"Hathi nahin, Ganesh hai. Bramha-Vishnu- Mahesh hai." This slogan reverberates in west, central and east UP as the war cry of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the ongoing campaign for elections to the State Assembly.

"Hathi", meaning 'elephant', is the symbol of the party. The BSP's war cry means this: its symbol is "not elephant but Lord Ganesha, also Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh" - the Hindu Divine Trinity. This stunningly overturns its founding agenda.

The agenda for which it was born and with which it stormed the political theatre was based on another - a very different - war cry. And that was "Tilak, Tarazu aur Talwar; un Teenonko Jute Mar". What did that mean?

'Tilak' (religious mark on the forehead) symbolised the 'Brahmana', the "Tarzu" (the weighing balance) pointed to the 'Vaishya' and the "Talwar" (sword) meant the 'Kshatriya'. The three symbols identified the three Varnas in ancient Hindu social order. Then came the BSP's founding political agenda for the three Varnas. And that was: 'Un teenonko Jute Mar,' meaning 'Beat the threesome with shoes'.

This was the militant war cry which Kanshiram, founder of BSP, also the mentor of Mayavati, gave to the cadre. This worked wonders. It demolished traditional alignments in UP politics. And broke the seemingly invincible vote bank of the Congress consisting of Scheduled Castes, Brahmins and Muslims.

This militancy against the 'Savarnas' - the upper castes symbolised by Tilak, Tarazu and Talwar - consolidated the SCs as BSP's core vote bank. The 'Jute Mar' campaign also became easily acceptable to secular politics.

This also persuaded many Muslims, for whom secularism meant anti majority politics, to move away from the centenarian party to BSP. BSP soon became the acknowledged part of the 'secular forces'.

The Mandal movement had already shifted backward caste votes en masse to Samajwadi Party in UP. And the Ayodhya agitation drew most of the upper caste votes, particularly of Brahmins, from the Congress to the BJP.

Thus, in the realignment, Congress, which tried to please all, by appeasing all, lost. The other three, BSP, BJP and SP, which had the guts to please some and displease some, emerged as decisive players in UP.

But once the BSP got respectability as a secular party it became free to choose a 'communal' partner and still remain secular. This was how the BSP whose agenda was to 'Beat the three savarnas with shoes' made an unprecedented pact with the BJP whose backbone were the savarnas.

This development in late 1990s was a watershed in UP politics. This experiment, destined to fail, failed. It hurt the BJP, but, did not harm BSP at all. On the contrary, this process turned the BSP strategic as it learnt to deal with the 'Savarna devil'.

In the 2002 UP Assembly elections, BSP modified the highly provocative 'Jute Mar' slogan into a campaign against 'Manuvadis' - the Savarnas. It was in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections that the BSP cadre at lower levels first raised the slogan 'Hathi Nahin Ganesh hai'. But that was still not the official line.

Its supremo Mayavati continued the campaign against 'Manuvadis'. Having robbed the Congress of its two reliable vote banks, the SCs and Muslims, BSP is attempting to rob Brahmin votes from the BJP. To establish its credentials as a Brahminfriendly party it has given almost a fifth of the seats to Brahmins.

With pollsters giving only bronze medal to the SP in UP elections, BSP is the new hope for secularism, which means defeating the BJP. The fall out: In secular politics, Hindu Gods turn respectable when BSP revers them; the very same Gods lose respect when BJP worships them!

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, May 02, 2007