Communal Polarisation in UP

The clashes in Muzaffarnagar and surrounding areas have sharpened communal fault lines and threaten to rewrite existing equations in Uttar Pradesh. This portends political ferment in the key battleground state and nationally ahead of the general elections.
With elections slated for 2014, a polarisation on communal lines between the Jats and Muslims, experts say, does not augur well for the Congress-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance that is dependent on the numerical clout of the Jat-Muslim combination for trouncing its rivals in Western UP. The Samajwadi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which are aggressively wooing Muslims and Jats, respectively, by backing their grievances, could emerge the main players in the coming elections in the region, they said. While Muslims, who account for more than 30% in many of the western UP constituencies, could become a major source of support for Mulayam Singh and his Samajwadi Party, BJP could bet on a Hindu counter-polarisation to swell its electoral kitty.
The Jat-Muslim conflict in the region points to the coming apart of an old relationship between the two communities, said sociologist Dipankar Gupta and described it as a “disturbing development”.
Gupta said even at the height of the Hindutva movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the elders in the Jat community stayed on with Ajit Singh’s party. “If there is a rupture in the relationship between Jats and Muslims, it could have far-reaching political implications... This could mean a generational and ideological shift in Jat politics,” he said.