Communal riots have now made big inroads into rural India By DIPANKAR GUPTA

After the recent Muzaffarnagar riots we must accept that what began in the economy has now spread to politics too. The distance between town and country is narrowing, and narrowing fast. There was a time when rural India was almost entirely agricultural, but today more than half the households in villages work in non-farm occupations. In the past, riots only happened in cities, but now they swing in with equal ferocity, blood for blood, in the countryside as well.

Of course, none of this would have been possible if the earth had not literally moved from under the feet of the village. This changed its economy forever as the urban wave now charged in from all sides. At Independence, agriculture contributed about 60% of our GDP, but it is barely 14% now.

Not surprising then that more than 58% of rural net domestic product is not agricultural today and many village enterprises could have easily been in urban India; there is nothing distinctively rural about them. As a consequence, old village ties have snapped and the new age villager thinks much like urban people do. This explains why the village umbrella is no longer riot-proof.

We got a strong message along these lines in the 2002 Gujarat massacres, but many of us mistakenly put it down to Narendra Modi's exceptionalism. If in the past community and ethnic violence was rare in villages it was because rural social ties, even those of superiority and inferiority, were as if graven in stone. Unjust and unfair though the old villages were, they remained free of ethnic wars. But today's fast changing rural economy has brought these hidden tensions out in the open. The mute mud walls are still standing, but everything within has changed.

In 1990, when sanctified bricks for the shilanyas project went through rural Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, the late Mahender Singh Tikait, then leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), was both upset and unimpressed. In this he was not alone, but it was the next generation of scattily urbanised Jats who were the most ardent votaries of the build-the-temple project. Two decades later, members of that generation have now come of age to become opinion makers in Jat mahapanchayats. Not surprising then that bugles should sound from these forums exhorting Hindus to go to war.

In 1988, Meerut city was paralysed by ethnic riots and for months few dared to venture out after dark or away from home. But after Muzaffarnagar-born Tikait and his merry men from the BKU came to town to protest against the levying of electricity charges, the foul air lifted. In the end the farmers did not succeed, but something else did. After a long, fearful spell, the people of Meerut could breathe easy again. Not once during those Meerut days did Tikait address his followers, drawn largely from villages in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, without an ostensibly dressed Muslim by his side.

Such were the rustics of Muzaffarnagar then and such are the urban types of Muzaffarnagar now!

Given this new reality, is it wise for any political party to address rural voters independent of their almost urban contexts and their full-blown urban dreams? Will the right to food and land acquisition Act address these aspirations well enough? You can leave the villager in the village but, in all likelihood, the city will still reach him. If coherent economic programmes don't make this link, ethnic riots will, and that will always remain the default urban option. To keep peace in what is still called "rural", political parties must read the demographic trends and plan in advance.

Our last census shows that between 2001 and 2011, population grew at a much faster rate in cities and towns than in villages. While urban numbers increased by 31%, in rural India the figure went up by only 13%. The same inter-censal period also saw the emergence of 18 new million-plus cities and 2,774 new towns.

These facts are also reflected in the growing number of urban parliamentary constituencies. From a mere 70 around Independence, there are close to 170 today. If we were to add semi-urban constituencies, where the population is on the verge of becoming non-rural, the number would easily cross 200.

Satisfying urban impulses has a multiplier effect as most villagers are a short step away from being in the city. This can also be assessed from the fact that almost 21% of rural kids, many very poor, go to private schools even if it hurts their stomachs to do so. Yet, political parties, of all hues, hardly ever reflect this urban drive and longing in their programmes. Ironically, in 2009, had the Congress-powered UPA not taken all major metropolises (except Bangalore), 34 of 57 big cities and 81 of the 144 urban areas its members contested in, it would never have been in power.

Now the big surprise! In percentage terms, even though the UPA did better in urban than in rural India, yet its flagship MGNREGA was meant primarily for destitute villagers. So did the UPA win in 2009 in spite of doing its best to lose the plot? Can it bank on lightning striking the same spot twice?

It is time now for politicians to think "India", and not "Bharat versus India"!

The writer is a social scientist.

(TOI)