Uttar Pradesh: Will Kalyan Singh’s controversial legacy help BJP retain power?

Legacy Image Courtesy:hindustantimes.com

Kalyan Singh, the 89-year-old former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who hailed from Aligarh, has left behind a legacy that will be adequately used by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming elections. The first big indicator came soon after Singh’s demise last week, when the UP Deputy CM KP Maurya announced that major roads in Ayodhya, Lucknow, Prayagraj, Etah, Bulandshahr and Aligarh will be named after him. Singh was hailed as a “Ram Bhakt” who “gave up power for Ram Mandir but did not fire on the kar sevaks”

राम भक्त स्वर्गीय #kalyansinghji बाबू जी के नाम लोक निर्माण विभाग अयोध्या अलीगढ़,एटा,बुलंदशहर प्रयागराज में एक एक मार्ग के नाम होगा
बाबु जी ने राम मंदिर के लिए सत्ता छोड़ दी परंतु कारसेवकों पर गोली नहीं चलाई !!
अधिकारियों को जल्द प्रस्ताव प्रस्तुत करने के निर्देश !!
— Keshav Prasad Maurya (@kpmaurya1) August 23, 2021

It was expected of the BJP, especially the Uttar Pradesh unit to hail their leader, who was UP’s chief minister when the Babri Mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992. Singh, along with BJP veterans LK Advani and M M Joshi, Singh was among the 32 people acquitted in the demolition case in September 2020.

Controversy over condolences

Now a fresh controversy has erupted, involving vastly different people. Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav who chose to stay away from attending the public condolence to Kalyan Singh when his body was kept at his Mall Avenue residence in Lucknow on August 22. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President JP Nadda were in attendance leading the party in paying final respects to their departed leader. According to news reports no one from the SP turned up at Singh’s residence, including former CMs Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh yadav.

BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh raised the issue accursing Akhilesh Yadav of deliberately staying away, asking, “Was it the love of Muslim votes that stopped him from paying his last respects to the tallest leader of the backward community?” The Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya added that Akhilesh “had lost the moral right to speak for the backward community by not paying last respects to Kalyan Singh,” stated news reports. However, the SP said that Yadav had condoled Singh’s death and had issued a statement. But that is how politics plays out, in life and death.

However, a bigger controversy has errupted on the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) campus where posters, reportedly ‘signed’ by “Students of Aligarh Muslim University” have come up and condemned Tariq Mansoor the Aligarh Muslim University Vice-Chancellor for condoling former chief minister Kalyan Singh. According to news report, the posters, reported NDTV, and other news media, were displayed on the AMU campus state, “Praying for a criminal is an unforgiving crime” and accuse the VC that his words of condolence on Singh’s demise “are not only a matter of shame but also hurt the religious sentiments of our community.”

The poster reportedly alleged, “Kalyan Singh is not only the main culprit in the demolition of Babri Masjid but also an offender for not obeying the Supreme Court’s order” adding,

“The VC’s condolence has brought disgrace to the entire AMU fraternity, its traditions and the Aligarh Movement that believe in justice and fairness. We strongly condemn our VC for his shameful act.”

Talibani thinking, says UP minister

Soon, the Uttar Pradesh government reportedly warned of strict action against people they accused of having “Talibani thinking” and according to news reports a probe has been initiated. The BJP’s minister Mohsin Raza, UP’s minister of state for minority welfare, Muslim Waqf and Haj, condemned the posters on the AMU campus saying the V-C was acting according to “our culture” adding that putting up such posters was an attempt to spoil the atmosphere, “If some persons of Talibani ”soch” are there, we will also treat them accordingly,” he stold the media. According to reports, the matter will be probed and strict action will be taken so that it will set an example for others, said the minister adding, “This is a university of Hindustan. The Taliban is not here. This is an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere.”

What is Kalyan Singh’s legacy?

A must read to understand what Kalyan Singh’s legacy was and how it evolved over time is this analysis titled: Newsrooms, Living Rooms and Class Rooms: Evolution of the Ayodhya Narrative by Teesta Setalvad. It shows how, over time, “a corrosive refashioning of India took place in our personal and social spaces.”

These excerpts from Communalism Combat and SabrangIndia archives which report the observations of the Justice Liberhan Commission, that probed the sequence of events that led to the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. It observed that the chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, “Kalyan Singh, his ministers and his handpicked bureaucrats created man-made and cataclysmic circumstances which could result in no consequences other than the demolition of the disputed structure and broadened the cleavage between the two religious communities, resulting in massacres all over the country. They denuded the state of every legal, moral and statutory restraint and wilfully enabled and facilitated the wanton destruction and the ensuing anarchy.”

Nearly two decades later, on September 30, 2020, a special CBI court in Lucknow acquitted all the accused in the criminal conspiracy case surrounding the demolition of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Special CBI judge SK Yadav delivered the judgment that ran into over 2,000 pages and held that there was no criminal conspiracy behind the demolition. The court further held that the demolition wasn’t planned and that the accused persons were trying to stop the mob, and not inciting violence. The court further said that it could not probe the authenticity of the audio and video evidence provided by the CBI. It said that those who climbed the dome were anti-social elements. The 32 accused included political heavyweights such as Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Sakshi Maharaj, Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar among others. Three key accused; VHP’s Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore and Vishnu Hari Dalmia had died before the verdict.

Hindutva’s large–scale takeover of educational institutions

In 1999 SabrangIndia had analysed, “Hindutva’s large–scale takeover of educational institutions”. The report titled Right in action showed how this was then a “little–known but major achievement of the Kalyan Singh government in U.P.” In September 1998, the Kalyan Singh government introduced a unique policy initiative in the area of state education called the “kulp yojana”. This was a compulsory initiative to link every single state– run school in the state to the RSS shakha. The brainchild of the UP state education minister, Narendra Kumar Singh Gaur, this scheme was made compulsory for all primary schools in the state. It was, according to the government circular, aimed at the “moral and physical development of the child.” Through it, schools have been directed, especially in rural areas, to involve the RSS pracharak in ‘naitik shiksha’ (moral education), SabrangIndia had then reported. “The aim of the scheme is to orient all state–run schools in UP along the lines of the RSS–run Saraswati Shishu and Bal Vidya mandirs. While announcing the scheme in Uttar Pradesh, the minister said that kulp was being introduced to “enhance the qualitative standard of education” in schools and to ensure that “teachers are an intermediary between school, family and society”.