While a considerable body of literature exists on Prime Ministers of India, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, not much attention has been paid to the chief ministers (CMs) of the Indian states, who occupy an important position in our federal structure consisting of as many as 28 states. The Indian Express’s Shyam Lal Yadav’s meticulously researched documentation of the 21 CMs of UP, based on memoirs, newspaper accounts, official documents and interviews is, therefore, interesting and timely.
The book throws light on many significant and fascinating characteristics that have shaped UP’s politics. Almost all CMs till the late 1980s had taken part in the freedom struggle and were long standing members of the Congress party, the first few selected, in fact, by Mahatma Gandhi. Well educated, most were lawyers by profession. In keeping with the conservative character of UP society, until Ram Naresh Yadav, who was CM between 1977 and 1979, all were from the upper castes; some like Sampurnanand managed to combine “socialism” with Hindu revivalism and cultural nationalism. As early as 1963, UP had a women CM, Sucheta Kriplani, and later, Mayawati in 1995, both of whom made seminal contributions. Kriplani had participated in the Quit India movement, was the founder of the All India Mahila Congress; and was known for her strictness, straightforwardness and simplicity. Mayawati, the first Dalit woman to become CM, held the office four times, took the Dalit movement begun by Kanshi Ram forward, providing Dalits with self-respect, dignity and empowerment.
Two features determined the working of the CMs and the state’s politics from the beginning, though their role underwent change: Caste and communalism. In the immediate post-Independence period, the lower castes occupied a patron-client relationship with the upper caste leadership. Charan Singh, a Jat leader became CM in 1967, but from the 1990s, with the rise of Backward Castes and Dalit movements and parties supporting them, the state has had Backward and Dalit CMs, such as Kalyan Singh, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh. Communal riots have been a feature since Independence, but since the 1990s, the role of the ruling party in fostering and controlling them, has changed. Good examples are the role of governments during the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. Corruption was an issue from the beginning, and used by factions and central leaders to oust CMs.
However, the single most important feature that has shaped UP politics is that beginning with Govind Ballabh Pant (1952-54), no CM has completed a full term, until Mayawati in 2007-2012. During Congress dominance till 1989, most CMs enjoyed power for a little over two years, often reappointed in multiple tenures. Factional intrigues to capture the CM’s chair, constant interference by the Congress High Command, which did not encourage strong CMs, expecting them to follow their dictates, and changing them at will, particularly during the Indira Gandhi period, were responsible for this. Intense factionalism is visible even in the 1950s, a good example being the clashes between Sampurnanand, CB Gupta and Kamlapati Tripathi, based on allegations of corruption and poor governance. In the period between February 1969 and March 1974, UP saw five CMs, some of whom became CM twice (CB Gupta, Charan Singh, TN Singh, Kamlapati Tripathi and HN Bahuguna) and two brief stints of President’s rule. The last Congress CM, ND Tiwari, was appointed CM four times by the High Command, but served less than four years.
This feature continued in the 1990s under BSP, SP and BJP governments. Following Congress decline, entanglement of UP with national politics and identity-based politics — Mandal and Kamandal — contributed to short-lived governments. Between 1996 and 2002, there were two stints of President’s rule and four CMs — all with the exception of Mayawati — appointed and removed by the BJP central leadership (Mayawati, Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh). This period also witnessed intense struggle among BJP’s younger generation leaders, from the upper and backward castes, to occupy the CM chair. The rise of Narendra Modi, and the victory of the BJP in the 2017 and the 2022 UP assembly elections, brought stability and a “double engine sarkar”. But, Yogi Adityanath’s tenures have been marked by police encounters on the mafia, “bulldozer politics” as an extrajudicial tool and power statement against alleged criminals and rioters, and Hindutva policies such as banning cow-slaughter, inter-faith marriages, renaming of Allahabad as Prayagraj and Ayodhya as Faizabad. Efforts to replace him by the top leadership prior to the 2022 elections failed, and Adityanath is the first-ever UP CM to win a second consecutive term after completing five years in office.
This remarkable book, through its narrative on CMs, provides valuable insights into UP politics. Intense factional strife, together with constant interference in appointment/working of CMs by the High Command, underlie the decay and de-institutionalisation of the Congress party, from which it has not recovered. Constant instability, both during single-party dominance and multi-party rule till the 2000s, and governance based on Hindutva under the BJP since 2017, has contributed greatly to the continuing economic backwardness of the state. The fallout has been CMs preoccupied with factionalism, identity politics and Hindu nationalism, who have not paid adequate attention to the development of UP.
The writer is the author (with Sajjan Kumar) of Maya, Modi, Azad: Dalit Politics in the Time of Hindutva (2023)
