The image of Mayawati swaddled in a giant currency garland at the silver jubilee celebrations of the Bahujan Samaj Party brought conflicting emotions.
Who could grudge the BSP this supremely deserved highpoint? There are not many parallels to the story of the BSP. A party of the socially deprived making the rough journey to the seat of power in the country's most populous State is remarkable in itself. When that party wins a majority of seats under the leadership of a self-made woman of Dalit background, then the feat becomes immeasurable.
Which is why the currency garland is disconcerting. It was a needless appendage to a momentous milestone. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has much to celebrate and celebrate she must. But when she reduces the grandness of the occasion to a worship of currency notes, she detracts from her own implausible achievement.
True, her critics are the carping kind. They will ceaselessly disparage her even as they overlook the overabundance of her competitors' wealth. Perhaps there is also some merit in the view that the showmanship was a necessary signal to her core constituency, to tell Dalits that wealth is not the preserve of the ‘upper' castes. But 15 years have passed since Ms Mayawati first became Chief Minister. And it is three years since her party independently captured power. Surely, symbolism that once motivated and uplifted Dalits cannot indefinitely do so, and symbolism in perpetuity might even become an affront to their dignity and self respect.
My mind travelled to the early years of the BSP — and from there back to the present. It was the summer of 1988 and a horde of journalists, me included, had descended on Allahabad in U.P. to cover the by-election that set the stage for Vishwanath Pratap Singh to take on Rajiv Gandhi.
We obsessively followed ‘VP' on the campaign trail, and tracked down Sunil Shastri, the elusive Congress candidate. But there was a mysterious third candidate about whom we knew nothing. Then a strange thing happened. Almost overnight, the city was doused in the colour blue : little blue elephants covered every inch of the walls while bi-cycle riders carrying blue flags clogged the roads. The sight was truly something to behold. Kanshi Ram was the third angle of the triangular contest. But the BSP, formed four years earlier, was ideologically hostile to the ‘upper' caste media, and it took me many attempts to breach the barrier to the leader and his army of fiercely committed soldiers.
The effort opened my eyes to a whole new world. Over long stretches of conversation, we discussed institutionalised prejudices, the daily slights, and the media's refusal to even consider the Dalit point of view. I learnt why the BSP hated the word ‘harijan' : Are we orphans (they used a coarser word) that we need to become children of God? The words stung like arrows, and though aware of the purity of heart behind Gandhi's coinage, I pledged never to use the offending phrase.
Kanshi Ram lost the election but performed impressively, polling close to 70,000 votes in an election where he was up against a future Prime Minister.
Some three years later, the BSP founder introduced me to his understudy, a wisp of a girl with daring in her eyes. By then Ms. Mayawati was already a veteran of many Lok Sabha elections. Her vote trajectory was a harbinger of things to come – as much for Ms. Mayawati herself as for her party. Kairana, 1984: Third with 44,445 votes. Bijnor, 1985 : Third with 61,504 votes. Hardwar, 1987: Second with 1,25,399 votes. Bijnor, 1989: First with 1,83, 189 votes.
Ms Mayawati was as aggressive as her mentor was calm and reflective. Kanshi Ram was not a towering intellectual like Baba Saheb Ambedkar but he gave the BSP its philosophical underpinning. And what was the philosophy? One of his staunchest disciples, Ambeth Rajan, was fond of demonstrating it with the flick of his pencil. The standing pencil, with the Brahmins and other upper castes at the top, the OBCs in the middle and Dalits at the bottom, symbolised inequality at its worst. But the same pencil, laid flat on the table represented samta muluk (equal) society. But Mr. Rajan knew, as did Kanshi Ram, that what was possible in theory was not possible in practice. Thus was born the “opportunism” of the BSP. “Yes, we are opportunists. We will seize every opportunity that comes our way,” Kanshi Ram would say defiantly. It was a different matter that for the elitist media this deliberate “admission” became just one more stick to beat the BSP with.
Ms Mayawati was neither Ambedkar nor Kanshi Ram; she had no time for lofty intellectual pursuits. She was blessed with enormous native intelligence and she was cast in the street-fighter's mould. The two qualities made for a lethal combination. Inside the Lok Sabha as outside, she came to be known for her acid tongue. The more she lashed out at the manuwadis, the greater the motivational levels of the BSP cadre. Ms Mayawati's rabble-rousing skills made her an instant draw among Dalit voters, who thrilled to the guts and pluck of Kanshi Ram's heir. For Dalit voters, treated for years as a captive constituency by the Congress, the new, assertive BSP represented freedom, respect and a completely new way of thinking.
The confidence could be seen in the BSP's career graph. In just one decade, from 1989 to 1999, the party's strength in the Lok Sabha (out of 85 seats) went up from only two seats for a vote share of 9.93 per cent to 14 seats for a vote share of 22.8 per cent. In the 425-member U.P. Vidhan Sabha, the party's seat share rose from 13 for a vote share of 9.41 per cent in 1989 to 98 for a vote share of 23 per cent in 2002.
The decade also saw the BSP seize power through its stated policy of “opportunism.” In 1993, the BSP teamed up with the Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party to stunning effect. Together, the SP and the BSP overthrew the Bharatiya Janata Party, then at the peak of its Hindutva glory. But soon, the applause died down. In June 1995, the Dalit-ki-beti became Chief Minister with the support of the BJP. The ideologically mismatched alliance shocked critics and friends alike. The BJP was the BSP's mirror opposite in terms of how it viewed the ‘upper' castes. Accusations of “opportunism” were again thrown at Kanshi Ram and his favourite pupil.
Yet in office, the BSP proved to be the BJP's nemesis. Between 1995 and 2003, the BSP aligned thrice with the BJP, and each time it grew at its partner's expense. Between 1996 and 2004, the BJP's Lok Sabha tally from U.P. plunged from 52 (of 83) seats for a vote share of 33 per cent to 10 (of 80) seats for a vote share of 22 per cent. Between 1996 and 2002, the party's seat share in the Assembly declined from 174 (of 425) seats for 32.5 per cent to 88 (of 403) seats for 21 per cent.
But the BSP was not content with this. Ms Mayawati had long ago convinced herself that her party had little to derive from pre-poll alliances. But post-poll alliances were fraught with tensions as could be seen from the repeated rupture of the BSP-BJP partnerships. The germ of a winning idea began here. The BJP-BSP alliance represented the fusion of ‘upper', OBC and Dalit castes. Rather than depend on an external ally, what if the BSP made this its own internal alliance? The implementation of the idea saw the birth of the ‘Brahmin jodo abhiyan' as well as the reaching out to other castes.
The new scheme of things saw Mayawati, the aggressor, turn into Mayawati, the community builder. The transformation was beyond belief. In building a caste coalition on its own terms, the BSP had come tantalisingly close to its founder's ‘samta muluk' vision. But the danger was that this could be strategy more than vision. Indeed, today, nearly three years after that fantastic peak, the BSP no longer looks that good.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, the BSP lost votes from almost all sections in U.P, including marginally from her own community of Dalit-Jatavs. An educated, socially-conscious community, the Dalit-Jatavs no doubt noticed that Ms Mayawati had allocated only as many seats to Dalits as there are reserved constituencies in the State. The BSP chief owed her success to them; they transferred their vote almost wholly to whoever she named. In return, they did not get even one seat more than their constitutionally sanctioned share.
The BSP is still the forerunner in U.P. Ms Mayawati's biggest advantage is her transferable vote bank. However, for this vote bank not to feel used and slighted, she must do more than wear currency garlands.
The impression sought to be created for Mayawati that she is of wealthy and influential is erroneous. Only time will tell where she belongs. She cannot alienate the dalits, who are her bedrock of survival. This can be assessed only by electoral victory or defeat. Wait till then. But the privileged who are unhappy that a Chamar girl is in the saddle as CM of UP hurts them. This hurts their ego as their social philosophy does not recognize millions of Indians as even human beings worthy of respect.
Even after all odds of the established practices writing of reality in regard to dalits and objective anlysis of BSP's slow but steady march realy can be done by rarest media like 'The Hindu'. It is fact that dalits were not allowed to cast their votes at that time none of dalits could dreamt to win election except on the party ticket of congress or bjp at their own but charsmatic personalities like Kanshi Ram and Mayawati translated it into reality. the formation of govt by dalit dominated party has given new hope and aspirations to dalit and other opperesed people. This win will give a good dose to opperesed people to bost their morale for achiving confidence as well self-respect to achive political power out of UP.
It's an objective article on Mayavati and BSP. Please post this type of articles often so that people think the other side of the coin.
ecellently written article displaying great insight and the radiness to understand the other point of view.
DALITON KI NAHIN DAULAT WALON KI HAI MAYA!
The dalits have truly recognized her as she not remained the leader of the poor and persecuted but that of the affluent class. As such the dalits are disassociating and distancing from her.
It is appalling to see how her acts are now going to make the bridging of the social gulf much harder still. What she or Kanshi Ram did to gain power can be accepted atleast on the basis that it was unthinkable then to see any Dalit as the CM, and if that belief has now shaken the credit must go to BSP and its party workers. But this tenure of her in which she is ruling with majority of her own could have been used to show that doing good is not a prerogative of dominant class only. But sadly what she is actually doing is only going to prove her critics right resoundingly. Her decision to build Taj Corridor, erecting plethora of her own statues and wasting crores of rupees rather then save her state grieving under the wrath of famine, and now to add to that this garland episode, will sadly only help the critics of dalit empowerment. She should understand the gravity of her tenure, as what she does now, when she has got comfortable majority, is not only going to affect the present of her vote bank the Dalit Samaj but the their future as well.
thanks for such comments...but can any one in this country, tell me please what is the source of the crores of rupees spent on elections by CONGRESS, BJP, SP, JD, and all other major political parties.Do they do not collect the money? If Mayawati is collecting money for the function of her party from fellow followers, why there is so HAI TOUBA. Only just because she belongs to a dalit community? Only just because today the dalits have learned to contribute for their own welfare. They had started giving instead of begging. The actual reasons is that All Manuvadi political parties are afraid of change? They are afraid that if they changed their mentality from begging, then to whom the manuvadis are going to deprived in the elections.
Amazing article!!!! Please keep writing more articles like this..
The question is not of money collection by the BSP supremo Ms Mayawati, the real question is whether the deprived and marginalised sections of the society are moving socio-economically upward? There is no doubt the BSP under the leadership of Ms Mayawati has been successful in winning the confidence of the poor masses. Now is time for her to devise policies and programmes to translate poor people's aspirations into realities. She will have to empower the people through education and other socio-economic measures. The main issue is : How to move further in a democratic way? The party cadre must remain sincere, honest and dedicated to the cause. They must remember a stage will surely come when the BSP will have to face confrontation created by the struggle between the pro-change people and the status-quoists. For the desired social changes the party leadership and the cadres must know the peaceful and democratic strategies to accomplish the task. I think the party must evove a socio-economic agenda which is progressive and realistic. Education can prove a valuable instrument to change the out-dated mindset of the people and also in inspiring the people to think critically and rationally.
It is refreshing to see a sincere an honest appraisal of the social dynamics at work in a domestic daily on a sensitive issue.
The point being overlooked by all here is the straightforwardness of the BSP to admit at once that this emolument was a contribution of the workers and grassroot supporters, this is in stark contrast to the industrial and corporate money/funds that finance the political operations of most other outfits. At the least, its perfectly legal, and at the best it has bearing of a true peoples participatory movement.
it is not at all a shocking.how can we forget once BSP collected money for celebrating her birthday.She didnt show her intrest in the developmental works of her state but she was very excited to make his idols spending crores of rupees. She shows her lust towards money by wearing the malas made by rupees.
I think its a beautifully written article and it helps us see their stand objectively.I wondered lot of time about the huge amount spend on recreational buildings made by her but when I saw complete transformed look of the city, I was surprised and was forced to see other side of the coin too. Their social policies will have greater impact on society in the time to come
The last sentence sums up everything connected with the episode: she must do more than wear currency garlands.
Very informative. Thanks for this great opinion piece!
What a great article! why don't we find such articles more often?
How weak and useless we feel to be ruled by such netas? My father used to arrange somehow a hundred rupee note for divali puja.I wished to do the same with a thousand rupee note. We ordinary mortals try to somehow live and these gods celebrate at our expense.A fine piece of writing indeed!
This is against the law and order
A superbly written article. One that moves away from the media's prejudice to present an honest, balanced viewpoint of the BSP. Mayawati's own brand of social engineering (including upper castes in her party) is an interesting experiment with the potential to weaken the caste structure in UP in the long run. It will be interesting to see how far the experiment goes.
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