Kalyan Singh
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Career
Uniting non-Yadav OBCs for the BJP
Rajiv Srivastava, August 22, 2021: The Times of India
LUCKNOW: In 1989, the National Front government, led by then Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, implemented the recommendations of the Mandal Commission report. The move triggered nationwide protests.
Amid such a volatile situation, BJP leader Kalyan Singh once visited the R S S office in Model House in Lucknow.
Coincidently, the then sah sar karyavah Murlidhar Dattatreya Deoras, popularly known as Bhaurao Deoras, was also present on the first floor of the building.
Coming to know about Bhaurao’s presence, Kalyan sent a messenger seeking an appointment. Bhaurao immediately called him upstairs.
During the meeting, Kalyan expressed concern over the caste divide on the issue of reservation but Bhaurao asked him not to worry and exhorted him to start touring the state with the aim to unite the people as Hindus. “The more intense the Ram Temple movement gets, the lesser would be the implications of the Mandal report implementation,” he believed to have told Kalyan. It was during Kalyan’s visit to Prayagraj (then Allahabad) that he was arrested on the way, thus becoming the first BJP leader to be taken into custody for leading the Ram Temple movement in the state.
Before the touring spree, Kalyan was just another Lodh leader in the BJP, taking on other backward caste politician, Mulayam SinghYadav, who was then with the Janata Dal.
While leading the Ram Temple movement, Kalyan united several smaller OBC castes like Binds, Mallahs and Kashyaps and emerged as a strong OBC leader and the BJP’s poster boy of Hindutva.
Not that he was the only OBC leader in the BJP at that time but the fact that he followed the Sangh functionary’s directives in letter and spirit, he was able to unite several smaller non-Yadav OBC castes. All these castes added up to around 16-17% of the OBC population, much more than any single OBC caste, be it Yadavs or Kurmis.
His public addresses mainly focussed on uniting every caste for the sake of the country and in the name of Lord Ram. The message worked for him and Kalyan became the leader of 16-17% OBCs. In doing so, he emerged as the Hindutva poster boy and sole leader of the Ram Temple movement in the state.
Prior to this, Kalyan was appointed the UP BJP president after the death of Madhav Prasad Tripathi, the founder state chief of the party. “However, Kalyan was known as a Lodh leader at that time,” said Rajendra Tiwari, the man who was the state secretary during his tenure.
BJP had a poor presence in Uttar Pradesh assembly with only 11 MLAs in 1980, 16 in 1985 and 57 in 1989. However, he had already earned the sobriquet of a tough administrator when he became the health minister during the Janata Party government in the state in 1977.
That was the time when doctors posted in Lucknow hardly got transferred to any other place. Singh, as health minister, transferred famous cardiologist Dr SC Rai to Kanpur from Lucknow.
Despite requests from Nanaji Deshmukh and Rajendra Singh aka Rajju Bhaiyya, he declined to stay Dr Rai’s transfer. Dr Rai was forced to complete one season in Kanpur before coming back to Lucknow. After his retirement, Dr Rai got elected as Lucknow Mayor on a BJP ticket.
It was Kalyan’s image that made him a leader with a difference and this paved the way for him to become the state BJP chief in 1984. “Kalyan had started establishing himself as an OBC leader in 1986 and had emerged as one of the main leaders who took on Mulayam SinghYadav,” said senior journalist Brijesh Shukla.
“After the Ram Temple movement began, he became the Sangh parivar’s mascot of Hindutva. Kalyan’s Hindutva was incomplete without social justice,” Shukla said.
Babri Masjid demolition
Rajiv Srivastava, August 21, 2021: The Times of India
LUCKNOW: In the early nineties, police stations in UP used to put up photographs of top 10 criminals of their respective areas. Many of these criminals were rounded up while others were warned against creating any disturbance.
In a short span of one-and-a-half years, then chief minister Kalyan Singh earned the sobriquet of a ‘tough administrator’. However, his tenure is remembered more for another event – demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya.
While the opposition parties held Kalyan Singh responsible for the demolition, the then director, information, Anil Swaroop, wrote in his book, ‘Ethical Dilemmas of a Civil Servant’: “Mr Singh (Kalyan Singh) was “livid and crestfallen” on December 6, 1992, when he came to know that the structure had been brought down. Mr Singh, in a telephonic talk with the then Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, had “reflected his angst against the party leadership”. He had also spoken to LK Advani, who was in Ayodhya then.
Swarup claimed that he was “the only person” with Kalyan Singh when the conversations took place.
He rose within party ranks as the OBC leader and a Hindutva mascot during the Ram Temple movement which made him the obvious choice as the first BJP chief minister of the most populous state.
BJP old-timers like Rajendra Tiwari even claim that BJP leader Dr Murli Manohar Joshi was also nursing the ambition of becoming the chief minister of UP, however, senior pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (R S S) like Kushabhau Thakre rejected any other claim citing Kalyan’s hard work as an OBC leader and the leader of Ram Temple movement.
The Sangh firmly believed that it was Kalyan’s image as a champion of Hindutva that blended with his OBC leader’s image and ultimately paved the way for BJP winning a majority in 1991 assembly polls. Riding the Ram Temple wave, BJP won 221 seats in 1991 polls.
Senior journalist Brijesh Shukla also said that Singh never wanted the structure to come down this way.
During his meetings with R S S leaders, he used to say that there was no hurry and a stable government should be the priority. “If there is a BJP government, Ram Temple would ultimately be constructed,” he had said.
“He was taking a sunbath when he was informed that the karsevaks had gone berserk at the disputed site. Singh immediately called then principal secretary, home, Prabhat Kumar and asked him to submit a report on the incident,” Shukla said. He added that though Kalyan never wanted the December 6 incident to happen, he made it clear to Kumar that at no cost he would order firing on karsevaks.
Surprisingly, Kalyan never came up with his own version of the incident. On the evening of December 6, 1992, the party leadership asked him to step down as chief minister, sensing that the central government, led by prime minister PV Narsimha Rao, was planning to dismiss the government.
On returning from the governor’s House after tendering his resignation, Kalyan, while replying to a media query as to who was responsible for the demolition, had claimed: “Yeh itihaas tay karega (History will decide)”.
On Kalyan’s reputation as a tough administrator, Shukla said, “There were reports of clashes in a west UP district and he came to know about the role of some R S S members in the incident. Despite knowing that any action against them would draw Sangh’s ire, he directed the officials to take stern action against the guilty.”
In a meeting with R S S members, he got a dossier prepared about the role of some of the Sangh’s cadres and convinced them that his action was in the larger interest of the state.
Another senior journalist JP Shukla said Kalyan Singh never withdrew any decision. He could post any bureaucrat anywhere. “When Kalyan Singh took over as the UP CM, he was all powerful. There was no one to oppose him. There was no murmuring around him whether inside or outside the party. This gave him the confidence to work on his terms,” Shukla said.
“However, he could not make many policy decisions as his term was short-lived,” Shukla said. Singh took over as the CM in June 1991 and resigned on December 6, 1992.
His life
Meant to rise much higher than he did?
August 23, 2021: The Times of India
Quite simply, there would be no Narendra Modi, or for that matter, Uma Bharati and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, if there was no Kalyan Singh. He was the lodestar for a generation of backward caste leaders who made their mark after him in a conservative BJP which was loath to giving them the space they needed to grow in the late '80s and early '90s when OBC empowerment was embedded as a reality of heartland politics.
At the zenith of his success within and outside the BJP — which he owed to the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992— Kalyan Singh’s fans believed he would go as far as becoming the BJP president. Some even thought he was worthy of being considered as the PM candidate. There was no cyber space for him to work with, no social media to market himself, but when Kalyan Singh addressed meetings in Kerala or Odisha, the crowds cheered and roared. That was the sort of charisma the BJP’s first “Hindu hriday samrat”— the moniker “monarch of the Hindu heart” has since been appropriated by others — exuded.
Kalyan Singh was the Uttar Pradesh chief minister when the Ayodhya mosque was brought down by the largest assemblage of Sangh parivar activists at the “disputed” complex. The build-up to D-day was visible; the crowds from across the country were not there to stage a dress rehearsal or sweep-and-mop the place as an undertaking the CM gave to the Supreme Court suggested, when the court sought an assurance. The temptation to play the martyr is strong for a politician and Singh was not an exception. One of his closest officers swears till today that he did not want the mosque to be razed.
In an interview to me a couple of days before December 6, he claimed he was armed with “proposals” which would be “mutually acceptable” to Hindus and Muslims, pitched for restraint but hinted that the final act could cost him his government. Singh, who had then completed just one year and 165 days in office, stressed he wanted to last his tenure and complete the “unfinished” tasks of developing UP. For me, it was hard to reconcile his assertions with the persona he had assiduously cultivated as a Hindutva votary.
In his first term, when a journalist asked Singh which of his three “avatars” best suited him — a Hindutva proponent, a capable administrator or a backward caste “neta” — he rooted for the first two and pleaded not to be cast as a casteist. Of course, he was aware he owed his position to his backward caste provenance from the Lodh-Rajput community in the face of stiff competition from BJP contemporaries like Kalraj Mishra, a Brahmin. But when the Supreme Court indicted him for contempt, he took the rap on his chin, paid the prescribed penalty, went to prison for a day and emerged a “martyr”. His act was celebrated as “supreme sacrifice” in the cause of the Ram temple.
Singh’s fall was as steep and sudden as his rise. He lost his government in 1992 but fervently hoped he would return, a hero, in the 1993 Assembly elections. In the months to the lead-up, the Hindutva fervour evaporated in UP (the ABVP lost the student elections in the big universities) and the Mandal forces were on the ascendant. The BJP lost the election to the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance, which represented the backward castes, Dalits and Muslims.
Singh was overruled in the candidates’ selection by the then R S S chief, Rajendra Singh; he could not get in as many backward caste nominees as he hoped. The forward-backward caste contradictions overwhelmed the BJP although it held on to its original bastions in west UP and lost by a whisker. Singh’s internal adversaries unsheathed their swords to draw blood but he was saved by LK Advani.
Born on January 5, 1932, to a farmer, Tejpal Singh Lodh, at Mdholi village (Aligarh district), Singh began his career as a teacher after completing BA and LLB. He entered politics through the R S S where he was a “swayamsevak” (volunteer). Singh won his first election from Atrauli (Aligarh district) as a Bharatiya Jana Sangh candidate and never lost until 1996. He was the health minister in the Janata Party government, headed by Ram Naresh Yadav. The firmness that bureaucrats later glimpsed in his working was manifest then. He checked a list of medical officers who served in the same place for long years, especially Lucknow, and ordered their transfers.
One of them, SC Rai (who later became a BJP Mayor), was sent from Lucknow to Kanpur. Rai resisted and mobilised the signatures of 200 MLAs in his support. Singh met him and exclaimed if he had this measure of backing, he would be the CM. Rai was convinced Singh would change his mind, but he was unmoved and ordered him to relocate to Kanpur in 24 hours. Singh returned as the CM between 1997 and 1999, but by then UP politics had become shambolic. Coalition politics had come to stay, and worse for Singh, the prospect of the BJP propping up Mayawati, the BSP president, thrice as the CM was galling. She was Dalit and a woman and the combination was hard to take. Singh, fond of using graphic imagery when he was agitated, once compared Mayawati to a live wire who electrocuted anyone coming in contact with her.
His clout as a “samrat” had declined. His in-house adversaries, who included his peers Mishra and Lalji Tandon, were backed by a younger person, Rajnath Singh. The troika had Prime MInister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s blessings. Unfortunately for Singh, Advani backed him up to a point and withdrew when Singh publicly confronted and abused Vajpayee. An alleged association with a younger woman from the BJP, Kusum Rai, became a talking point in Lucknow and outside. Singh refused to keep their relationship under wraps. It became untenable for the strait-laced R S S to keep him on and he stepped down as the CM. Kusum expediently distanced herself from Singh although she was seen prominently conducting the show at his place today when Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on the family.
After two short-lived and unsuccessful attempts at going solo with his own party, Singh returned to the BJP in 2014, thanks to Modi but beaten and mellow. Not only did Modi rehabilitate Singh as a governor, he ensured his son, Rajveer, got a Lok Sabha ticket from Etah. Rajveer’s son, Sandeep, is a minister in the Adityanath regime, while Sandeep’s wife is in a block “pramukh”. Not a bad ending for a former top league politician who, his colleagues often say needlessly, tempted providence and lost out.
An officer’s recollections
By J S Deepak, August 23, 2021: The Times of India
I never met Kalyan Singh except at official gatherings. During most of his first term as chief minister of UP that began in 1991, I was district magistrate (DM) at Sitapur. This meant there were few opportunities for face-to-face interactions with the CM.
My first direct experience of his style of functioning came early in my tenure. The new government’s pro-farmer agenda was running aground due to mounting cane dues to farmers as sugar mills were lax in paying them. Consequently, the government authorised coercive means and, acting with alacrity, I attached two private sugar mills and impounded their assets. All hell broke loose as this had not happened before and powerful interests were involved. Some mandarins in Lucknow ticked me off for my ‘immaturity’. But the CM, I learnt later, was firm in his support for action taken in public interest. Weeks later, the CM spoke to me and said, “ Aapne jo bhi kiya bahut achha kiya.” (Whatever you did was fine). Imagine how it boosted my morale for the rest of my tenure in the district and beyond.
Kalyan Singh’s fairness and sense of justice and the extent to which he supported sincere officers was evident on another occasion. In one tehsil, there was a huge racket of land belonging to marginalised sections being appropriated through forged documents in collusion with revenue officers. Criminal cases were filed, scores of Pradhans and Lekhpals (Patwaris) terminated, and efforts initiated to restore the land. As expected, there was a strong pushback from vested interests. In an unprecedented move, the local MLA, who belonged to the ruling party, threatened a fast to death till the DM was sacked. But the CM stood firm. Rajendra Gupta, finance minister, who hailed from Sitapur, and was also state BJP chief, later told me that the CM had told a delegation that the MLA was free to resort to a hunger strike, but “yadi koi anhonee ho jai to main zimmedar nahin hoon.” (if there is a mishap I would not be responsible). Such was the mettle of the man.
Kalyan Singh was a big picture person who was willing to take the toughest decisions and go to great lengths to do what he believed was good for the state. His anti-mafia operation was one such initiative and reforming education was another. He, along with education minister Rajnath Singh, ran a statewide campaign to curb mass copying which was rampant in UP. It had an immediate salutary impact on quality of graduating classes even though average marks obtained and pass percentages fell. Many years later, as district magistrate Varanasi, when recruiting clerks on the basis of graduation marks, some candidates said : “Main Kalyan Singh ke zamane ka graduate hoon”, (I am a graduate of the Kalyan Singh era) — protesting being compared with scores of those who had passed when cheating was rampant.
Many have not forgiven Kalyan Singh for the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992 on his watch. The jury is still out on whether he could have done more to prevent the demolition. But there can be no doubt that he was one of the tallest CMs UP has had. A man of iron integrity with a strong sense of fair play and justice who did not hesitate in taking the flak. In 1993, I was posted as staff officer to the adviser to the governor, during President’s Rule, imposed after his government was dismissed. Records related to decision making on the fateful day the mosque fell clearly showed how he had completely and unequivocally owned up entire responsibility for all that had happened while a lesser person may have been tempted to pass the buck to the local administration and the police.
Today, Kalyan Singh is no more. UP and India have lost an icon of good governance. But his legacy as an administrator and statesmen live on and many will cherish his leadership. RIP Sir.
(J S Deepak is a retired IAS officer from UP who worked as secretary telecom & IT, government of India and was ambassador of India to the WTO)
