Mulayam Singh Yadav (1939-2022): The Samajwadi who held sway over UP

A vigorous and central force in the politics of Uttar Pradesh – and later, India – Mulayam Singh Yadav’s passing will leave a void that no leader can fill.

This was the man who used to run the government in Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state with a population of more than 200 million people, home to the Taj Mahal and almost 10 per cent of the world’s poor. If it had been a country, it would have been the world’s fifth most populous. With 80 seats out of Lok Sabha’s 545, it was believed that the road to becoming prime minister had to pass through UP: Narendra Modi acknowledged as much when he shifted out of Gujarat to seek a Lok Sabha seat from UP.

In some ways, Mulayam Singh Yadav was like Modi: a self-made man with no inheritance in politics. Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him. All Mulayam had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs. He was first elected to the UP Assembly in 1967 on the ticket of the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP), led by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, one of India’s best-known socialists. In 1968, following Lohia’s death, he joined the Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) headed by Charan Singh in 1968. In 1974 the SSP and the BKD merged to become the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) and gave him a ticket.

The Indira Gandhi government declared an Emergency in 1975, and Mulayam Singh Yadav was in the Etawah jail for 19 months. Like everyone else, he won when he came out of jail and contested assembly elections as a BLD candidate. He was appointed minister for the first time in his life, with the charge of cooperatives. Within days of taking over, he reduced the lending rates of the UP State Cooperative Bank from 14 per cent to 13 per cent and, later, 12 per cent. Cooperatives were struck by embezzlement of funds. In 1977-78, 17 people were proceeded against. This number rose to 222 in 1978-79. Of this, 137 people surrendered in court. Mulayam Singh Yadav understood only now the value of state power.

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Charan Singh pulled out of the Janata Party in 1979. Charan Singh’s new party was called the Lok Dal (LD). After his death, the party split again into two: Charan Singh’s US-educated son Ajit Singh took over his father’s legacy, but Mulayam Singh thought he was the true inheritor. The Ajit Singh-led faction was called LD A, and Mulayam Singh’s faction was called LD B. A strategic merger followed in 1989: the LD B merged with the Janata Dal in 1989.

Yadav’s USP in politics was his sway over Uttar Pradesh. His moves in UP politics sometimes earned him the sobriquet of an opportunist. But somehow, he retained his credibility with voters. More importantly, he had friends in the multiple factions of anti-Congress groups. The 1989 Lok Sabha elections were held against the backdrop of the rise of the Hindutva sentiment. VP Singh’s campaign against corruption paid off. Mulayam Singh Yadav supported both Chandra Shekhar and VP Singh and equivocated briefly but had no choice but to let the former down when Devi Lal announced VP Singh as Prime Minister and Chandra Shekhar left the Central Hall in humiliation. The Janata Dal leadership backed his claim for chief ministership of UP against Ajit Singh’s. He became chief minister for the first time in 1989.

During Yadav’s chief ministership, three issues plagued him. One was an anti-English movement, which he led and promoted in UP. In 1990, the compulsory English paper was withdrawn from the Provincial Civil Service (PCS) examination conducted by the State Public Services Commission. The section in the Hindi paper on translating passages from Hindi to English was scrapped. Courts, the local administration and other establishments were mandated to work in Hindi. He argued that English was “the language of the oppressor”. He was asked why his children went to English medium schools and colleges. Things were heading for an ugly turn when the issue on which he made his reputation flared up. This was the Ram Janmabhoomi (RJB) movement. And then, the call for implementing the Mandal Commission report for reservations for Backward Classes further complicated Indian politics.

On the RJB issue, Yadav clearly said that Hindu consolidation should be resisted. This came as much from ideological conviction as from stark support base facts. According to a CSDS analysis, in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, the SP social base had support from 75 per cent of the Yadavs and 72 per cent of the Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. This resulted from a constant projection by the SP that the BJP was the biggest threat to the minorities and it was the only party capable of protecting them. For more than 15 years in the following period, the core loyalty of the Muslims to Mulayam Singh Yadav remained, though lower caste and poorer Muslims switched to the BSP.

This led to the great clash: Mulayam Singh Yadav was chief minister in 1990 when RJB kar sevaks passed through UP, with the chant of “mandir wahin banayenge”. Yadav dealt with the problem as an issue of law and order: he asked the police to fire on the kar sevaks. The number of those who died is disputed. But the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was the direct outcome of the rage of the majority.

Everyone thought this was a blow from which Mulayam Singh would never recover. But the intervening years saw more of Yadav in national politics. The Samajwadi Party was formed in 1992, identifying clearly with anti-Congressism, empowerment of the backward classes and secularism. But in 1998-99, he accepted becoming a part of a left secular alliance, including the Congress but not accepting Sonia Gandhi’s leadership; later, he dropped opposition to Sonia Gandhi’s leadership altogether and joined the United Progressive Alliance.

In tandem, the 2012 assembly election saw SP get 224 seats out of 403. By now, an heir was on the horizon: Mulayam’s son Akhilesh.

The question was: who should be the CM? Old-timers in the party were in a bind – they recognised Akhilesh’s contribution but did not want to offend Mulayam. Uncle Shivpal had already made a claim. There was also the other uncle, Ramgopal, who was backing Akhilesh at the time. When Akhilesh did become CM, it was a poisoned chalice. His father, with whom he never had a conventional relationship, became an even more remote figure.

But a phase of family bloodletting followed. Mulayam asserted publicly that SP was his party – it was, but now it was also Akhilesh’s, something the patriarch was unwilling to accept. Family members and supporters, who, by now, had deep interests in the SP empire, egged Mulayam on. Akhilesh moved out of his father’s house and publicly appealed to Mulayam to let his vivek (conscience and wisdom) decide what was the best course for SP. Mulayam publicly chided his son. Father and son then issued separate lists of candidates for the upcoming assembly election. The matter moved to the Election Commission, and funds were frozen. Horrified SP supporters shook their heads. They’d never seen anything like this. In 2017, weeks before the assembly election, the EC decided in Akhilesh’s favour. By then, it was too late.

Mulayam’s exit was slow but inevitable. The cameo moment was the entry – and exit – of Mulayam Singh Yadav from the Lok Sabha during the 2021-22 Budget speech. Walking slowly, assisted by a helper, Mulayam made his painful way down many shallow steps. While walking out, he spotted Majlis-e-Ittehad ul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi, the man who would arguably be responsible for the last assembly election setback for the SP. But the warmth with which the elder Yadav greeted Owaisi – who also bent to receive blessings – transported the moment to another era: when politicians, however opportunistic, were also human beings.