Uttar Pradesh has nearly 200 million people; if it were a separate country, it would be the world’s fifth largest. India is a union of states, but there has always been a sense in which, if the country has a heartland, UP is that heartland. It is a particular pity, therefore, that the political culture of that state seems mired in immaturity, an immaturity of which Chief Minister Mayawati’s dangerous one-upmanship about UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s rally in her Lok Sabha constituency of Rae Bareli is the latest manifestation. The Congress president had planned to inaugurate a new railway coach factory in the area, and address a large rally to celebrate; the UP government first, through Lucknow’s divisional commissioner, cancelled the land allotment for the factory — although work had already started, Rs 15 crore worth. This was a transparent attempt to disrupt Sonia Gandhi’s visit; and an attempt carried out in a manner that strains India’s federal structure to the limit.

What followed was worse. When the high court stayed the order taking the land back from the railways, the state government responded — by effectively banning the rally, through the imposition of Section 144 of the criminal procedure code, which seeks to prevent “disturbance of the public tranquillity, or a riot, or an affray.” As a result, the visiting MP is forced to address party workers in her own constituency at a small meeting in a guesthouse. Yes, law and order is a state subject, but using that to hold back centrally-funded development, or control the movement of an area’s representative to the Centre is unacceptable. This is misusing state power, and betrays a fundamentally illiberal mindset; and, what is more, it doesn’t suit a chief minister with pretensions to higher office.

... contd.