Akhilesh-Shivpal Yadav rift: Hope for political shift or another nail in UP's coffin?
By some lucky chance I have been carrying around VS Naipaul’s book India: A Wounded Civilization for the past few days. So, when the Samajwadi Party’s dynastic feud broke out on television, I immediately turned to Naipaul’s book where he discusses RK Narayan’s “the vendor of sweets”.
The novel details the conflict between the father Jagan who has strong beliefs and certainties in his life, and son Mali who is armed with individualism and change. The novel is about the generational gap between father and son. It is amazing how little has changed since the book was written in 1967.
Jagan, the vendor of sweets, is keen to maintain the status quo. In his world, corruption, Gandhism and Hindu detachment go hand in hand. Jagan is unsettled by change and the rebelliousness of his son Mali against this system.
He loathes Mali’s proclamation of individuality. Naipaul says the narrative is about “the end of reverences, the end of the family, individuals striking on their own, social chaos.”
As a girl born and brought up in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, I know better than to judge the state's politics through a universal lens. Uttar Pradesh lives by its own standards and so do its leaders.
But as an Indian committed to the study of its classics, I do find echoes of the Mahabharata, and its more recent adaptation by Shyam Benegal’s movie Kalyug in the ongoing drama.
The three brothers, a favourite cousin brother, their wives, sons and daughters-in-law in the Yadav family, not to forget the interloper uncle, make it a fascinating literary saga.
By taking a stand against the uncle and interfering outsiders, our prince is seemingly punctuating the equilibrium for development.
This makes me somewhat hopeful against the odds. I am willing to overlook reports of gangrapes, state apathy and lawlessness, if the current family brawl promises to usher in some positive change in the way things are done in UP.
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| Shivpal, the younger brother of Mulayam, is a key character in the Yadav family feud. (Photo credit: India Today) |
Alas, there is little indication of that being the case. Instead, like in Mahabharata, one senses a family that is losing its grip on the political reality of the state and heading towards vanvaas.
As I see it, at the heart of Yadav political sparring is the dialectic of being (the present) and becoming (the future), which is also at the core of UP’s struggle to get out of its current abyss.
That means, if we merely stay as is (being) then it is almost as good as not existing at all (not being). There is a need for change which leads us to the future (becoming). And change does not come without conflict.
In the mind-boggling array of MPs, MLAs and who’s who, the Yadav family is playing out this dialectical tension to perfection. The political first family in my beloved and bleeding state has individuals clamouring against each other for power and influence.
The main plot revolves around Shivpal Yadav, the younger brother of Mulayam Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, who is the son of Mulayam's first wife, and of course Netaji himself. One member is rooted in the way things were done in the past while the other seems eager to usher in the future.
On one side in this political infighting is an impenetrable patriarch fearing that his life’s work will turn into ashes for want of compliance to a system, however stagnant, and on the other a rising Icarus is trying to escape fate with wings of wax and feathers his father created.
From the sidelines, a national party is abiding its time, promising to turn UP into a Brahman nation of sorts.
But it is not my intention to elucidate on this dialectic of conflict and how it might be grasped for an explanation of the current power struggle in the Samajwadi Party. It could just be my ordinary citizen self that is slyly hinting that a makeover is needed urgently in the state's politics.
After all, one must not forget that at the centre of all the hullabaloo is a condemned Indian heartland where history of defeat, divisions and failures is likely to repeat itself yet again.