How a populist remains in politics: an Indian Muslim politician’s winning style

ABSTRACTIn a competitive political system where getting renominated is challenging and incumbency disadvantage is a reality, what factors compel an electorate to keep a certain leader in power for over four decades? This article examines the qualitative characteristics of Azam Khan’s politics in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, and their interlinkages with his sustained electoral success. Through ethnographic methods, I uncover the various populist strategies he deploys in his connection with his electorate and investigate local responses to this politics. The strategies involve an anti-elite rhetoric, constant identification with the people, self-victimization, the projection of a strongman image, his use of transgressive language, the importance in the party, and the voters’ perception of lack of alternatives. A comparison is also undertaken with non-populist opposition politicians to understand the significance of these strategies. In times of majoritarianism when Muslim candidates are marginalized by mainstream political parties and struggle to win elections, understanding why people accept a Muslim leader as their symbol also has wider implications for the study of representation in which considering both the leader’s claim of being voters’ voice as well as voters’ acceptance of that claim is contextually important. AcknowledgmentI am grateful to Adnan Farooqui, Raphael Susewind, Julien Levesque, Juliette Tocino-Smith, Sarthak Bagchi, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments. I thank Md. Imtiyaz for his help in the data collection. I also thank the participants of the 2021 British Association for South Asian Studies Conference and the 2023 Annual Midwest Political Science Association Conference for their helpful suggestions.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Azam Khan is the only Muslim politician who was elected ten times in the UP assembly and one time as an MP in the national parliament. No other Muslim politician comes near this figure. Only Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is the founder of Samajwadi Party (SP) and ex-Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, won 11 times, and Kalyan Singh, a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) politician, won 13 times (Source: data collated by the author from the ECI statistical reports).2. Adnan Farooqui and Eswaran Sridharan. “Incumbency, Internal Processes and Renomination in Indian Parties,” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 52, no. 1 (2014): 78–108, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2013.867690. For the BSP, the renomination rate was as low as 17%, for Congress it was 38%, for BJP 43% and SP 30%; Gilles Verniers. “Parties Pick New Candidates as Anti-Incumbency Plays Spoiler – Hindustan Times,” Hindustan Times, March 21, 2019, https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/lok-sabha-elections-2019-parties-pick-new-candidates-as-anti-incumbency-plays-spoiler/story-9OaqkI16Rc61zC9NTQKOhP.html (accessed July 11 2021). Since 1991, across parties, only 40% of the MPs could get reelected.3. John Gerring. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (2004): 341–54, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055404001182.4. Michael Saward. “The Representative Claim.” Contemporary Political Theory 5, no. 3 (2006): 297–318, doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300234.5. Rochana Bajpai. “What Do Descriptive Representatives Describe? Minority Representative Claims and the Limits of Shape-Shifting,” Ethnicities 19, no. 5 (2019): 740–62, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796819847497.6. Thomas Blom Hansen. “Politics as Permanent Performance: The Production of Political Authority in the Locality,” in The Politics of Cultural Mobilization in India, ed. John Zavos, Andrew Wyatt, and Vernon Hewitt. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004). 19–367. Saward, ibid. Hansen, Ibid.8. Francisco Panizza. Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. (London: Verso, 2005).9. Jan-Werner Müller. What Is Populism?. (UK: Penguin Books, 2017).10. Alan Knight. “Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin America, Especially Mexico.” Journal of Latin American Studies 30, no. 2 (1998): 223–48, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x98005033.11. Benjamin Moffitt and Simon Tormey. “Rethinking Populism: Politics, Mediatisation and Political Style.” Political Studies 62, no. 2 (2013): 381–97, doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467–9248.12032.12. Pierre Ostiguy. “The High and the Low in Politics: A Two-Dimensional Political Space for Comparative Analysis and Electoral Studies,” Kellogg Institute for International Studies. July 2009, https://kellogg.nd.edu/documents/1670 (Accessed March 20, 2022); Pierre Ostiguy. “Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach,” in The Oxford Handbook of Populism, ed. Kaltwasser Rovira Cristóbal, Paul A. Taggart, Ochoa Paulina Espejo, and Pierre Ostiguy. (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2019), 73–99.13. Jean-Thomas Martelli. “Aping the People.” Jean-Thomas Martelli. https://jtmartelli.hypotheses.org/9018 (Accessed March 20, 2022).14. Margaret Canovan. “Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy.” Political Studies 47, no. 1 (1999): 2–16, doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467–9248.00184.15. Edward Shils. The Torment of Secrecy. (New York: The Free Press, 1956), quoted in Kaltwasser Rovira Cristóbal, Paul A. Taggart, Ochoa Paulina Espejo, and Pierre Ostiguy, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Populism. (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2019), 18016. Andrew Wyatt. “Populism and Politics in Contemporary Tamil Nadu.” Contemporary South Asia 21, no. 4 (2013): 365–81, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2013.803036.17. Arun Swamy. “Parties, Political Identities and the Absence of Mass Political Violence in South India.” In Community Conflicts and the State in India, ed. Atul Kohli and Amrita Basu. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 108–148; Narendra Subramanian. Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens and Democracy in South India. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).18. Paula Diehl. “Populist Twist: The Relationship between the Leader and the People in Populism,” in Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Democratic Representation, ed. Dario Castiglione and Johannes Pollak. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019); Ostiguy, “The High and the Low in Politics;” Max Weber. The theory of social and economic organizations, ed. A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans., T. Parsons. (New York: Free Press, 1947), quoted in Jay A. Conger. “Charismatic Leadership,” in The Oxford Handbook of Leadership, ed. Michael G. Rumsey. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).19. Jaffrelot, Christophe. “Moment of the Strongman.” The Indian Express, December 24, 2018. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/strongman-coalition-modi-rahul-gandhi-narsimha-rao-2019-elections-5508179/ (Accessed August 20, 2021).20. Canovan, Ibid.21. Moffitt and Tormey, Ibid.22. Ibid., 389.23. Bram Spruyt, Gil Keppens, and Filip Van Droogenbroeck. “Who Supports Populism and What Attracts People to it?,” Political Research Quarterly 69, no. 2 (2016): 335–46, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912916639138.24. Kenny, Paul D. Populism and Patronage Why Populists Win Elections in India, Asia, and Beyond. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).25. In fact, Rampur Parliamentary constituency also has the highest Muslim presence in any Parliamentary constituencies of UP, about 49%. (Source: CSDS-Lokniti dataset on Constituency profiles).26. Finding from multiple interviews with Muslim and non-Muslim voters of Rampur. I argued similarly elsewhere that Azam Khan in his 2019 Lok Sabha election’s campaign, did his road shows and contact meetings mostly in the Muslim-dominated areas of Rampur assembly constituency. His campaigns followed the same logic in other assembly constituencies, like Swar, Bilaspur, etc. of Rampur; Osama, Mohd. “An Ethnographic Exploration of the Muslim Vote in India.” SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 1, (2023): 1–30, doi: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529624779.27. Wyatt, Andrew. “The Enduring Appeal of Populist Leadership in Contemporary Tamil Nadu?” Essay. In Power and Influence in India: Bosses, Lords and Captains, ed. Pamela G. Price and Arild Engelsen Ruud, 144–68. New Delhi: Routledge India, 2016.28. Bajpai, Rochana, and Adnan Farooqui. “Non-Extremist Outbidding: Muslim Leadership in Majoritarian India.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 24, no. 3 (2018): 276–98, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2018.1489487.29. Varshney, Ashutosh. “Populism and Nationalism: An Overview of Similarities and Differences.” Studies in Comparative International Development 56, no. 2 (2021): 131–47, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-021-09332-x.30. Rohillas community were of Pashtun ancestry, found in the region of Rohilkhand, in Uttar Pradesh. The Rohilla State of Rampur was established by Nawab Faizullah Khan in 1774.31. Vijay Shanker. “Azam Khan: Samajwadi Party Politician. His Journey.” YouTube. April 3, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFWpdpuVCc0 (Accessed August 20, 2021). Despite being a secretary of the AMUSU which is a nonpolitical post, he was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police and lodged to Aligarh jail and then Rampur jail in 1975. Due to this, his studies got affected and he left the LLM course. He was offered a ticket for the Aligarh city’s assembly seat for the 1977 election, but he offered that to one of his university’s teachers. He then fought his first election in 1977 from the Rampur city assembly but lost it.32. Zoya Hasan. “Representation and Redistribution: The New Lower Caste Politics of North India,” in Parties and Party Politics in India, ed. Zoya Hasan. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 370–96.33. Yogendra Yadav. “Understanding the Second Democratic Upsurge: Trends of Bahujan Participation in Electoral Politics in the 1990s,” in Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy, ed. Francine R. Frankel, Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava, and Balveer Arora. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 120–45.34. Adnan Farooqui. “Political Representation of a Minority: Muslim Representation in Contemporary India.” India Review 19, no. 2 (2020): 153–75, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2020.1744996.35. Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil. India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975–77. (India: Harper Collins, 2021). Jayaprakash Narayan, George Fernandes and others rose to prominence by organizing strikes like Railway Men’s strike, Air India strike, Indian Airlines strike, Life Insurance Corporation strikes between 1972–1975.36. Ibid.37. Tehsils are the administrative units of a district. The Rampur district consists of Sadar (Rampur city), Bilaspur, Milak, Shahbad, Swar, and Tanda tehsils.38. District Census Handbook. “Primary Census Abstract of Rampur.” http://lsi.gov.in:8081/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1300/1/46040_1981_RAM.pdf (Accessed August 20, 2021).39. The mill owner was the Nawabs of Rampur. Azam Khan started mobilizing workers of Raza textile mill and the bidi workers. Some accounts informs that he used to sit with the bidi workers and make bidis with them (Sultan, 2019).40. Ostiguy, “The High and the Low in Politics”41. Interview with Iqbal A. Ansari, Rampur city (3rd April 2019).42. News Nation. “News Nation Exclusive with Azam Khan.” YouTube, March 25, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxNhLmqKumI (Accessed August 20, 2021).43. Fieldnote, 2019.44. Vinay Sultan. “ग्राउंड रिपोर्ट: क्या खत्म होने को है आजम खान का सियासी खेल?– Ground Report of SP Leader Azam Khan, His Politics in Rampur and Controversy Related to Jauhar University.” The Lallantop, August 4, 2019. https://www.thelallantop.com/bherant/ground-report-of-sp-leader-azam-khan-his-politics-in-rampur-and-controversy-related-to-jauhar-university/ (Accessed August 22, 2021).45. Mohammad Ali Jauhar University was established by Mohammad Ali Jauhar trust in 2006. Its lifetime chancellor is Azam Khan.46. The Sunday Guardian. “Azam wants Rampur fort demolished.” December 7, 2013.http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/azam-wants-rampur-fort-demolished (Accessed August 22, 2021).47. Mohd Faisal Fareed. “Rampur Makes It to News These Days for Only One Name – Azam Khan.” The Indian Express, November 1, 2015. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/rampur-makes-it-to-news-these-days-for-only-one-name-azam-khan/ (Accessed August 15, 2021).48. Fieldnote, 2019.49. Dilip Mandal. “It Is Azam Khan, and Not Owaisi, Who Is BJP’s Permanent Target.” ThePrint, September 18, 2019. https://theprint.in/opinion/it-is-azam-khan-and-not-owaisi-who-is-bjps-permanent-target/293118/ (Accessed August 15, 2021).50. Fieldnote, 2019.51. Ibid.52. One could note the black color marble plaques all over the city, at every important road. On the plaque, Azam Khan’s name in Hindi and Urdu is written in bold, with some other details like money used from the MLA quota, the plaque installation date, etc.53. The organization is not a big scale organization and have mainly youth members of SP party unit of Rampur. Their main task is to mobilize people for campaign during elections. In off-election times, they promote Azam Khan’s welfare works among the masses mainly through social media. Source: In many conversations with Asim Raja, Nagaradhyaksh (District head) of the SP party, Rampur.54. One could find a wooden framed poster in the party office, Daru-ul-Awam, titled “Vikas-e-Azam” which means Azam’s development. This was gifted by, as mentioned at the lower right corner of the poster, “Courtesy: Azamwadi Amanwadi Samajwadi Sahayta Sainik.” The points mention in the poster are the Azam’s promises, primarily the facilities provided to people, like water, electricity, houses, education, etc.55. Interview with Shavez, Babbu Chacha, and Zawwar, Rampur city (12th March 2021).56. The Times of India. “Allahabad high court annuls election of Azam Khan’s son Abdullah Khan as Suar MLA.” December 16, 2019. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/allahabad-high-court-annuls-election-of-azam-khans-son-abdullah-khan-as-suar-mla/articleshow/72755340.cms (Accessed August 20, 2021). Abdullah Azam Khan, younger son of Mohammad Azam Khan, was an MLA from the Suar assembly constituency of Rampur. His membership was annulled by the Allahabad High Court due to his being underage at the time of his getting elected in 2017. He again became an MLA in the 2022 UP assembly on the same seat of Suar, of which his membership was dismissed in February 2023, due to conviction for two years.57. Diehl, “Populist Twist;” Ostiguy, “Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach”58. Nandita Singh. “Fear, Insecurity, Polarisation: How Azam Khan Maintains His Notorious Grip over Rampur.” ThePrint, April 20, 2019. https://theprint.in/india/fear-insecurity-polarisation-how-azam-khan-maintains-his-notorious-grip-over-rampur/223887/ (Accessed August 15, 2021).59. Fareed, Ibid.60. Fieldnote, 2019.61. Interview with Babbu Chacha, Rampur city (12th March 2021). Azam Khan is in the jail since February 2020 on account of more than 80 cases which are filed against him like property theft, books theft, etc. In fact, he was denied bail by the court to campaign for the 2022 UP assembly election but had won it despite of not being on the ground. He had left his Lok Sabha seat which he won in 2019. Though he got out from jail in May but in October 2022, his membership in the UP assembly was ended, due to conviction in the hateful speech case.62. Oneindia Hindi. “Azam Khan Lashes out at SDM after Walking on Dirt-Filled Road.” YouTube, March 16, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJeIVA3ZfD4 (Accessed November 15, 2021).63. News Nation, Ibid.64. Fieldnote, 2019.65. Mohd Osama. “This Is the One Thing Working for the Few Muslims Contesting Lok Sabha Elections from UP.” ThePrint, May 13, 2019. https://theprint.in/opinion/this-is-the-one-thing-working-for-the-few-muslims-contesting-lok-sabha-elections-from-up/234725/ (Accessed August 16, 2021). He once told the voters that he changed his decision to become an IAS officer when he overheard his father reprimanding one IAS officer badly.66. Ostiguy, “Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach”67. Fieldnote, 2019.68. Zee News. “Muzaffarnagar Riots: Azam Khan Blames Local Administration, Akhilesh Govt.” YouTube, September 11, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxNUV8seu6Y (Accessed August 5, 2021).69. Press Trust of India. All cases against Azam Khan would be withdrawn if SP comes to power: Akhilesh Yadav. Hindustan Times, September 15, 2019. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/all-cases-against-azam-khan-would-be-withdrawn-if-sp-comes-to-power-akhilesh-yadav/story-MTlW4paBU9VutwuLLgWUAI.html (Accessed August 11, 2021).70. Fieldnote, 2021.71. Sultan, Ibid.72. Madhavi Devasher. “When Favoritism Fails: The Politics of Cross-ethnic Voting among Muslims in India.” Ethnopolitics 19, no. 5 (2019): 433–458, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2019.1594558.73. Kanchan Chandra. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India, 1st ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).74. Indian Express. “Azam Khan returns to SP.” December 5, 2010. http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/azam-khan-returns-to-sp/720565/ (Accessed August 9, 2021).75. Aaj Tak. “Special Interview: Azam Khan.” YouTube. April 10, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00T51LDSH4M (Accessed September 2, 2021).76. Ostiguy, “Populism: A Socio-Cultural Approach”77. Moffitt and Tormey, Ibid.78. News Nation, Ibid.79. Indian Express. “Azam Khan’s Kargil remarks come in for sharp criticism from all sides.” April 9, 2014. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/azam-khans-kargil-remarks-come-in-for-sharp-criticism-from-all-sides/ (Accessed September 2, 2021).80. India TV. “Azam Khan Campaigns for His Son, Hits-out at Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj.” YouTube. February 9, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlX1J1dmwQc (Accessed September 8, 2021).81. Deccan Chronicle. “FIR registered against SP’s Azam Khan on remarks against Jaya Prada.” April 15, 2019. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/politics/150419/wont-contest-if-proved-guilty-azam-khan-on-objectionable-remarks-aga.html (Accessed September 8, 2021).82. Fieldnote, 2019. During a meeting with only party workers, where I was also present and which he asked everyone to not record, he showed three photographs of Jaya Prada from her Facebook profile and pointed toward to the only woman that was present while stating: “She is also our Indian woman, she is so decently dressed.”83. Fieldnote, 2019.84. Interview with Mohammad Azam Khan in his Dar-ul-Awam office (25th May 2019). He says with some force, that “sabko chunav ladna hai, Musalman hi Musalman ko aage nikalta nhi dekh sakta. Har chunav me Musalman vote in jaiso ki wajah se kat jaata hai.” (Everyone wanted to fight the elections, a Muslim only can’t see other Muslims to achieve success. In every election, Muslim votes get divide due to them); Sultan, Ibid. He is notorious about disliking his opponents. One story is an instructive example: Qayyum of Madaiyya Shadigaon, complains that he wanted to fight on a seat in a rural panchayat election in 2005, but Khan’s close aide Murtaza Ali’s mother was a Pradhan of this village. Qayyum was threatened first, unrelenting, he was charged with Arms Act. After 18 days post bail, Goonda Act was imposed on him. In 2013, he was charged with possession of 1.5 kgs of Charas (Cannabis). He spent 9 months in jail. Similar stories of charging his opponents with drugs related crime and then put in the jail is quite common in Rampur. One story does rounds in Rampur about Dr. Taj Mohammad who was not ready to give his 25 acres of land for the flyover project. As per my respondents, Azam Khan falsely charged him with a rape case. Story about him do rounds in Rampur that he slapped a theliwala (street vendor) because he was using the wrong side of the road.85. Findings in many interactions with the voters of Rampur city.86. Interview with Adeeb in Rampur city (2nd April 2019).87. Conger, Ibid; Diehl, Ibid.88. Interview with the District Magistrate of Rampur, Aunjaneya Kumar Singh (26th April 2019).89. Interview with Zawwar, Rampur city (12th March 2021).90. Ibid.91. Spruyt et al., Ibid.92. In both by-elections, Asim Raja Khan was given the ticket, who is among the close confidantes of Azam Khan. The visible support of Azam Khan could not stop the BJP from winning the two by-elections.93. Interview with Dr. Tanveer Ahmad Khan (18th January 2022).94. Bajpai, Ibid.