Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief and Jat leader Jayant Chaudhary’s recent tweet has got political pundits scratching their heads. He tweeted that it doesn’t really matter if you cook a biryani (meat and rice) or a khichdi (lentils and rice). If the desire is to eat rice why not go for the sweet kheer (rice pudding) instead?
It is still not clear if the biryani and khichdi comment implies efforts being made by Opposition parties to unitedly contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections? Is the kheer a comment for the ruling party? Is Jayant hinting that he sees the ruling party as a sweeter ally than the other political parties?
But how can Jayant warm up to forces responsible for disrupting the togetherness of his parliamentary constituency of mainly the farmer community of western Uttar Pradesh (UP)?
For at least half a decade Jayant has been working tirelessly to patch up the rift amongst his core voters in the Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Shamli and Baghpat districts. He is the architect of the bhaichara sammelan (brotherhood meet) in UP and stands firmly for the rights of farmers.
He has already held meetings in different parts of western UP mainly as an effort to preserve the traditional vote bank of the RLD that was shattered after the deadly communal riots that took place in Muzaffarnagar in 2013.
Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, a giant Jat leader and former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, the RLD chief continues to value its traditional vote bank of Jats and Muslim voters in UP. Harmony between the two communities was the cornerstone of Charan Singh, a legacy dear also to the present day politics of Jayant.
Tension between the Jat and Muslim communities had blown into a riot in 2013 when nearly 40,000 citizens lost homes and were forced to flee their ancestral villages in the area. By the time the Lok Sabha elections were held in 2014, the population was so polarised that the Jats had mostly voted for the ruling party and the Muslim vote was wasted, and divided between the RLD, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Today the Jat voter holds sway over a large area of the 80 Lok Sabha seats contested in UP. The Jats are influential in about 25 districts of western UP. The strength of the Jats together with Muslim voters is a formidable combination at election time and communal riots remain cruel, but a quick way to dent the unity of the local population in order to reap the harvest of the time tested policy of divide and rule.
Seeing Red
While elections are on the mind of most politicians, the people are concerned mainly over the rising price of grains and vegetables.
Tomatoes are selling at Rs 200 per kilo and more, and that is making consumers see red.
In another season when inflation had made it impossible for the poor to feed itself and before his death in 2011, poet Adam Gondvi wrote that there is a limit to rising prices of essential commodities. “Sabr ki ek hadh bhi hoti hai, tawajjo dijiye, garm rakhein kab tak naaron se dastarkhan ko?” Gondvi wondered how long was it possible to keep the table warm with sloganeering?
Gondvi was born in a poverty stricken farmer’s family in district Gonda in UP. He grew up to be a revolutionary poet who wrote in Hindi about the concerns of poor people including Dalits, and against the corruption practised by politicians.
The Precious Tomato
Since the price of tomatoes is skyrocketing to match the worth of gold and vegetable stalls are being looted by countless unemployed and angry citizens, a vendor in UP’s Varanasi district has hired muscle-men to guard his tomatoes. Ajay Fauji, the vegetable vendor, told the media that he was fed up of haggling with buyers who would often get militant at the high price of vegetables.
Tomato theft has become a rising crime in UP today as boxes full of the vegetable worth lakhs of rupees are routinely being robbed under the nose of a very puzzled police force.
The price of toor dal, cereals, cooking oil and chicken has also spiked, making it impossible for citizens to enjoy even a single wholesome meal today.
Poorest Of The Poor
Meanwhile, violence against the poorest of the poor in the state continues. In recent reports from district Sonbhadra in south-east UP, a Dalit man was forced to lick the shoes of a man, evoking a barrage of reactions from politicians.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav said the incident is shameful. Yadav wanted to know why the bulldozers in UP fall silent when incidents like this happened? Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh added that the ruling party does not consider Dalits human beings.
Singh pointed out that this is UP where a devil is making a Dalit man lick his slippers while the ruling party is spending time on the uniform civil law. The Congress described the incident as a ‘despicable act’, while the RLD accused the ruling party of repeatedly insulting Dalits.
In a complaint to the police, Rajendra Chamar, the Dalit said that he belongs to the Scheduled Castes (SC) community. He was visiting his maternal uncle last week when the electricity was disconnected.
He was trying to fix the fault when Tejbali Singh Patel, a contractual employee of the electricity department abused him with casteist remarks and forced him to lick his shoes. In a video gone viral, Patel is seen twisting the arm of Chamar, pushing him to the ground, climbing up on his chest and slapping him.
Lucknow’s Literacy House
One American citizen called Welthy Honsinger Fisher wanted to help end illiteracy in India. Fischer was the founder of a world education movement and the activist, author and feminist was a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi.
She opened the Literacy House in Lucknow in 1956 with the motto that it is better to light a lamp than to curse the darkness. Fisher had first met Gandhi in 1947 when he had requested her to serve the people in the villages in India.
The India Literacy Board now wants to set up a Literacy Museum on the same premises and has requested the state tourism department to declare the campus as a destination for literacy tourism in the hope of attracting visitors including educationists.