As the car glides across, one can witness the sheer diversity that is India. Farms bursting with the hue of green as a good monsoon promises a great harvest. Tractors and sometimes bullock carts compete with glitzy cars and fume spewing “local” buses on paved roads. As one gets close to the village Bisada, the female voice on the Google maps App that gives you directions seems to falter and stutter. It's almost as if this digital entity seems wary of the fault lines that tease and torment you as an observer of maladies and uncertainties of Indian democracy.
The campaign for assembly elections to Uttar Pradesh due in early 2017 has begun in earnest and Bisada village in Dadri, adjacent to better known Noida and barely 50 kilometers from Delhi seems to give a sneak preview of the bitter, divisive and obnoxious campaign that looms. Thakurs in Bisada, the dominant community, are convinced that the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government will stoop to any level to preserve its Muslim “vote bank”. The handful of Muslim families in Bisada prefer silence that is eloquent in its own way.
Four parties are vying to win UP. The two strong contenders are Akhilesh Yadav-led SP and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party. Both have de facto ruled the state for the last 15 years. The Congress is trying to generate a miracle after being reduced to a bit player since 1989. And the BJP seeks to regain lost glory, having lost the state to two powerful regional satraps.
In late September, 2015, as Narendra Modi, Party President Amit Shah and the BJP were busy countering the electoral might of a JD (U)-RJD-Congress alliance, Bisada village earned global notoriety. Mohammed Akhlaque, a 55- year-old resident of Bisada was lynched by a mob right in front of his house. His crime: there were rumours that he had slaughtered a calf and his family members then cooked and ate the “beef”. The mob seemed to have materialized soon after a loudspeaker pronouncement from the local temple ignited the frenzy. Akhlaque was literally beaten to death in front of his family members and his son too suffered head injuries during the assault. As outrage spread like wildfire, 18 people were arrested by Uttar Pradesh police and the slow, grinding, frustrating and delay ridden case is moving on in the courts.
Many of the arrested carry the surname Rana and they seem to be the most vocal in this tragedy. Sanjay Rana, a close relative of some of the arrested is indignant at the unfair and step motherly treatment meted out to them by the Akhliesh Yadav government. He thunders that many of the arrested were never part of the mob. He also angrily points out how “forensic” tests have revealed that the meat found in the house of Akhlaque was actually beef. In June, 2016, Bisada faced a communal calamity as families of the arrested demanded that the family members of Akhlaque be arrested and tried for cow slaughter. Mercifully, violence was avoided after a local court ordered cops to register an FIR against family members of Akhlaque. But the violence is still simmering beneath. One of the many vocal Ranas says: “ Look at how a mother and her daughter were gang raped by Muslims. Akhilesh Yadab gives crores to family members of Aklhaq and even fancy flats. What about the poor mother and her daughter. Is being Hindu their crime?”
Recently, a family travelling on a highway was waylaid and robbed by habitual criminals. A 35 year old woman and her 15 year old daughter were gang raped in front of their family members. Most of the accused have been arrested. But in Bisada, there is constant talk of how Hindus will now have to fight to survive. Some of the young bristle with anger and say how Hindus will soon become a minority in western Uttar Pradesh and face Sharia law. Says Gaurav Rana:” In just 10 years, we will become a minority”. Armed with a smart phone, he says he has read “serious academic” articles on this. In sharp contrast to this anger, the Muslims of Bisada seem resigned to their fate as “collateral damage” of the 2017 assembly elections. Says a young Muslim who doesn't want to be identified: “I feel fear. I am afraid these politicians will provoke more anger. I don't think Akhilesh Yadav or Azam Khan are really interested in our safety. They just want my vote. But what can I do?”
Four hours or so spent in a village will never give you a real idea of what will happen in the 2017 assembly elections in UP. Not too far away from Bisada are factories that churn out mobile handsets, generators and other symbols of Make in India via manufacturing. About 30 kilometers away is a new mall in Noida that is causing so many traffic jams that commuters are getting fed up. This author doesn't claim to have any insider inputs on what the BJP and the SP are planning for the forthcoming elections. Nor did he get any clear answer about the prospects of Mayawati coming back to power (her supporters simply do not talk openly).
But a visit to Bisada does reveal a thing. Factories and farms coexist almost cheek by jowl. Smart phones are no longer tools of aspiration. Modernity struggles to break out of old feudal certitudes. And of course. There is a fear of communal polarization. There is anger. And there is fear.
