The Nishad community demands their inclusion in the SC category. In 1994, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the party’s founder and president, decided to expand the Samajwadi Party’s core voter base beyond Yadavs and Muslims in the state, even though the party was only two years old.
Ignoring the criticism his choice caused, he fielded bandit queen Phoolan Devi, a Nishad by caste, in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. Her transformation as the Nishad community’s poster child inspired the group’s political goals.
A dacoit from Chambal who was active in the 1980s, Phoolan Devi, had been raped by men of higher caste and had killed 22 Thakurs in Behmai village, close to Kanpur, in 1981 as retaliation. The case continued to garner national attention.
She was imprisoned from 1983 to 1994 after turning herself in before Madhya Pradesh’s then-chief minister, Arjun Singh. Yadav fielded her from the Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat shortly after her release in an effort to sway and win over the Nishad community. Aside from a few areas bordering Bihar, the group is significant in 37 Lok Sabha seats (around 12% of the votes in about a dozen elections) and approximately 100 assembly constituencies in the state. After Phoolan was killed in 2001, the Nishad community was left without direction.
At that point, Sanjay Nishad entered the picture. He joined the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF), founded by Kanshi Ram in 2008, and started a drive to organise 553 sub-castes within fishing communities.
In 2016, Nishad launched the Nishad Party. In 2017, the party made its debut in the Vidhan Sabha elections. In 2018, he put his son Pravin Nishad on the ballot and, along with the Samajwadi Party, won the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha by-election (Yogi Adityanath had left the seat vacant after becoming Chief Minister). However, he ran and prevailed in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while forming an alliance with the BJP. In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, he overthrew the established party, the Congress, within eight years of the party’s founding.
He now has six MLAs in the Vidhan Sabha: he is an MLA and a minister in the Yogi government, and both of his sons are legislators, one in the state assembly and the other in the Lok Sabha. He reaped enormous benefits from the ground that Phoolan Devi prepared.
Now, he wants to win more in 2024. It’s interesting to note that he has maintained the memory of Phoolan Devi in addition to the Nishad community sticking with him. Nishad insisted on a CBI investigation into Phoolan Devi’s death as late as July 2023. He further asked that her possessions be freed from the “SP-backed mafia elements” and given to her mother, who resides in Jalaun, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Nishad is hopeful that Modi will grant his party’s demands, which include giving the Nishad, Majhwar, Kewat, and Mallah communities reserved status in government employment and placing them within the Scheduled Caste system.
As of right now, Nishads, which include 17 communities, are classified as OBC. At a joint rally with the Nishad Party in December 2021, Union Home Minister Amit Shah gave the Nishads assurances that their demands would be met and their problems would be resolved. The Akhilesh Yadav government had offered SC/ST recognition for the Nishads.
Since the state government has already written a letter to the Registrar General of India and the Census Commissioner pointing out that the Majhwar caste is already listed on the UP government’s list of Scheduled Castes, he is optimistic that the Centre will make a decision soon.
The leader of the Nishad Party went on, “People of the Majhwar caste use the surnames Majhi, Majhwar, Kewat, Mallah, and Nishad in various parts of the state. They are not given SC certificates because they use other surnames, although other SC communities with different surnames receive advantages intended for the community. Everyone whose surname is connected to the Majhwar caste ought to have a certificate from the SC.
Regarding the choice to erect a statue of Nishad Raj within the grounds of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Nishad declared, “We are proud of this decision.” The Nishads are water kings, and during Lord Ram’s banishment, their ancestors assisted him in crossing a river. If the Nishad community is added to the Scheduled Caste list, the NDA will win twice in the 2024 elections.
Nishads are now politically significant since they have grown to be a significant vote bank in a number of the state’s districts over time. The Congress conducted the “Nadi Adhikar Yatra” in an attempt to increase its support base ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections in 2022, but with little success.
