A white speck appeared in the dark
overcast sky from Saranpur in the west.
The hundreds of villagers in Berasia, the assembly
constituency of Laxmi Narayan Sharma, who had gathered
impatiently for an hour or more at the dusty central
maidan let out an awed, collective, "Aaa gayi Umaji. Aaa
gayi!
As the helicopter hovered over the ground, it whirled up
a dust storm. And from the middle of this ball of dust
emerged a diminutive figure, swathed in metres of dull
orange. Uma Bharati. Age: 38. Profession: agriculturist.
Education: primary school. People's Representative from
Khajuraho since 1996. Union minister of state for human
resources development since March 1998. Fiery sanyasin
since she was 12.
As the minister headed for a waiting Maruti, the
ecstatic crowd surged forward. "Umaji ki Jai!" Local BJP
leaders rushed to touch her feet. Flowers and slogans
flew thick and fast. In 120 seconds or so she was borne
away to the election pandal as hundreds ran after her
car.
Berasia was honoured. One of the BJP's star campaigners
had dropped in to add her weight behind the election
initiative, in this constituency of 450 odd villages.
Sharma has been returned to the Vidhan Sabha from this
rural borough consisting of 153,438 voters six times
since 1967. In the last assembly election, the margin
was a wee bit tight, but Sharma made it home with 3,838
votes more than his Congress rival.
Located just 37 km northeast of Bhopal, Berasia is a
prosperous area in the soyabean belt. Its farmer folk --
24 per cent scheduled castes, 8 per cent scheduled
tribes, 7 per cent other backward castes, 17 per cent
minorities and 44 per cent forward castes -- have access
to a fair amount of state government largesse --
courtesy, the BJP will tell you, stable BJP governance.
Plenty of schools, a number of them RSS-run, good roads,
electricity, telephones and onions for only Rs 14 a
kilo. Crops flourish in the green fields.
Says Sharma's son, a mechanical engineer from Raipur's
Ravi Shankar University and a political aspirant (who in
fact, sources say, wanted to contest this election
instead of his father but was denied a ticket), "The
main problem of Berasia is water. The water table is
very low here. My father has been working over the years
to rectify this. Now the constituency has 7 talabs or
ponds. This has brought up the water table. Work has not
gone ahead on 13 more talabs that are on the anvil. But
we have not been in power in the state..." Other sources
say Sharma, agriculture minister in the previous BJP
government, uses this excuse all too easily.
Uma Bharati is a frequent visitor to
Berasia. Says young Sharma, "She has
known our family for many years. She comes here during
the election even if we do not call her. She is a very
respected and strong leader. I consider her to be my
elder sister. A very ordinary person, she like music,
movies. A very lively person."
Bharati's magic with the crowds is tangible. The crowd
squatting in the gaudy pandal at the Berasia chauraha
listen in a lacklustre manner to the show put up for
them. Speeches. Songs. Poems.
Then she sweeps in with an entourage in tow. A wave of
electricity surges through the crowd. Huskily, she
pronounces, "Bharat Mata ki Jai. Bharat Mata ki Jai.
Hath uthao. JaI Sriram."
Her speech is peppered with fiery rhetoric that has the
crowd sitting ramrod straight in attention. Plenty of
Digee Raja bashing, kesri-rang sentiment and patriotic
urgings.
..."Digvijay Singh's jyotish has told him if you jhapo
(recite mantras) about the onion tragedy he will get
siddhi (nirvana). I have been to a jyotish in Indore and
he has given me another mantra. Congress ko satta ke
khatiya se utar do or kan mein ram nam suna do (Take the
Congress off its death bed and send it on its way to
heaven)."
..."Everybody has praised Vajpayeeji for the nuclear
tests. India has been called powerful because it is
overpopulated. But the population of worms can be high
too. And no importance is given to them. Shankar Bhagwan
wraps snakes around his neck, his body and even his
feet. But even around his feet he has no place for
worms. No place for kayars (cowards). We need to be a
strong country and now we have acquired strength.
Everybody is talking about India in international
circles. Pokhran ke liye Vajpayee ko vote do!
..."We have travelled through 50 years since
Independence. What has the Congress given us after 50
years? I cannot ask Soniaji that. Because 50 years ago
she was not here. She was in Italy."
..."We are a land of so many rivers, great women,
scientists, tapasya... But we are not successful. That
is not your fault or a fault of our soil. It is the
fault of a scarcity of proper organisation"
..."There must be many Congress workers in the crowd. We
are only ideological enemies. I am called didi (sister)
in the BJP Yuva office. But I am also a didi to Congress
workers. I want to tell the Congress that we have had so
many powerful and wonderful leaders. Lokmanya Gangadhar
Tilak, Subhas Chandra Bose, Lala Lajpat Rai, Motilal
Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru. And they worked to send the
British away. And now you (the Congress) are bowing
before the shoes of a foreigner."
... "People often ask us... Why does crime decrease when
you are in power? The bureaucracy is the same. The same
collectors. The same SPs. No, we are not importing
collectors from Japan or Germany. These same collectors
help us rule. But when the Congress is in power they
help the Congress to loot the country. A knife in the
hands of a surgeon and a knife in the hands of a killer
have different powers."
... "What has happened in Jhabua. These poor nuns have
suffered a small death. They are living corpses. And
Digvijay blames it on the Bajrang Dal. Bajrangbali
snuffed out Lanka so that Sita's honour would not be
besmirched. And Digvijay nun ke ijjat par roti sek rahe
hain."
... "Many have asked us when the temple at Ayodhya will
be built. We will build it. The word Ayodhya mean
something that cannot be conquered. I want to make the
whole of India an Ayodhya."
... "What is happening in Kashmir? Eight years ago
Kashmir was a place for honeymooning couples to roam arm
in arm. It was a place where movies were shot. A place
where people went for pilgrimage. And then it became a
place for coffins. First the Hindus left and then the
Muslims. That is now changing. Do you know that in the
last eight months some 300,000 tourists visited Kashmir.
Terrorists are leaving. Like Punjab, Kashmir is being
cleared of terrorists. We are cleansing Kashmir. Just
like a priest cleanses a temple. First the old flowers
and garlands are cleared away. The new flowers come in.
New tilak. And the devta ki arti happens. But we are
still at the cleaning phase. The pujari's (priest's)
first task of the day is cleansing. We are cleaning the
whole desh of this brashtachar (corruption)."
..."We have been told that we are enemies of the
Muslims. Since we began ruling Rajasthan have we sent
any Muslims to Pakistan? Since we began ruling Delhi
have any Muslims left for Pakistan? The other day I had
been to a meeting where I was overcome with emotion when
a Musallman bhai accepted something from my hands. I
told them that my saffron colour has not changed. It has
not softened. They said I did not have to change. That
they had to change. And that it is better to have an
imandar dushman (honest enemies) rather than a beiman
dost (dishonest friends)."
Her speech lasts 20 minutes. Then she is
off like a streak. The orange sari-dhoti
has now been smothered by more orange -- orange
garlands. Back into the Maruti that takes her back to
the Deccan Aviation helicopter that has been keeping a
legion of Berasia youth enthralled for the last half
hour.
Uma Bharati's brother Swami Prasad is in the election
fray this time. Says the minister, "I was so upset when
I heard he wants a ticket. For one day I did not eat
anything. I don't want more people in my family involved
in this. The media has got this completely wrong. Will
you set this right for me? Yes, I am campaigning for him
and everybody else."
"I think," she says, "compared to the 1993 election we
will get a majority. The onion factor has not affected
these parts. MP is an agricultural state in its own
right. It is not affected."
As she climbs into her helicopter -- which has been
virtually her home for the past few days -- bound for
Piparia, with her packed lunch from Berasia, there is
another round of paying obeisance by the local
leadership. Berasia bids farewell. Almost regretfully,
the curious little children watch the white bird with
its tiny orange occupant head into the horizon.
On the road back from Berasia, we stop at Lal Ghat, a
village of 5,000, many of whom work at a nearby quarry.
Their daily earnings: Rs 35 for digging and loading one
'trolley' of stones. Who will they vote for? "Congress,
perhaps. Or whoever we feel like when we get to the
voting booth. Nobody stops here to talk to us. Sharma
never has time to do our work. At least the Congress
leader, even though he is not in power, helps us. We
have no schools and each family in this village has four
or five children. Just two taps. No doctors. No
hospitals. No patta (property deeds). Only 300 to 400 of
us have names on the voting list."