THE CITY THAT IS NO LONGER ALLAHABAD

The city that has been renamed Prayagraj lives in nostalgia and denial.

- SANTWANA BHATTACHARYA

Denial about its lost significance on the political map of Uttar Pradesh and, by that stretch, of India. As if it's going through a slow unravelling a crisis of identity. A century ago, it was a melting pot of nationalistic ferment, the nursery of future prime ministers. Indeed, the first social-political-cultural hub of modern UP. Th slide from that wa long but irreversible. But it's evident in the changed crowd at the coffee house, in the inarticulate anger of the youth. The nature of discourse too reflects grey, contemporary realities.

Witness that mutation in the political vocabulary, from overarching tropes to a more caste-based analysis of elections, even as metaphor. Not surprising that someone in this city reduced to basics amidst brash, hypermodern shopping arcades explains complexities thus: "Narendra Modi may be from an OBC community, but comes across as a savarna, whereas Mamata, a Banerjee Brahmin, does her politics like a subaltern." This is by way of explaining why Modi has appeal in a constituency that has 4.5 lakh savarna majority Brahmin voters at that.

That's why the contest between two dynasts for the Allahabad seat Neeraj Tripathi (BJP), son of late Keshari Nath Tripathi, former Governor of West Bengal, and Ujjwal Raman Singh (Congress), son of Kunwar Reoti Raman Singh could well be settled by the Modi factor.

No irony there. No one raises the issue of dynastic politics in a city whose claim to fame is its association with the Nehru-Gandhi family. Their old homes, Swaraj Bhawan and Anand Bhawan, are now given over to a trust. That legacy has no political pull left, though.

"They've no connect with Allahabad or its people any more. Even when Rahul or Priyanka Gandhi come here, they drive straight to Anand Bhawan and simply disappear," says MP Dubey, former professor of Political Science, Allahabad University.