How Amar Singh killed the socialist in Mulayam

I will start with two anecdotes about SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav which I heard from senior journalists close to socialist circles in Delhi. The purpose is to show how far Mulayam has travelled since then.

Once upon a time in Delhi, Mulayam, a budding socialist leader in his 40s, used to follow veteran socialist leader and thinker Madhu Limaye as his guru, guide and philosopher. Limaye (follower of Ram Manohar Lohia) hailed from Maharashtra but later made north India his workplace.

Voracious reader Limaye was in a true sense the pioneer of social engineering and anti-Congressism after Lohia, and thus attracted fresh and young talent into the socialist fold – Mulayam was one of them.

Even though Limaye retired from active politics in 1984, Mulayam, who was about to lead the Janata Dal to a fascinating victory in the UP assembly elections in 1990, frequently used to visit him to seek guidance about politics and socialism.

The first instance I want to quote is of 1990, when Mulayam came to Delhi to meet the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid. He was riding on MY (Muslim-Yadav) political arithmetic to win elections in UP, and someone had asked him to meet the Imam to win over Musilm support.

Before he was to meet the Imam, Mulayam paid his usual visit to Limaye and told him about his plans; Limaye told him point blank that he was playing into the hands of religious fanatics, and that it was surely not the socialist way of winning over a minority.

He advised the (current) SP chief not to meet the Imam as it was against the progressive ideas of socialism and secularism.

Mulyam listened to him and cancelled his visit. Despite that, his MY arithmetic worked and he became chief minister of UP.

The second instance is when Mulayam was already chief minister and had levied a tax on printed books. After imposing the tax, he went to meet Limaye again, and Limaye refused to speak to him.

After much persuasion, he scolded Mulyam for levying the tax and said books are the medium by which people of UP can learn and his tax was making them expensive. Mulayam left Limaye’s house without saying anything, but the next day, the tax was revoked.

Mulayam, the hero of socialists, first attracted socialist workers after splitting from the Janata Dal. The workers from across India thought that if the Janata Dal had failed, the Samajwadi Party formed by Mulayam could become an alternative for genuine socialist workers, as they had little faith left in Lalu Yadav after the fodder scam. Mulayam’s SP could see some growth because of this outside UP. 

Cut to the present. The current state of the SP shows that after Limaye’s death in 1995, Mulayam's guides and philosophers changed drastically.

Mulayam was projected as a messiah of the minorities when his government stood between VHP-backed kar sevaks and their intentions to demolish the Babri Masjid, but he has now forgotten the socialist preachings of his teacher Limaye now and started hobnobbing with fanatic sections of the minorities to counter equally fanatic sections of the Hindutva majority.

And then came Amar Singh. Party insiders say "Netaji" lost his touch with ground-level workers and rather enjoyed being in the company of top-notch industrialists and Bollywood personalities.

He started staying in Mumbai's posh five-star hotels. All of this was new for him as well as his socialist supporters. A strong leader like Mulayam hailing from the grassroots now left his decision-making to Singh and his coterie.

In fact, Singh in many private conversations even flaunted the fact that it was he who ran the SP - the socialists had nothing in common with him and the dejected lot started leaving the party, saying Mulayam had changed.

When Mulayam took oath as chief minister of UP for the third time, after BJP pulled support from the Mayawati-led BSP government, many friends of Singh, from Bollywood and the corporate world, were special invitees to the ceremony.

As mentioned by Mulayam’s brother Shivpal it was because of Singh that Mulayam could manage to get support from breakaway BSP members and smaller parties to form the government. 

The later events really hurt Mulayam’s image as a "samajwadi" when he joined hands with former BJP chief minister Kalyan Singh at the insistence of Amar Singh.

The SP had become a playground for political novices, mostly friends of Amar Singh, to enter the party and get positions. Be it a top industrialist who joined the party and became Rajya Sabha MP, a seat from which he eventually resigned, or actor Sanjay Dutt, who was named general secretary of the party owing to Amar Singh, none of these entries were understood by the party cadre.

But it was clear where the party was heading. Rather than a party of the samajwadi pariwar (family), the SP literally became a pariwar, of sons, brothers and nephews of Mulayam.

Mulayam who was trained under Limaye was no more the man he was in his earlier days. Those who have lived in the socialist tradition and have seen Mulayam closely say: “Ye to hona hi tha" (this was bound to happen).

What is happening in the SP is because Mulayam failed socialism, defected from his roots and it's unlikely now that things will go back to the way they were.

Also read: Crisis in SP: Are both Mulayam and Amar Singh villains?