendships continue to date.

I met a range of people for various reasons, but the focus remained my family problems and responsibilities. Still, I was subconsciously absorbing the city and its energies. Its atmosphere, its chaos, its traffic and of course the fact that it literally does not sleep at night, which was for me something I had never encountered anywhere in India, all grew on me. Soon I was going to actually live and work in the city—which was in itself the experience of a lifetime.

But the most interesting and alluring thing I encountered in Mumbai during this tough time was the city’s spoken Hindi, the Mumbai Hindi. Later, as I extensively travelled in the state of Maharashtra, I figured that the ‘Mumbaiya’ Hindi was not only fascinating but unique, as this Hindi was not spoken anywhere else in the state. It was fascinating in many ways because, as popularized by Bollywood, it could be both affectionate and rude as and when it needed to be. It is easily among the most unique flavours of Hindi that can be found anywhere outside the Hindi heartland where I come from, having taken its own routes and means of expression.

Having grown up in Lucknow under the influence of a Hindi and Sanskrit scholar-writer for a mother and many gurus and ustads during my training in the tabla, I was fairly equipped with spoken Hindustani, with the right amalgamation and balance of Hindi and Urdu—a ‘zabaan’ spoken in Lukhnauaa style. From there, the transition to Mumbaiya Hindi via Delhi’s Punjabi Hindi influence was extremely fascinating for me. At the very outset it was clear to me that my adaptability in terms of language would not be exceptionally high. Rather, I would always struggle to get the fluency and pauses at the right junctures when I attempted to speak these other dialects. And it was exactly so. But I simply loved who I was and was very proud of my roots.

Seen through the prism of Mumbai city and society, I was a ‘Bhaiya’. This is what hit me hard first during my early days of struggle in the city. Sometimes the word would be thrown at you in a blunt and derogatory manner. And this for me was the turning point of what I like to call ‘thinking UP’—thinking about UP, where I come from, as my reference point. Many individuals from my state had made noble and laudable contributions to Mumbai city and had achieved great heights in their fields; and the cosmopolitan city of Mumbai had accepted and embraced them in totality. Yet, for scores of people from my state who constituted part of the workforce in the city, eking out their livelihood by means of labour and other blue-collar jobs, deep discomfort and rejection were their lot. My understanding of this pain and conflict was becoming more acute with every visit to the city.

Soon came the turning point in my professional life. NDTV was planning to send some of its key faces to set up its Mumbai operations and the launch was set for April 2003. The office was now well aware that I was, for personal reasons, a regular visitor to the city. There was a big investigative story that my team was already working on, to be broadcast at the launch of the NDTV English and Hindi channels. It happened that an outstanding reporter, Sanjay Singh, in my team had broken the Telgi scam, involving corruption at the highest levels in the police; this fake stamp paper racket shook the entire police hierarchy of Maharashtra at that time. For me, the coverage of this scam entailed many interesting and fascinating stories, but that’s for another time.

To come back to ‘thinking UP’, something that had already begun to churn in my mind, one of the first few functions I was invited to speak at was a ‘Me Mumbaikar (I’m a Mumbaikar, in Marathi)’ campaign of the Shiv Sena. It was organized by Sanjay Nirupam, a politician originally from Bihar but a Shiv Sainik who had also held an editorial position in the Sena’s mouthpiece Saamna. (He later moved on from the Shiv Sena to the Congress.) I had barely been a few days in the city in my new avatar at work when a campaign against north Indians swept Mumbai. The north Indians in the city, who constituted an enormous workforce consisting of autorickshaw and taxi drivers and workers in many other capacities, were being accused of taking away opportunities from Maharashtrians. As I was new in the city, at the function I said on a lighter note, ‘I have just moved from the north and I should immediately pack my bags and go back because in all probability I am taking away someone’s job opportunity!’ But I did get the sense that this anti-north Indian movement would become a larger issue and not just remain the subject of a seminar.

And it did reach violent proportions and was rightly and widely condemned all over the country, including in Parliament. It was Raj Thackeray who gave it a violent turn, with his men targeting taxi drivers who were from UP and Bihar. And this made for a very ugly tear in the cosmopolitan fabric of Mumbai. The issue was debated across the country. Politicians from UP and Bihar were angry and vocal about what was happening in Mumbai. It was against the basic Indian democratic ethos, which acknowledges that every Indian has the right to live and find work for himself and his family in any part of the country. There could not be any socio-political objections to that, surely.

Though the arguments of the Sena (and later the more violent Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, MNS, which was formed by Raj Thackeray in 2006) were completely unjustified, they did raise many questions in my mind, sending me back to ‘thinking UP’. The Maharahstrian politicians held that the city was bursting at the seams with people from outside the state and what it needed from outside were ‘skilled people’. So, the divide being created was clearly between ‘skilled’ and ‘non-skilled’; they did not want non-skilled manpower from outside the state. But the reality was that the Sena and MNS had very strong labour unions in the city. So, the state’s own people constituted the strongest workforce.

What was also conveniently overlooked, naturally for political reasons, was that there was also very significant intra-state immigration to Mumbai. Those coming from different parts of Maharashtra to look for work in the city, as also those from any other part of the country, were not to be questioned. In the meantime, several north Indian organizations also sprang up but did not make any significant impact. During this time, I spoke to my reporters, who understood the nuances of the migrant issue better than me, and asked them to work on a series of reports to debate the migrant issue properly and to bring out the basic character of the inclusivity of Mumbai. The result of these discussions was ‘Mumbai Kiski’, a series on the success stories of ‘outsiders’ in the city, and my own show ‘Mumbai Central’, both of which did very well for the channel.

During all these happenings and activities, one root question continued to bother me about my own state: why does India’s most politically powerful state, Uttar Pradesh, remain so underdeveloped? For people from all strata of society in UP, after India’s economic liberalization which began in 1991, opportunities to earn a better livelihood lay outside their state. This way they could at least send back money to their homes in UP. And one such key centre of employment and opportunity was Mumbai.

While writing this book, as I dealt with the caste and communal politics of UP laced with horror stories of crime and politics, I could see how they threw light on the troublesome issues of Mumbai too. But, though the problems of UP may have had a bearing on matters in Mumbai, the reactions they engendered in the metropolis, of attacking and abusing north Indians, are not acceptable and cannot be justified in any manner.

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the abrupt announcement of the first lockdown brought in the most disturbing pictures of migrant labourers leaving their cities of work and walking back thousands of kilometres to reach their homes in UP and elsewhere, unsure as to whether they could survive in places like Mumbai with no job and no clue as to when work would resume. This led to discussions in the Yogi Adityanath government of UP about conducting a skill-mapping exercise in the state. To me it brought back memories of the anti-north-Indian wave in Mumbai. Around me I could see so many migrants in the city with multiple skills—the reason for the exercise that the UP government was planning had been there right in front of my eyes even in 2003.

The plight of humanity across India during the pandemic made me think: if those who ran the government in Uttar Pradesh had thought of skill mapping and creation of reasonable employment within the state thirty or forty years ago, surely the issue of migrants in Mumbai would have been very different. There would have been much better social respect and recognition for the ‘Bhaiya’.

A few years later, work made me return to Delhi. But once you have been in Mumbai, it remains in you, growing in your heart. It is still there with me and will always be there with me. So, naturally, I stayed in contact with Mumbai always.

In the meantime, the migrant issue kept simmering and soon came a flashpoint, not providing a pretty picture of Mumbai to the rest of the country. On 3 February 2008, there were attacks on people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar when clashes between Raj Thackeray’s MNS and the Samajwadi Party (SP) of UP turned violent at Dadar in Mumbai. It was alleged that the clashes began when MNS workers tried to attack their counterparts in the Samajwadi Party who were proceeding to attend a rally. Raj Thackeray, nephew of the Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, had become a central figure in this anti-north-Indian movement. Raj had left the Shiv Sena and formed his own party, the MNS, after Uddhav Thackeray—Bal Thackeray’s son, who eventually became the chief minister of Maharashtra in 2019—was chosen to lead the Sena. Raj’s style of public speaking was similar to Bal Thackeray’s. In defending his party, Raj had then said that the attacks were a reaction to the provocative and unnecessary show of strength and uncontrolled political and cultural dadagiri (bullying) by immigrants from UP and Bihar and their leaders in Mumbai.

Raj was clearly trying to occupy all the space in politics on this issue and even went on target Amitabh Bachchan as a UP-ite who had achieved everything in Mumbai and Bollywood but only talked about UP. This, in fact, did not go down well even with his own uncle Bal Thackeray, who was a well-known friend of Amitabh Bachchan’s. And Bachchan too used to often mention in public that Bal Thackeray was his friend and guide. MNS workers also targeted the Chhat Puja celebration by Biharis in the city; Raj’s statements were now clearly hurting the sentiments of north Indians. In 2003, I had attended a Chhat Puja function organized by Sanjay Nirupam at Juhu beach. There was a massive turnout, and surely no politician worth his salt should criticize any such expression of faith.

Criticized for taking little action during these episodes, the state government, consisting of the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), arrested both Raj Thackeray and Abu Azmi of the SP on 13 February 2008, on charges of instigating violence and causing communal disturbance. Although both were released, with a gag order against making inflammatory remarks that could cause communal disturbance, the tension in the city was palpable. And this tension sent its tremors through the Hindi heartland, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. The chief minister at the time in UP was Mayawati.

But the issue was far from over. The news that Raj Thackeray was going to be arrested angered his supporters. North Indians and their properties became the targets of their ire. Reports of attacks on north Indians by MNS workers started pouring in not only from Mumbai but also from Pune, Amravati, Beed and Nashik. The big point I wish to bring attention to is that this resulted in nearly 25,000 north Indian workers fleeing Pune and another 15,000 leaving Nashik. The final impact of this flight of migrants was on business, the exodus leading to acute worker shortage, which affected local industries badly. Analysts then pegged the financial losses of those few weeks at Rs 500–700 crore. This was an indication to me of the wealth generation the migrants were capable of and could have generated in their own state, given the right opportunities there.

As I detail in this book later, under the impact of its politics, there were many parameters of holistic socio-economic development on which UP had failed to impress. And many other states had grown much faster than UP on several fronts.

What further followed in Mumbai was very vulgar and created an uproar all across India. After a few months of lull, on 19 October 2008, MNS workers beat up north Indian candidates appearing for the All-India Railway Recruitment Board entrance exams in Mumbai. Then, an incident happened which shook everyone. On 28 October that year, a labourer from Uttar Pradesh was lynched in a Mumbai local commuter train. This was anti-migrant politics at its worst. In 1966 too, when Bal Thackeray had formed the Shiv Sena, it was centred on the sentiment of ‘sons of the soil’, or opportunities only for the ‘Marathi manoos’.

The city-centric anti-migrant issue was a national one now. At the Centre, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was under huge pressure, especially from its allies, to dismiss the Congress–NCP government in the state. There was a phase when appeals for cancellation of trains to Maharashtra reached the Centre and Lalu Prasad Yadav, then railway minister, threatened to cancel trains to those regions in the state where railway passengers and property had been targeted.

There was bound to be pressure on the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh, and of course on the Maratha strongman of the NCP, Sharad Pawar himself. Naturally, leaders like Mayawati were very vocal. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil came in for massive flak during a discussion in Parliament for his use of the phrase ‘bullet for bullet’ in response to the killing of a Bihari youth in a Mumbai bus. In the furious exchange of words, a very important point was made: well over 40 per cent of the workforce in Mumbai consisted of those who were not born Maharashtrian. It was pointed out that they had contributed in a big way to the economy of the city through their hard work and labour.