In UP's 'Glass City', free rations and security vs jobs and inflation

Free rations, Rs 6000 to farmers, regular electricity supply, compensate for high prices and unemployment, say castes loyal to BJP but sections of Brahmins upset

An untidy row of tiny eateries, grocery shops and noisy workshops obscures Mondha, a village located on Firozabad city's outskirts, from the passer-by. Look closely, and several lanes, parallel to each other, become visible. One is wide enough to take cars. The others are cemented pathways or dusty trails of broken bricks that can accommodate two-wheelers, at best. The village boasts of around 35 cars and 200-odd two-wheelers, for a population of about 5,000.

Creeping urbanisation has impacted Mondha because of its proximity to the city: factories, an electric station and modern residential areas have swallowed up more than 80 per cent of its agricultural land, people here say. A railway line divides the village into two parts.

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Potatoes and glass bangles – an unlikely pair – hold up the village's economy. For landowners, potatoes are the major crop, even though wheat, bajra (pearl millet) and mustard are also grown here. The landless work in Firozabad's 500 glass factories, where a day's work, depending on the skill involved, can bring in anything between Rs 300 to Rs 850 a day. Today, thanks to the pandemic, only 100-odd factories are open.

Yadavs and Brahmins

In Mondha, Yadavs are the most prosperous and politically influential community, its members accounting for roughly a third of the village's population. They live along the car lane in their double-storeyed houses, and nothing obscures their view of the fields except a generous sized parking lot.

Mithilesh Yadav was recently elected Mondha's pradhan, but the real power in the village is her husband, the patipradhan – in the quaint language of rural UP. Dressed in a maroon and grey tracksuit, Ram Niwas Yadav, a seventh-generation resident, has unkempt long white hair and a flowing white beard.

When I catch up with him, he is lounging on his home's sit-out, entertaining Lokesh Sharma, the ration dealer, and his friend, Dinesh Upadhyay – and discussing the state elections. In the Shikohabad assembly segment, where Mondha is situated, "It will be a direct contest between two Nishads, the Samajwadi Party (SP) 's Mukesh Verma (whom he supports), and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 's Om Prakash Verma," he said.

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"The biggest issue in these elections," Ram Niwas Yadav stressed, "is the politics of hate. We need bhaichara (brotherhood), employment, education. There is a craze for government jobs. Prices have skyrocketed. The Yogi government has failed on all fronts. Now it is trying to hijack the polls through fraudulent means."

Critical of the twice a month rations being handed out even to the not so poor people in the village, he said: "It makes people lazy, particularly the young. Instead of looking for work, they just eat the free rations." He admitted, however, that payments for employment under the government's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) were being held up for as much as six months.

Sharma and Upadhyay, both Brahmins, concurred with Yadav on rations being given even to those who did not need them. "There are 719 regular ration cards in the village and another 58 Antyodaya cards for those living below the poverty line." Sharma said, adding his grouse: "I have not been getting my commission from the government."

Sharma and Upadhyay said they would vote against the BJP this time: "Yogi Adityanath is a tanashah (tyrant)," Upadhayay said. "He favours his own caste fellows, the Rajputs." He cited the case of Dhananjay Singh, "the Bahubali of Purvanchal," against whom there are several serious cases, including that of murder: "He isn't behind bars, only because he is a Rajput, like Yogi."

But in the Brahmin quarter, the Pachauri clan were all one in saying that though there was a water shortage and agricultural inputs and essentials had become prohibitively expensive, they wanted the Yogi Adityanath government back. The reason: "It had ended goondagardi."

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But Mondha's Brahmin vote – close to 10 per cent - was not just divided. It was split three ways. SS Sharma, known as "Mukhia", because of his influence in the village, gave a third version: "Unemployment is the most important problem here; even educated boys have no jobs," he said, "I'm a traditional Congressman, and I voted the BJP only once, in 2017. This time, I will vote the Congress again."

Clearly, in Mondha, Brahmins are not entirely invested in the Yogi Adityanath government. They are split: those who have smelt change and would like to be on the right side of the next dispensation; those for whom Hindutva reigns supreme; and the traditionalists. For the last-named, it also helps that the only Brahmin in the fray in Shikohabad is the Congress's Shashi Sharma.

Jatavs

Jatavs are the second largest community in Mondha. Ravindra Kumar, the former pradhan of the village, lives in a cream coloured modest home, grandly named Brijrani Bhawan. People say this is (Bahujan Samaj Party supremo) Mayawati's last election, I said. "In 2007, too, no one believed she would become chief minister, but she did," he replied, adding, "We vote for her regardless of whether she wins or loses so that she can say my samaj (community) votes for me."

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Jatavs – all landless here - are daily wage earners. On the days they get work, they earn about Rs 300. Asked about the free rations, Ravindra Kumar responded: "Yes, the rations are welcome. But we aren't fools. We are given Rs 400 worth of free rations, and the price of gas cylinders is hiked by Rs 600. You give with one hand and take away with the other. So who's making a profit?"

Non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits

Most non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits here remain loyal to the BJP because of the "improved law and order". The rations, the Rs 6000 a year to farmers, the regular electricity supply, they said, compensate for high prices and unemployment.

Mamata Devi and Guddu Devi, clad in nylon saris, their ghunghats down, are Dhobis, an SC community. Mamata's family has three bighas of land, Guddu Devi's five. Both were content with their lot, happy with the government handouts, and willing to overlook the stray cattle menace.

The Ojhas here own two to five bighas of land. Dinesh Chand, a sixth-generation Mondha resident, is rebuilding his house on land that once had a guava grove and a tubewell. "If an SP government comes, we'll have problems with Yadav and Muslim goons," he said. "Now there is law and order, and the criminals are behind bars or lying low. We are very happy with the BJP government."

So the Ojhas have always voted for the BJP? Naresh Chand looked embarrassed and said: "We once voted the Congress in a Lok Sabha poll when (actor) Raj Babbar contested – he came here with his wife, Nadira, and children. There was a hawa for him."

Baghels and Khatiks, both SC communities, are relative newcomers to the village and live near the main road. Sumera Devi, a Baghel, is supervising a row of young girls, sitting in the open, rotating glass bangles hanging on horizontal wooden rods, deftly glueing on the sequins that make them sparkle in the morning sun. They each earn Rs 150 a day, using the hours they can spare from their studies or housework.

"After December 6, 1992 (when Ayodhya's Babri Masjid was destroyed), we moved from Firozabad's market area to this village. That was a Muslim area, you see," she said. Was there a fight? "No," she said, "We just didn't like living among Muslims."

The same story was repeated in the next lane, where the Khatiks settled down at the turn of this century. Jitendra Kumar, a young man, slightly drunk even though it was only mid-day, swore undying devotion to the BJP before spewing venom on Muslims. His family, too, moved from Firozabad's market area. No, there was no fight with Muslim neighbours. It was just that "We didn't like their khana, pina, nigah (food, drink, the way they look at people)," he spat out.

Muslims

The Muslims are tucked away in a far corner of Mondha, in poorly ventilated, dark tenements, facing each other across a narrow path. Only one family of three brothers owns five bighas of land. The others are daily wagers, dependent on the glass bangles business; the men in the factories, the women in the village.

Guddu Khan, one of the few with land, said, "All night, my brothers and I sit out in the cold guarding our crops against stray cattle. We bought barbed wire to fence in our land, but the cattle still jump over and get in."

But one complaint that unites Muslims here sums up the attitude towards the community. There was a small empty plot of land at the end of their lane where they could sit out, entertain a guest, hold a little feast, occasionally, because their homes were so tiny and the lane so narrow.

That plot now has a tall brick fence - and it has become the village rubbish heap.

(Smita Gupta is a journalist. She is profiling assembly segments in Uttar Pradesh that have gone to the polls. This report is from Mondha, a village in the Shikohabad assembly segment in Firozabad district.)

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