Aditya Sinha: Currency & communalisation in UP

There is much noise and several unreliable surveys to tell us that people are happy with demonetisation even though a visit to a local branch will show you the dark side of civic community File picPrime Minister Narendra Modi is believed to have told the two Muslims in his council of ministers not to campaign in UP for the state assembly election due by April 2017 It is obviously a highstake election for Modi and BJP president Amit Shah In 2014 they took 73 two came with an ally of the statersquos 80 parliamentary seats They want to seize control in the state government because winning a second term in 2019 depends on UP delivering a sizable chunk of seats Ground reports are varied the BJP looks strongest in eastern UP and weakest in western UP where Jats are angry over the heavy hand with which their reservations protest in Haryana was handledAnother momentary BJP weakness is the lack of a clear chief ministerial candidate Current expectation is that Mayawati is a strong contender Dalits are solidly behind her after the BJPrsquos selfgoals in Gujarat where antiDalit violence led to widespread protest and at Hyderabad Central University where student Rohith Vemula killed himself Additionally Muslims will vote surgically and in her favour because she has the best chance of beating the BJP helped along by the ruling Samajwadi Partyrsquos palace intrigueAdded to the mix is the November 8 demonetisation of highvalue currency notes that has disrupted life due to its poor implementation 17 amendments to rules in 17 days Even diehard Modi supporters among NRIs say theyrsquove heard of lsquotransitional chaosrsquo back home Experts analysts and politicians all seem to accept it as conventional wisdom that the rural voters are harder hit than urban Indians besides the fact that early parts of every supply chain is almost wholly in cash the mere fact that banks have according to the Reserve Bank of Indiarsquos own statistics double the number of customers per rural branch than urban branch shows the more intense pain in the countryside mdash even if they are consuming less cashThis is pertinent to UP because Indiarsquos largest state is not just among the poorest but also least developed It has little industrial development which is why the politics of political patronage for contracts and jobs is so deeply entrenched there Not just in its murky politics cash is integral to almost every aspect of life So while some folks in the tierII and tierIII towns may be switching to mobile wallets in response to Modirsquos call for a ldquocashless societyrdquo they are just drops in the vast Gangetic bucketThere is talk that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts launched to broaden the banking base have been used to launder money To meet targets bankers had opened accounts with Re 1 or Rs 2 in them UP has the highest number of account holders at 379 crore since demonetisation Rs 6425213 crore has been deposited in these accounts according to what the government told Parliament on Friday Per account that comes to about Rs 17000 some think this is a bribe that will hand the election to the BJP More likely is that the unreturned old currency will be transferred as a dividend to government and then deposited in these accounts mdash enough to assuage rural votersThat is in the future Thus Modi has told his Muslim ministers to stay clear of the UP election This is a clear indication of what kind of campaign Amit Shah intends to conduct a communally polarising one It paid dividends for the BJP in 2014 a year after the riots in Muzaffarnagar Obviously the party feels this is the most effective way of overcoming Mayawatirsquos looming electoral advantages going into the campaignTo this end there has been much talk in Delhirsquos power circles over the past couple of months that the surgical strike on the other side of the Line of Control LoC in Kashmir at the end of September that India carried out in retaliation for the terrorist attack on the army camp in Uri in JampK would be repeated just before the UP election This is not a tall order the situation at the LoC has continually deteriorated with soldiers and civilians coming under the other sidersquos unrelenting attack But it is all just a slightly warmedup version of the lowlevel hostility that serves the governmentrsquos purpose without the military retaliation getting out of handIt is difficult to say how much this will influence the state election even if it polarises voters One there is much noise and several unreliable surveys to tell us that people are happy with demonetisation even though a visit to a local branch will show you the dark side of civic community and two many voters would have already made up their mind That will have no deterrent effect on the strongmanrsquos showmanship so ready yourselves for more zerobalance disruptive governanceSenior journalist Aditya Sinha is a contributor to the recently published anthology House Spirit Drinking in India He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom