The Middle Kingdom

The roots of Yadav-Muslim friendship lie in a history of antagonism.

The story goes back to the reform movements in Hindu society that took wing in the last quarter of the 19th century, and the parallel rise of the Arya Samaj, led by Swami Dayanand, in the north of India. In essence, it was an effort to restore the self-confidence of Hindu society by eliminating practices that were thought to have vitiated the strength of a once powerful faith.

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The movement coincided with the rising economic well-being of what are now called the Backward Castes as agriculturists (tenant-cultivators or even independent landholders) and herders: Ahirs, Koeris, Khushwahas and, in western United ProvincesÊ and Punjab, Jats. For these castes the Arya Samaj provided a double opportunity, because they were also in search of self-esteem within a caste-ridden Hindu society.

The Arya Samaj (Aryan Society) of Swami Dayanand might be called artificial by modern secular academics, but its myth served a deep need because caste in Aryavarta was a function of merit, not birth or karma. And so the Aryas who came from 'Tibet' or 'central Asia' did not discriminate among themselves but distributed vital functions between various sections of the community. Those in charge of worship were shown the highest respect and called rishis. Those who handled administration and fought wars became kshatriyas. And those who were given the vital responsibility of providing food and milk were the vaishyas. Each function -- prayer, war, food -- was vital and therefore equal. It was only the greed and injustice of the later Brahmins and Kshatriyas that corrupted the ideal and deformed society to the point where it became defenceless.

The fourth category, of menials, consisted of those who were stupid. IQ was the justification for untouchability. This is important, because the Shudras were not included in any reform movement until Mahatma Gandhi took up their cause.

Self-esteem also needed a relationship with the divine in the sense that Thakurs linked themselves to the Sun and the Moon, and Brahmins were children of the Rishis. The Koiris claimed Kshatriya status through descent from Indra. Kurmis associated themselves with Lord Rama. For the Ahirs, the relationship with Lord Krishna was logical, for he was both a Kshatriya (in his Dwarka manifestation) and protector of cows. In the early teens of the 20th century, huge mahasabhas (that was how the word became part of the political dialectic) were held by Yadavs in Bihar in which they took an oath to wear the sacred thread as Kshatriyas, and stop doing "lowly work" for the castes higher than them. It was at this period that they dropped the appellation 'Ahir' or 'Gowala', which had become a pejorative, and took on the caste title of 'Yadav'. Great play was made of heroes in the Mahabharata who were agriculturists to challenge those who argued that the Kshatriya status could not be given to farmers.

For instance, Maharaja Janak and his queen (foster parents of Sita) were venerated as farmers, and three sons of Kush (therefore, Lord Rama's grandchildren) were said to be skilled in the noble arts of handicrafts and architecture. Resistance from Brahmins, Thakurs, and Bhumihars towards such upward mobility renewed their determination to prove that they could be as superior Hindus as anyone else.

The cowherd also became the advance infantry of a parallel conflict that served, implicitly, to reinforce the new 'Kshatriya' status. The cow-protection (gauraksha) agitations of the late 19th century were the perfect means to establish the new identity for Ahir-Yadavs. It was an idea with inbuilt reinforcements, for the cow was not only venerated as a holy mother in Hinduism, but also had economic benefits for the cowherd. The killing of a cow was therefore a double wound. Muslim butchers were the natural targets of this agitation, and the sacrificial feast of Bakrid the focal point of the calendar for tension. In 1893, Ahirs led widespread attacks on Muslim mohalla. In a subtext that still echoes in the politics of Uttar Pradesh, however faintly, Untouchables were also targeted for being the chief conduits through which butchers bought cows for slaughter. (Since leather was a source of income for Untouchables, this was logical.) The age of communal riots over Bakrid had begun. The Gowala-Yadavs of Bhojpuri-speaking eastern UP and Bihar were especially militant as the agitation steamed or stuttered through many decades. Districts like Patna, Gaya, Madhepura, and Purnea find repeated mention in the official records. The pattern of Backward-Muslim confrontation found other reasons for sustenance as politics became first shrill and then violent with the approach of Partition. Freedom did not change the pattern. The last great outpouring of communal blood in Bihar, in Bhagalpur in 1989, was a brutal one-sided war between Yadavs and Muslims.

The first politician to identify the benefits of an alliance between the devotees of Allah and Lord Krishna was not a Yadav but a politician who has been much maligned in the English press for his weakness and rarely recognised for his strengths, Chaudhry Charan Singh -- an ardent Arya Samaji, by the way, in his personal beliefs, so he knew where he was coming from. Chaudhry Charan Singh never understood power, but by God he understood politics! Others before him, particularly the Lohia Socialists, had advocated a Backward Caste-Muslim alliance as the answer to the Congress, but the Chaudhry (with active assistance from a forgotten man of the province, Dr. Faridi, during the Assembly elections of 1974) was the first person to achieve it, in his little patch of the state, western UP. His son Ajit Singh is still reaping the benefits, which in turn indicates its intrinsic strength.

You have to remember the ferocity of the 1989 Bhagalpur riots to appreciate what Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Yadav have achieved in UP and Bihar. The change did not come about merely because they wished it to happen. They took a stand, and delivered in moments of crisis. The turning point in UP was when Mulayam protected the Babri mosque against karsevaks when he was chief minister and V.P. Singh was Prime Minister. Laloo won the affection of Muslims when he stopped L.K. Advani's rathyatra. But this by itself would have been insufficient. The alliance is far more than electoral arithmetic. It works in daily life, because Yadavs are now the protectors of minorities in the villages of the north. They are often accused of not giving jobs to Muslims; but before you need a job, you need a life.

The irony of course is that they could have been far bigger than the sum of the parts if they had worked together, because the Middle Kingdom in their grasp can become the central fact of a national coalition. Their mutual antagonism, for personal rather than political reasons, has prevented this from happening.

It is fascinating that an icon of urban, industrial India, Anil Ambani, has chosen to enter politics through the secular space of this rural Middle Kingdom. The younger son of Dhirubhai Ambani, an authentic genius who deserves more posthumous honour than he has been given, could have become a Member of Parliament on the ticket of either of the two national parties, BJP and Congress. He describes himself as an independent, but his close friend Amar Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav's number two, is effectively managing his Rajya Sabha election.

Now add Amitabh Bachchan and his family to this combination. Amitabh is as close as India has to an international icon, and Jaya Bachchan is the official candidate of Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party to the Rajya Sabha. At one level of course the personal friendship between Anil, Amitabh, and Amar has brought the three of them to one place. But that is not reason enough. All three are old enough, and mature enough, to know that sentiment has a respectable but only a marginal place in politics. There has to be a much better reason to bring Anil Ambani and Jaya Bachchan to Mulayam Singh Yadav's Lucknow. There is.

The politics of the future has begun.

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.