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The book needs a sequel Aditi Phadnis / New Delhi July 26, 2007 What would Indian political history have looked like if there had been no Uttar Pradesh? One is forced to ask oneself this question while reading a collection of articles put together in a book edited by Sudha Pai. Like any good book, it raises more questions than it answers, and leaves you hungering for more about India's politically most influential state. Not that the book isn't comprehensive. It begins with an enquiry into the origins of identity in UP: ideas that kept the size and definition of UP as "the heartland" intact, thereby ensuring its claim to power. The movement that led to the formation of Uttaranchal in 2000 was not the first that sought a division of UP. Gynendra Kudaisya describes how Gobind Ballabh Pant managed to defuse and stave off the first such demand for a division of UP and its re-delineation as part of Delhi in 1954. Kudaisya's account brings to the politics of smoke-filled rooms academic rigour, and explains the high price UP has paid for its self-proclaimed role as "heartland" of Indian politics. In another article, Salil Misra analyses the first general election of 1937 against the background of the tensions between the Congress and the Muslim League and suggests that had Nehru been a little more tactful in his handling of Jinnah, and the Congress a little more accommodating in recognising the Muslim league's ambitions and indeed, its electoral strength (66 in a House of 228), Jinnah might not have been spurred into seeking an all-India organisation of the League and who knows, the growth of communalism would have been prevented. This flows into the issue of how the Congress's decline began and what the nature of the parties was that filled the breach. The BJP's Hindutva is dissected incisively by Smita Gupta on the basis of conversations with real people, lending the account additional credibility and she reaches the conclusion that the Hindutva project as visualised by the BJP faced electoral defeat because swathes of upper castes were not convinced about the BJP's intentions and capacity to carry it forward to its logical conclusion. The BJP peaked too early without having consolidated the gains of an electoral shift of castes. Badri Narayan Tiwari says it was not for want of trying—he analyses former BJP President Murali Manohar Joshi's attempts to broadbase the caste coalition in and around his constituency Allahabad. But as Smita Gupta points out, it was a losing battle—Joshi was beaten to it by the Samajwadi Party's Reoti Raman Singh. The book also evaluates the growth and development of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The Samajwadi Party's growth was assisted by the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), says Anil K Verma and the absence of ideological moorings, its vote share has not been eroded, as we saw in the latest assembly elections. Why is it so? That is a question that the second volume must answer. Verma predicts that despite the successful mobilisation of Muslims, the SP's decline in national politics might prompt Muslims of UP to turn to the Congress. So far, there is no evidence that this might be happening. The BSP's rise in UP, culminating in an absolute majority for the party in the assembly election, has naturally led to speculation about how it came to become the sole representatives of the Dalits. Nicolas Jaoul analyses other non-political Dalit figures in UP politics to conclude that the BSP could soon be faced with the twin challenges that its new slogan of a sarvajan samaj—or a poly-caste identity—and democracy represent. Vivek Kumar buttresses this argument when he says that while Brahmins, resentful at the rise of Thakurs under the Samajwadi Party, have now turned to the BSP, this might not endure. There is an illuminating section in the book on economic reform and governance in UP. Ajit Kumar Singh finds that unstable coalition governments and pressures from interest groups prevented successive government in the interests of survival, from mobilising resources through additional tax and non-tax measures. So good politics has bowed before bad economics. This edited volume is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the problems and political challenges represented by Uttar Pradesh. But it doesn't answer some crucial questions. What is happening to the politics of the Sants, who were such an important element in the Vishva Hindu Parishad's Ayodhya campaign? What are the Congress's strategies—political or otherwise—for reinventing itself? If we conclude that there are none, what does the future hold for the politics of a state that dominates national politics? What about regional politics, especially in Western Uttar Pradesh? And will the third front in-the-making get some traction in UP? Another book is needed to answer these questions. And hopefully it won't have irritating mistakes: Mayawati's Brahmin lieutenant is not Sudhir Chandra Mishra but Satish Chandra Mishra (Page 232). Mahant Awaidhnath spelt his name in the Lok Sabha as Mahant Avaidyanath (page 123). Political Process in Uttar Pradesh Edited by Sudha Pai Dorling Kindersley Price: Rs 750; Pages: xlviii+415 -- Subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a BLANK email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join Yahoo! 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