Farmers first or Hindus first? Jats in Muzaffarnagar face an odd dilemma

Muzaffarnagar: Fifty-four-year-old Dharam Pal Singh is sitting on his haunches, smoking a beedi, and lost in thought. Beneath him is a dirt track, and in front of him, are his fields of sugarcane. These are fields that have been central to his identity as a farmer, as a Jat, all his life. It is these fields that made him leave home for several months last year and join the teeming protests against the three farm laws at Delhi’s Tikri border. It is this identity that has made him think about turning away from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), angry at the way the farmers were treated. In his mind, however, there is a but. Dharam Pal Singh’s fields are just outside his village of Kutbi, one of the epicentres of the communal riots that tore through Muzaffarnagar in 2013, leaving around 60 dead, and displaced at least 50,000. Those wounds have not healed, and there is another identity, deep within, that is gnawing at him. “I am a farmer, but I am a Hindu too. There is only one party that protect Hindus and that is the BJP. I don’t know what to do.”

Somewhere in personal conflict, and the eventual decision that Singh will take on polling day, lies the electoral fate of Muzaffarnagar, and perhaps all of western Uttar Pradesh, a region that sends around 140 representatives to the 403-strong state assembly.

Muzaffarnagar was once a symbol of syncretism, with a 41% Muslim population, a small but bustling district headquarters built around small industries, and a village economy built on farming and sugarcane. Elections reflected this mix, with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) winning 3 seats, the Samajwadi Party (SP) 2, and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) 1 in the 2012 elections.

Then came the riots that cleaved West UP, the district of Muzaffarnagar, and its villages apart. The atmosphere became deeply polarised, and successfully pushing the narrative that the riots were somehow a consequence of the Samajwadi Party being in power, the BJP won all 10 parliamentary seats in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and the 2017 assembly elections if votes are aggregated to the level of parliamentary seats, and won seven of 10 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In Muzaffarnagar itself, the BJP won the Lok Sabha seat in both 2014 and 2019, and of the six assembly segments, it won all six in the 2014 assembly elections.

“Everyone that was not Muslim, voted for the BJP, Jats like me included. Because they were the only party that stood for Hindus then. The SP put Hindu boys in jail, and the BJP freed them (most riot cases in Muzaffarnagar have fallen apart). I then resolved that I would vote for the BJP for the rest of my life,” Singh said.

So Singh was stunned when the Union government, led by a party he had so grown to admire, refused to back down for so long on the three farm laws he sees as “evil”, despite the protests. “They called us Khalistani, Pakistani, attacked us, set up spikes around us, and worst of all refused to listen.” The laws were repealed in December, but the scars remain. “They still haven’t said anything about MSP (minimum support prices). The people that backed us were our old party, the RLD, and Ajit Singh’s son, Jayant. So even when I came back a month ago, I had decided that I would vote for them,” Singh said.

But now, he is not so sure.

In Fugana village, which was also at the epicentre of the violence, another group of Jat farmers is similarly divided. There are nine farmers, sitting on a white sheet cut out of a gunny bag, playing cards. Eight of nine voted for the BJP in 2017, one staying loyal to Choudhary Ajit Singh’s RLD. Come 2022, five say they will vote for the “nalka”(the RLD’s election symbol is a handpump), while four say they will vote for the “kamal”(the BJP’s lotus). Even some weeks ago, there was unanimity that they would all vote against the BJP. But Son Singh says that as time has passed, he come closer and closer to forgiveness. “Modi took the laws back. He abused us, but he eventually listened. I want to vote against them, but that will mean the SP comes to power, and the Muslims become powerful again. Under Yogi (Adityanath, the state’s CM), they have all been contained,” he said.

What seems to have hurt the RLD-SP combine is the ban on physical rallies by the Election Commission for the past two weeks. During the farm agitation, the RLD’s rise to prominence was fuelled by mahapanchayats which had massive gathering attacking the BJP on being anti-farmer, most helmed by Jayant Choudhary. In their absence, with the BJP’s social media outreach much higher, Son Singh has watched video upon video of a supporter of Nahid Hasan, jailed under the Gangster Act but fighting the elections from Kairana on an SP ticket in the neighbouring district of Shamli, allegedly threatening Jats. He has watched television channels flash home minister Amit Shah’s comments to Jats in a meeting on Wednesday that their relationship was deep, and that they had fought the “Mughals” together.

Half a kilometre away, Shoaib Khan has the television switched on in the courtyard of his home, and is watching constant reruns of these comments too. There are problems in the alliance’s ticket distribution he says, and that despite a 41% share of population, not a single Muslim has been given a ticket in the district. But in this election, like in the last, choice is but an illusion. “Whenever the elections come around, the BJP start picking old wounds like this. Of the dead in the riots, most were Muslims. It was my family among so many other Muslim families that stayed in relief camps, and only mustered the courage to come home two years later. But it is as if they are the only victims, and we were the assailants. In this atmosphere, Muslims can only vote for the alliance, and hope some Jats find it in their hearts to vote for them too,” Khan said.

Beyond these narratives though, there are other reasons for both the BJP and the opposition to worry. There is local anger against incumbent MLAs of the BJP that is proving difficult to remove, one local BJP leader said. The BSP and Congress, both once influential, are missing in action. The alliance is facing a challenge penetrating the non-Yadav OBC’s base, still firmly behind the BJP, and allegations that while there are five RLD nominees among the six seats, four of these candidates are actually from the Samajwadi party, has caused anger within RLD ranks.

The election arithmetic in Muzaffarnagar is tight too. Even if the BJP won all six, four victories were with margins of less than 15,000 votes, meaning it may not need an en masse movement of votes to turn the political tables, and even small shifts will matter. As a desperate BJP tries to move the lens away from the farm laws, and the alliance attempts to bring the focus back to them, there are 10 days to go before campaigning ends in Muzaffarnagar.

Ten days for Dharam Pal Singh, still staring out into his sugarcane fields, to decide if one identity supersedes the other.

Or if they can coexist.