Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is either a heartless ruler who does not consider the death of children in a government-run medical college in his own constituency as a profound tragedy (he did not even visit the families of the victims) or a simpleton who thinks Kerala is an illiterate place where people are not tuned into what is happening around. Possibly, Yogi is a mix of both.

Just about a month after 72 children died within seven days in August 2017, in Gorakhpur's Baba Raghav Das Medical College as a result of oxygen shortage, Yogi came to Kerala and asked the state government to learn how to handle health from his administration.

The advice came from a man who did nothing even after he was repeatedly warned by the oxygen supplier that its dues were not paid and that it would cut the oxygen supply to the hospital if the non-payment persisted.

Kerala had then dismissed Yogi's utterances like anyone would a tasteless joke.

 

Pre-poll scaremongering
Now, a few hours before the start of polling for the first round of the UP Assembly election, Yogi has once again said that Kerala is a place to be shunned. In a recorded message uploaded on his Twitter handle, Yogi says: “Many good things have taken place in five years. [Vote correctly or] the work from all these five years will be ruined. Uttar Pradesh could become Kashmir, Kerala and Bengal.”

(Listen to Yogi Adityanath's controversial take on Kerala that features after 5.35 in the above speech)

This was said not in between or as a throwaway casual remark but as the final punch-line of his nearly six-minute message. Clearly, Yogi believed that the very thought of UP becoming Kashmir or West Bengal or Kerala would seriously unnerve his voters and rouse them to stand behind him.

In Kashmir, it can be argued that there is cross-border terrorism and unending political unrest. If one is out to find reasons, it can be said that the political violence in West Bengal is unremitting.

 

India's pride, Yogi's envy
But why Kerala? If governance indicators are considered, Uttar Pradesh will come across as a poorly-governed place in comparison. Sample any of the major indicators: gender violence or women's empowerment, women literacy or maternity health, infant mortality, or treatment of childhood diseases. In all of these, Kerala leaves Yogi's UP far behind.

Take, for instance, gender violence. The latest National Family Health Survey says that 34.8% of married women between the age of 18 and 49 had experienced spousal violence. In Kerala, it is 9.9%.

Since Yogi boasts of what he had done for women in his pre-polling advice, let's sample a crucial women's empowerment indicator. The NFHS data shows that in Uttar Pradesh 67.4% of females above the age of six attend schools. In Kerala, it is 95.5%.

Reason why Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan tweeted: "If UP turns into Kerala as @myogiadityanath fears, it will enjoy the best education, health services, social welfare, living standards and have a harmonious society in which people won't be murdered in the name of religion and caste. That's what the people of UP would want."

 

Yogi with a heart of hate
Therefore, when Yogi speaks against Uttar Pradesh becoming Kerala, he is not warning his voters about governance failure. Dead bodies floating on the Ganges and scattered abandoned along its banks during the peak of the COVID second wave were more than enough to disabuse anyone who thought governance mattered to the UP Chief Minister.

By invoking the names of Kashmir, West Bengal and Kerala, he is actually warning about a Muslim revival. Kashmir Valley is predominantly Muslim (95%). West Bengal and Kerala have a powerful and assertive Muslim minority, 27% and 26.5%. These states, for him and his die-hard followers, are bywords for Muslim assertion.

Any sign of Muslim assertion seems unacceptable to a man widely considered the most openly anti-Muslim ruler the country has ever seen. "We aren't biryani-eating people," he once said during an election campaign, referring to a cuisine closely associated with Muslims.

Even his thoughts about terrorists are couched in Muslim-baiting words. While praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his anti-terrorism record, Yogi said: " Modi-ji has been shooting terrorists with bullets rather than serving them biryani." During the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the worst forms of atrocities against Muslims were perpetrated in Uttar Pradesh.

 

Kerala and 'love jihad'
Yogi is now attempting to intensify the communal divide through his 'Kashmir-West Bengal-Kerala' formulation.

By inserting references to these states in a message just before polls, Yogi is hoping to crank up anti-Muslim hatred to consolidate Hindu votes. With BSP's Mayawati wooing Muslims with a vengeance and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party aggressively embracing the backward castes, Yogi is desperate to mobilise the Jats and upper-caste Hindus.

Yogi knows these are the kind of voters easily swayed by talks of 'love jihad' and 'jihadi terror'. The UP Chief Minister, in his speeches across the country, had linked 'love jihad' to Kerala.

He has done this so consistently that, at least for his voters, Kerala is just another word for 'love jihad'. Perhaps the belief is the mention of Kerala alone is enough to trigger the spectre of sly Muslim men seducing chaste Hindu girls.

 

Yogi with a cricket fan's mind
In a sense, Yogi's is an unintended compliment. He is furious about Kerala's embrace of the Muslim community. It is like an Australian cricket fan's frustration with Virat Kohli. The fan's anger more than anything else confirms the unmatched quality of Kohli. Similarly, Yogi's disgust for Kerala is just an affirmation of its famed model of religious coexistence.