Early life

Kumari Mayawati (i.e. Chandawati Devi) was born in Delhi to Ram Rati and Prabhu Das. Prabhu Das, her father worked as a clerk in the telecommunications department. She graduated from Kalindi College in Delhi and holds both Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Education degrees. She worked as a teacher in Delhi (Inderpuri JJ Colony) during which time she studied for the Indian Administrative Service exam. In 1977, Kanshi Ram became very influential in her life resulting in her joining his core team when he founded the BSP in 1984. Shortly after, she changed her career path and entered politics full time.

Political career

In 1984, Kanshi Ram founded the BSP as a party to represent the Dalits, and Mayawati was one of the key people in the new organization. In 2001, Kanshi Ram named her as his successor.

BSP was formed in April 1984, and fielded Mayawati for its first election campaign from the Kairana Lok Sabha seat in the Muzaffarnagar district in 1984, and then again for the Lok Sabha seats of Bijnor in 1985 and Haridwar in 1989. Although they did not win, the electoral experience led to considerable groundwork over the next five years, (working with Mahsood Ahmed and other organizers), and in 1989, the party won 9% of the popular vote, and 13 seats in 1989, and 11 in 1991. Because the Dalits are widely-spread over the state, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati then adopted a policy of attracting other groups, which continues today.

Kumari first won for the Lok Sabha elections in 1989 from Bijnor. In 1995, while a member of the Rajya Sabha, she became a Chief Minister in a short-lived coalition government, and validated her position by winning from two constituencies in 1996. She was again Chief Minister for a short period in 1997, and then for a somewhat longer term in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party from 2002 to 2003.

In 2003, during one of her tenures as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati was accused of corruption by the opposition, Samajwadi Party. The Samajwadi Party legislators presented a video cassette and a CD to the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, which they claimed showed Mayawati asking her MLAs to hand over money from their annual constituency fund towards BSP’s party fund. Shortly thereafter, Mayawati got more than 140 cases filed against her bete noire and head of Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav, for alleged misuse of the Chief Minister’s Discretionary Fund when he headed the government in 1995-96. She also got first information reports (FIRs) registered against other leaders of the Samajwadi Party.

In her tenures as Chief Minister, Mayawati has erected a number of monuments to Dalit heroes like Bhimrao Ambedkar and others also of Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, Gautam Buddha.

2007 Election

Newspapers in Calcutta announce the surprise majority for Mayawati’s party in the 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh

Contrary to some poll predictions, BSP won a majority, the first such majority since 1991. Mayawati managed to attract support from Brahmins, Thakurs, Muslims and OBCs voted for the first time for a Dalit party, partly because BSP had offered seats to people from these communities. As usual, this was accompanied by a colourful slogan: Haathi nahin, Ganesh hain, Brahma, Vishnu Mahesh Hain: The elephant (BSP Logo) is really the wise Ganesh, the trinity of gods rolled into one.

Chief Minister, 2007

Kumari Mayawati was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time on 13 May 2007. Her announced agenda focuses on social justice through law and other means for weaker sections and on providing employment instead of distributing money to unemployed; her slogan is to make “Uttar Pradesh” (“Northern Province”) into an “Uttam Pradesh” (“Excellent Province”).

Her first action was to suspend two IAS officers for non-performance to maintain the Ambedkar park in Lucknow: B.B. Singh, Vice-President (LDA), and S.K. Aggarwal (PWD Principal Sec.) and also one other lower rank officer. It is widely believed that these officers were close to the outgoing government of Mulayam Singh Yadav. She has transferred around 100 police officers.

She is continuing the process clearing out of corruption in the UP Police Department. The campaign is a major crack down on corrupt police officers recruited during the previous Mulayam Singh Regime. So far 17,868 policemen have lost their jobs for irregularities in the recruitment process and 25 IPS officers were suspended for involving in corruption while recruiting the police constables.

She has also opened case files relating to land deals of the leading actor Amitabh Bachchan in Barabanki, who was close to the previous Samajwadi Party regime.

Since attracting the votes of upper castes, she now talks about a policy for poverty-based reservations rather than caste-based reservations.

Controversies

Taj corridor case

Taj corridor case is an alleged scam where in 2002-2003, then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mayawati was charged with corruption. The Taj Corridor project was a project to upgrade tourist facilities near the Taj Mahal implemented during her tenure as Chief Minister. The BJP government at the Centre at that time gave the Environmental Clearance required for such project near Taj Mahal. However, later on BJP backed out and then started saying that the project is not cleared by the Environment Ministry and blamed Mayawati for starting construction work near the Taj Mahal.

The Supreme Court of India ordered a CBI enquiry into the matter, specifically to probe Mayawati’s and the then Union Minster for Environment, Naseemuddin Siddiqui’s involvement in the scam. Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the findings were reported to the Governor of Uttar Pradesh who thereafter refused to grant sanction for prosecution of the two under Section 197 Cr. P.C. This refusal was once again brought to the Supreme Court of India where the bench decided that rulings on such a sanction were out of its jurisdiction and it was the executive’s (the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, here) discretion.

Embezzlement

Mayawati has also been accused of ordering her BSP’s MPs to contribute their discretion-funds and MPLAD funds to the party-fund illegally. In 2007-08 assesment year, Mayawati paid more income tax than industrialist and Forbes-listed Mukesh Ambani and it is believed that these are misappropriated funds; she is currently under CBI scrutiny for her personal wealth.

Birthday gifts and murder of MK Gupta

Every year on her birthday her party members extort money from businessmen and people in positions of influence. This money is said to go straight into the coffers of the party and into the personal wealth of prominent party members, including Mayawati herself.

Mayawati also came under heavy criticism from opposition in 2008, when a PWD engineer named M K Gupta was killed after he reportedly refused to pay money demanded by a BSP MLA for Mayawati’s birthday celebrations.

Election strategy : Bahujan to Sarvajan

Mayawati is engineering a grand social alliance to wrest Lucknow. Her time may have finally come, says Shivam Vij

Empress commands: Mayawati has built an impregnable base for herself

In the 1989 Lok Sabha polls, the BSP fielded 246 candidates and forfeited deposits in 222 seats

She is governing more people than any other woman leader in the world at this moment.

The BSP was founded by Kanshi Ram, a former laboratory assistant in a defence laboratory, in 1984, preceded by thirteen years of social agitations by dalit beneficiaries of affirmative action. The vacuum left by the co-option of the Ambedkar-founded Republican Party of India into the Congress made Uttar Pradesh a fertile ground for the BSP.

Mayawati is a former schoolteacher, has a degree in law, and got her oily ponytail cut into a boy-cut as part of building her image as the Iron Lady of Lucknow. She has marketed herself to dalit voters by telling them she is one of them — an outcast whose rise to the highest post is to be seen as a symbol of the elevation of all dalits. She can’t wait for posterity to install her statues: she wants them now.

The BSP’s vote-share in the 2002 Assembly elections was 23.1 percent, a little less than that of the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Kanshi Ram’s space in the BSP has been filled by the

reputed Lucknow lawyer Subhash Chandra Mishra,a Brahmin

With support from the BJP, Mayawati became chief minister for the third time on 3 May 2002. The 2004 Lok Sabha elections were approaching and the BJP was being more than a little persistent for a pre-poll alliance in which the BSP was being allotted seats less than what the BSP wanted. Besides, a pre-poll alliance with the BJP hurts the BSP’s small but important Muslim constituency even if the fixed dalit vote-bank may not care. The last nail in the coffin was the Vajpayee government’s refusal to save Mayawati from the Central Bureau of Investigation’s proceedings in a case where she allegedly received kickbacks in allowing the construction of a commercial complex too close to the Taj Mahal in Agra.

That was Mayawati’s second experiment with the BJP. The first one had resulted in Mayawati occupying 5 Kalidas Marg, Lucknow, from 21 March to 21 September 1997. As per the BSP’s rather bizarre agreement with the BJP, Mayawati and Kalyan Singh would take turns as cm every six months. Kalyan Singh took over on 21 September 1997 and aggressively started reversing Mayawati’s policy decisions. The BSP couldn’t stand it and four months later, on 21 February 1998, Vidhan Sabha was in search of another government.

The alliance with the BJP was meant to be strategic and short-term rather than ideological for both parties. Occupying the treasury benches was important enough to forego the irony of a savarna-dominated Hindutva party allying with a Hindu-hating Ambedkarite outfit. Eager to co-opt dalits and OBCs rather than have a hostile relationship with them, the Sangh Parivar approved of Mayawati.

Before the 2002 Assembly elections, both the BSP and the BJP were vehemently denying the prospect of a post-poll alliance, even attacking each other in rallies.

Dalit candidates of the BSP have mostly been given tickets only on those seats that are reserved for the Scheduled Castes

The BSP and the Samajwadi Party together got nearly 50 percent vote-share in 2002, but an alliance between the two is like one between the Congress and the BJP. The BSP was formed on a “Bahujan” plank. The idea was to isolate the minority upper castes and unite dalits, Muslims and the intermediate ‘OBC’ castes. Being the dalit party it was, the BSP was never able to woo OBC voters and the closest the alliance came to doing that was on 3rd June 1995 when Mayawati got support from the Samajwadi Party to become chief minister for the first time. But soon, there was friction between the two parties’ cadres. SP leaders began breaking away BSP ones to their side and Mayawati, seeing the gameplan, dissolved the government.

The SP then saw a golden opportunity to break away BSP MLAs to form its own government. The MLAs were virtually under a BSP house-arrest in a guesthouse so that they could be prevented from being horse-traded. The guesthouse was gheraoed and attacked. The incident, known as the Guesthouse Scandal, sealed forever a relationship that was in any case doomed because dalits and OBCs were in violent conflict in the villages. SP workers terrorized BSP MLAs and Mayawati by attacking the guesthouse violently.

In 2003 Mayawati’s government fell again, and the Samajwadi Party managed to break away 37 BSP MLAs and form a government.

The space left by an ailing Kanshi Ram in the BSP has been filled by the reputed Lucknow lawyer Subhash Chandra Mishra, a Brahmin. Mishra was UP’s Advocate General when Mayawati was cm and is now the party’s national general secretary. He became the leader of an ambitious project to woo Brahmins and forge a coalition of extremes.

The BSP started mobilising on a war footing, organising community gatherings for different castes. Capitalising on the Brahmin disenchantment with the Baniya-dominated BJP in particular, the BSP is now selling the slogan of a Sarvajan Samaj, a society for all.

Just like other parties, dalit candidates of the BSP have been given tickets in almost exclusively those seats that are Constitutionally reserved for the Scheduled Castes. Most of the upper caste candidates are Brahmin.

In Western UP, efforts have been made to win over Jats and break into the base of Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh whose campaign for a separate Harit Pradesh has run out of steam. Muslims have been sent out mixed signals – given few seats along with some murmurs about Islamic fundamentalism in order to assure the Brahmins that unlike the SP, BSP leaders won’t be found wearing skullcaps and breaking bread with clerics. Although still largely with the SP, Muslims prefer to vote tactically in favour of the candidate most likely to win in order to defeat the BJP. The BSP’s Sarvajan experiment succeded beyond everybody’s dream.

That doesn’t mean the OBCs are not being wooed — a good 110 seats have been given to them. Kanshi Ram used to scoff at reservations, saying that Bahujans should capture power and give reservations to the minority savarnas. What seemed like bravado rather than rhetoric just might come true. Mayawati has been promising quotas for the upper-caste poor. She’s serious.

The sorry state of law and order, which everyone except the Samajwadi Party admits is a result of “Yadavisation” of the state administration, is being used by the BSP as the chief plank to capitalise on the anti-incumbency factor that runs high. Voters across caste and religion are being told that the choice is between the SP and the BSP.

A whole new political realm might open up in what otherwise seems a stagnant identity politics in post-Mandal north India. But some things won’t change: there will be criminal cases against SP leaders and harsh disciplinary measures against officials seen not to be obedient. Ranging from the constable to the senior-most ias officers, everyone will line up before ministers requesting to be transferred or to not be transferred. Nobody does as many transfers as Mayawati does. After all, mammon is the god of electoral politics.

The state treasury will again be strained for funds for the benefit of different sections of society, and the establishment of a Sarvajan Samaj would require more crumbs to be thrown than ever before. After all, the benefits have to be tangible if an election has to be fought five years later, or even sooner. So what happens to the other BSP, bijli, sadak, pani? Wait for Behenji to establish the Sarvajan Samaj, will you?

Rise of champion of the downtrodden

Unlike Obama, who transcends old divides, Mayawati has built her power on demagogic class warfare.

Shortly after Barack Obama’s election last fall, a banner appeared in

Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.

OBAMA IS PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. NOW IT IS TIME FOR MAYAWATI TO BE PRIME

MINISTER OF INDIA, it read.

Mayawati (she uses only one name) is Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister.It’s a big job; if U.P. were a country in its own right, its 190 million inhabitants would make it the sixth largest in the world. There’s no chance that her party will actually win a majority of the seats in Parliament. But the likely outcome is that the two main parties, Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will be forced to rely on coalitions. Mayawati’s followers hope she’ll emerge as kingmaker in the negotiations, with enough clout to grab the top job herself. Her party’s aim is “to make Mayawati prime minister,” as her top strategist puts it, and there’s a chance it will succeed. There are indeed parallels between Mayawati and Obama. Like America’s president, Mayawati is young—just 53 in a country where most political leaders are in their 70s. She is also an outsider who comes from a long-oppressed segment of society: the Dalits, the politically correct term for India’s Untouchable caste. The lowest of the low in the traditional Hindu social order, Dalits were long consigned to jobs such as waste collection and considered so impure they were denied education and other basic rights. India’s Constitution outlaws caste discrimination, but the age-old hierarchies continue to play an outsize role in life there. In fact, the gulf between high and low caste in India is arguably bigger than that between black and white in America. And the political impact of low castes is potentially larger: they represent 60 percent of the Indian electorate by some estimates, with Dalits alone making up nearly 20 percent. Blacks, by contrast, represent just 12 percent of U.S. voters.

So Mayawati is both a bigger underdog and a potentially bigger threat to the established order than Obama was. While he benefited from a first-class education, she grew up in a shantytown with eight brothers and sisters and attended poor state schools. Obama enjoyed the backing of a long-established party, while Mayawati’s organization, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), has been built up largely by Mayawati herself—and in a part of the world where women have made it to the pinnacle of power only as wives, widows or daughters of beloved male leaders.

But unlike Obama, who promised a new politics that would transcend not only race but traditional ideology and corrupt Washington ways, Mayawati has built her power on demagogic class warfare. As her national ambitions have grown, she recently began reaching out to upper-caste voters—but by playing on their fears of the upwardly mobile middle castes, not by appealing to their better, caste-free angels. She has accumulated a suspiciously ostentatious fortune, and is dogged by corruption charges. She is admired by many Dalits, but often more for her power and jewels than for her limited accomplishments on their behalf. Her victory, if it comes, may be seen as a great leap forward for India’s oppressed—but, ironically, will end up bolstering the caste system that has kept them in chains.

Mayawati would likely be a highly divisive national leader—an anti-Obama—and not only domestically. With his Kenyan father, Indonesian stepfather and inter- national outlook, Obama appeals across national borders and has already begun to steer the U.S. away from George W. Bush’s unilateralism. Mayawati, by contrast, is parochial in the extreme. She almost never speaks about foreign policy, and when she does, her pronouncements are so vague as to be practically meaningless. And where she’s been specific, the substance is worrisome: she has decried U.S. efforts to secure Indian support for sanctions on what she’s called “our old friend Iran,” and has promised that a BSP government would renegotiate the nuclear deal India signed with Washington last fall. On trade, she’s sounded sharply protectionist notes, promising to safeguard “the interests of small shopkeepers” and “not to make any policy to benefit capitalists.” She would be—at the least—a wild card at the international summits attempting to repair global capitalism.

The best place to start evaluating Mayawati’s potential is her home base, Uttar Pradesh. Dalits there know her as “Behenji,” a term that means “honored sister,” and she is a heroine by virtue of her biography. “She makes a difference to history not by what she does but by who she is,” says Yogendra Yadav, a political analyst with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi.

To give Mayawati her due, her rise has been impressive. She was born to an illiterate homemaker and a low-level government clerk who got his job through affirmative action (India’s Constitution sets aside 15 percent of government-sector jobs and university places for Dalits).

Although she grew up in a Delhi slum, Mayawati had it better than many of her caste. Special set-asides like the one her father enjoyed have led to gradual improvement in the living conditions of the country’s 165 million Dalits; in the past 10 years in particular, literacy and educational levels have improved markedly. But many have yet to catch up with the rest of the population—slightly more than a third of all Dalits still live below the poverty line, compared with about a quarter for Indians overall.

As a city dweller, Mayawati escaped some of the hostility Dalits face in rural areas and was able to attend a government school. But she was forcefully reminded of how the other half lived when she would visit her grandparents in their U.P. village. Other travelers on the bus would shun Mayawati’s family, and her grandparents were forced to live in the most squalid section of their hamlet. These experiences left their mark: “From a very early age, I learned to hate the caste system with all my might,” she writes in her autobiography.

As a student, Mayawati, like many of her generation, longed to join India’s prestigious national civil service. At university she toyed with radical Dalit politics, but after graduation she worked as a schoolteacher while studying law at night and prepping for the difficult government- service exams. In September 1977, she attended a political convention in Delhi at which India’s health minister outraged many Dalits by referring to them as Harijans (literally meaning “God’s children,” the term was coined by Gandhi but most Dalits now find it condescending). Mayawati, speaking after the health minister, castigated him for his use of the term and attacked mainstream political parties for ignoring Dalits’ concerns.

Her outburst caught the attention of Kanshi Ram, the BSP’s founder. Ram was a union activist whose vision was to organize Dalits working in government to give them a voice. Ram persuaded Mayawati to join him and ditch her civil-service ambitions, beginning a close partnership that would continue until Ram’s death in 2006. The ambitious young teacher soon became the Lenin to Ram’s Marx, in the words of Dalit researcher A. K. Gautam: “He was the thinker, she was the doer.” Ram, a confirmed bachelor, was often rumored to be romantically involved with his much younger protégée, though both of them denied it. Still, Mayawati has never married and has no children (a fact her opponents sometimes try to use against her). In 1984, Ram put Mayawati in charge of establishing his new party in Uttar Pradesh. The state controls 80 seats of the 545 in India’s Parliament, more than any other. A party that can win big there automatically earns a big voice in national politics. This is especially true as the influence of Congress and the BJP has declined, forcing them to rely on fragile coalitions of smaller, regional players. Caste and communal divisions run deep in U.P., and Mayawati quickly acquired a reputation as a demagogic caste warrior. In fiery speeches, she lambasted Brahmins, telling Dalits that they were kept enslaved by upper-caste conspiracies and should “beat the Brahmins with their shoes.” “We all know that upper-caste [Brahmins] do not want Dalits to eat well, dress well or do well,” she told packed rallies in the late 1980s.

Four times—in 1995, 1997, 2002 and 2007 —Mayawati managed to become U.P.’s chief minister with the support of other political parties. But these clumsy coalitions each disintegrated in a matter of months. Still, she had enough time in power to promote Dalit causes, often at the expense of others—for example, by replacing more than 1,000 upper-caste civil servants with low-caste ones and upgrading roads, water and electricity in 11,000 villages with large Dalit populations while neglecting almost equally deprived ones with higher-caste populations.

She also pushed police and prosecutors to rigorously enforce a law that made it easier for Dalit victims of caste-based violence to bring charges against their assailants and promised stiff jail terms for those convicted.

Such programs helped consolidate her base but rankled those from the upper and middle castes. Nearly one in five U.P. voters is a Dalit, and most now support the BSP. “There is no other party in India that has ever received nearly 80 percent of the vote from a single ethnic group,” says Ajoy Bose, a journalist who wrote an unauthorized biography of Mayawati. (The Gandhi dynasty, which controls the Congress party, is also based in Uttar Pradesh and once could count on attracting most of the Dalit vote, but the party today has just nine seats there.)

Yet there is little evidence that Mayawati’s policies actually did much for her devoted supporters. Dalits in U.P. today remain worse off than those in many other states: about 45 percent of rural Dalits there live below the poverty line, a rate 8 points worse than the national average for the caste and one that has improved only slightly under her reign.

Caste-based apartheid remains particularly nasty in U.P., where Dalits can still be banned from attending regular schools, accessing public water supplies, staging marriage processions and voting. Despite Mayawati’s efforts to protect them, Dalit boys are sometimes even lynched for flirting with higher-caste girls, and victims who go to the police are often ignored. Although India’s emergence as a global outsourcing center, coupled with national affirmative-action programs, has created a small but growing Dalit middle class, it is particularly small in U.P., which has attracted little of the foreign investment in high-tech companies and call centers that is creating a new India in other states.

Meanwhile, the old adage that in India you don’t cast your vote, you vote your caste, is as true as ever. “In India, there are no independent or individual political choices, there are only collective choices,” says Bose, the Mayawati biographer. Caste matters in politics because it can translate directly into opportunities—places at universities, jobs in the public sector or government contracts. In Uttar Pradesh, both Dalits and Brahmins have chafed against the rising power of the middle castes, which have their own political party and have used their clout to secure the most government positions and university spots. Poor Brahmins also resent the power of wealthy middle-caste landowners and were frequently the victims of middle-caste crime syndicates. This presented Mayawati with a unique opportunity, and ahead of state elections in 2007, she boldly appealed across caste lines to her former enemies, the Brahmins, by promising to restore law and order. The strategy worked, and Mayawati managed to capture almost a third of their vote that year, helping return her to the chief minister’s residence. Her fans now hail the high-low alliance as revolutionary. “She has succeeded where Mahatma Gandhi failed,” says Shahid Siddiqui, an M.P. and a BSP general secretary.

The BSP has formed “brotherhood groups” that bring the two castes together to discuss political issues. “All the people now like to meet together, sit together, eat together,” says U.P. cabinet minister and BSP state president Swami Prasad Maurya. But such gestures have actually done little to erase divisions. At her rallies, Brahmins and Dalits still sit in segregated areas, and one of the policies she pushed to win Brahmin votes—reserving them spots in government—has simply extended caste-based politics.

No one should confuse the BSP’s brotherhood groups, moreover, with the grassroots groups that brought Obama to power. The BSP is a top-down organization that critics charge is aimed more at advancing Mayawati personally than addressing social ills. Raashid Alvi, a Muslim politician who was once a top BSP official, describes a one-woman party in which Mayawati calls every shot and does “whatever she thinks is in the interest, not of her party, but her own [self].” The chief minister can also be insular and aloof. She often snubs visiting dignitaries and rarely gives one-on-one interviews to the press. (She refused repeated requests for an interview for this story.) Even a top adviser, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter, admits that Mayawati can be “dictatorial” but says that is “necessary” in Uttar Pradesh.

Since becoming chief minister again in 2007, Mayawati has launched a host of large public-works projects. She has built new highways, power stations and water-purification plants that her advisers say are designed to attract big business. She has also launched a progressive scheme to reward families for having daughters and keeping them in school. But her most visible legacy is a slew of monuments to Dalit heroes, many of which glorify the BSP—and Mayawati herself. In Lucknow, on a dusty expanse next to the Gomti River, there now sits a towering pink sandstone hall resembling a Buddhist temple. Inside, a colossal bronze statue modeled after the Lincoln Memorial depicts Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the Dalit lawyer who authored India’s Constitution. Nearby, a bronze frieze portrays Ambedkar with other Dalit leaders, including Mayawati. There are hundreds of these monuments under construction in U.P., which could end up costing $250 million, including $142 million for the Lucknow project alone. Critics see this spending as symbolic of Mayawati’s reputation for corruption. She is among India’s richest politicians, with a taste for diamond jewelry and glittering silk saris and kurtas (she is especially partial to pink). Her 2007 filings put her cash and assets at 520 million rupees ($10.4 million). In 2003, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, while probing allegations that she had embezzled money from an ill-conceived project to build a giant shopping mall next to the Taj Mahal, found that Mayawati and her family owned 72 houses, including several mansions in Lucknow and New Delhi. She claims all this wealth has come as gifts from her admirers, and in 2003 said that the CBI “has found nothing, and they do not have any case against me.” But CBI investigators uncovered evidence of poor Dalit sweepers, rickshaw pullers and hawkers being paid to front bank accounts through which large sums of cash flowed to Mayawati. In a country influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s ascetic ideals, one might think such riches would be a political liability. But many Dalits, consigned to destitution, seem to view their champion’s riches as a source of vicarious pleasure. “Money has to come from somewhere,” says Gautam, the Dalit intellectual, with a shrug when asked about the corruption allegations.

Still, a new spate of cases is undermining Mayawati’s attempt to run on a law-and-order platform. On April 13, a politician who’d campaigned against the BSP was found hanged from a tree. The police called it suicide, but his family suspects he may have been murdered by the local BSP candidate, and the national Election Commission has sent a team to investigate. And on the night of Dec. 24, 2008, a village engineer in the U.P. town of Auraiya was abducted, tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death. The police charged a BSP state legislator and his goons with the crimes. They have denied the charges, but the victim’s family alleges that he was killed for refusing to make required “donations” to a fund collected each year on the occasion of Mayawati’s birthday. The chief minister has said there was no directive to collect birthday funds, but this month, a young civil servant committed suicide and left a note saying he’d been pressured to pay off senior officials.

Whether such allegations will derail Mayawati’s rise remains unclear. The BSP is hardly the only party linked to serious crime. And BSP insiders claim their party, which now holds 19 seats in Parliament, will win 60 in the general election. Political analysts put the number significantly lower, at 25 to 40. Yet even the lower estimates could be enough to make the BSP the third-largest national party, after the BJP and Congress but ahead of the Communist Party. That could give Mayawati enough leverage to demand key cabinet posts in exchange for joining a coalition.

Whether she can claim the prime minister’s office for herself, as supporters hope, is another matter. Few politicians outside the BSP trust her. Sachin Pilot, a Congress M.P. from Rajasthan, says, “I don’t think anyone will risk tying up with her in a way that places that much power in her lap. She is known to be very mercurial.” Her brand of identity politics won’t work on the national level, where leaders “cannot so blatantly and outlandishly appeal to caste,” says Arun Jaitley, a BJP member of Parliament and a top strategist. “I see her as a divisive figure. She is not a unifier of Indians.”

That does not mean either major party can stop her. Congress and the BJP have been losing support for years, thanks to geriatric leadership and the rise of more dynamic local parties. The coming vote is likely to boost Mayawati’s strength, as she builds support outside U.P. and her Dalit base. She kicked off the current campaign last month in the state of Kerala, where she has had little presence in the past. And she has named a significant number of Brahmins as candidates around the country. Even if she does not wind up in national government in this election cycle, she will have built credibility for the next. If she does eventually become India’s leader, it will represent a historic victory for one of the world’s most oppressed peoples. But those who expect her to govern India as a Gandhi—or even an Obama—will be deeply disappointed.

Statues and Corruption allegations

The Indian sculptor Shraavan Prajapati says he is used to taking commissions from high-powered people who might be described as having a fondness for the limelight.

Last year, he received an order for half a dozen statues of herself by Mayawati Kumari, the all conquering Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP). And a decade or so ago, he says, he made a similar number of bronze statues for the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein – including the one erected in Baghdad’s Firdos Square that was famously pulled down in a stunt organised by American troops.

“She herself guided me in the preparation of the statues,” he said, sitting in his office where a large, framed photograph of Mayawati hangs from the wall. “She often visits the workshop and studio.”

The statues, along with the portraits and images of Mayawati that stare out from hoarding boards and newspapers across UP, are just one clue as to the extraordinary cult of personality that has grown up around the “Dalit Queen”, a woman whose remarkable rise to power has seen her overcome widespread prejudice against so-called untouchables to lead India’s most populous state.

Diminutive in stature but mighty in her influence, she is currently serving her fourth stint as UP’s Chief Minister. Many believe Mayawati, who courts controversy, now has her eyes fixed firmly on the position of Indian prime minister. Crucially, her party holds a simple majority in the state legislature that means she can stay in office unchallenged for a full five-year term, giving her time to project herself further on to the national stage and an opportunity to raise money to fund such a move. All of India is watching.

“Who doesn’t?” said Shashank Shekhar Singh, Mayawati’s cabinet secretary, when asked whether the Chief Minister had ambitions to become prime minister. “The day that you join politics, that is what you are looking at.” Yet Mayawati’s steady rise to a position of power that she wields with an iron and even autocratic fist has carried with it widespread controversy. She has been accused of corruption and is currently being investigated by the federal authorities.

The allegation is that she has amassed vast personal wealth from donations made by party supporters, although she and her officials strongly deny it. And her political opponents – some of them Dalits themselves – allege she has not actually done anything for the state’s minority groups and that she is simply using them in a cynical means to secure power.

The occasion that set India’s political commentators into frenzied overdrive was the politician’s 52nd birthday, an event that she marked with a huge party in UP and by the release of the third volume of her memoirs, My Struggle in Life. At the state capital in Lucknow, Mayawati, dressed in an outfit of her favourite pink and accessorised with a double string of solitaire diamonds, she stood smiling as her genuflecting aides took it in turns to feed her from a 52kg, white-chocolate cake. Elected officials were each asked to contribute more than £3,000 to the coffers of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), donations that the authorities conveniently decided could be written off against tax.

Speaking to the crowds of well-wishers, she also used the moment to underline her political reach. “[Congress Party leader] Sonia Gandhi wished me happy birthday at 9am while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called up all the way from China to greet me,” she said, as people clapped and cheered.

Later that day, in a move that many believed symbolised her national ambitions, she flew to Delhi for further lavish celebrations at her residence. The roads around her home in the capital were festooned with balloons and banners and in what seemed like feigned coyness, she told one reporter: “Not once did I say that I wanted to become the Chief Minister. I left it to the people to decide. In the same way, my move to Delhi will depend on the preparedness of the party workers at the national level. If they urge me to go to the [federal government], I will fulfill their ambitions.”

Mayawati entered politics in 1984 when she was fielded as a candidate by the newly formed BSP for a series of national parliamentary seats. After several defeats she won a seat in 1989 and was later elected to the upper house of the country’s parliament. In 1995 she first became Chief Minister of UP and then led two other short-lived state governments in 1997 and between 2002-2003. Her most recent victory was in the summer of last year.

On every occasion she was elected, Mayawati – she is universally known by just one name – stressed the need to improve the rights of the Dalits, who have long suffered as a result of economic and social exclusion. Mayawati herself managed to study law and become a teacher as the result of quota scheme for Dalits that was established by the federal government.

Those looking to see Mayawati as a hero of the oppressed do not have far to look. Less than half-an-hour outside of Lucknow, a city with a treasure of historic buildings and culture, lies the village of Sarosa Bharosa. Recently selected by the government for inclusion within a scheme that gives additional funds to villages where there is a large majority of Dalits, few people in Sarosa Bharosa have anything but warm words for their Chief Minister.

One recent morning, the elected village head, or pradhan, 72-year-old Bechalal, led the way on a tour of Sarosa Bharosa and showed off the improvements carried out as a result of the scheme named after B R Ambedkar, the late Dalit leader and scholar who inspired Mayawati and the founders of the BSP.

“There have been a lot of development. New roads, the new village council building. There have been new bricks and drainage, the construction of a new school,” said Bechalal, who has just one name. “This has all happened she came to power.”

The village was calm and peaceful and remarkably clean. More than 100 water pumps had been installed. Another man, Jagdev, standing in the winter sunshine outside the freshly painted council building, added: “My forefathers were here for generations. My father, my grandfather. They were farmers. Before [the village was included in the scheme] there was nothing here – no roads, nothing. Mayawati built the road.”

But alongside such achievements as the Ambedkar villages where life has seemingly improved considerably as a result of Mayawati’s policies, there are plenty who criticise her and question what she has really done for the people she claims to champion.

S R Darapuri is the national vice-president of the Republican Party of India, a small party that promotes progressive policies and human rights in a state where corruption is still rife. He is also a Dalit. Stridently critical of Mayawati and the BSP, Mr Darapuri claims that the position of Dalits has actually got worse during the period when she has been the Chief Minister. His criticism of her administration focuses particularly on its record on land reform and redistribution, something that the BSP has long claimed is one of its priorities.

“Even now, Dalits in UP are in the worst position of anyone in India,” he said. “Look at the census figures. Between 1991 to 2001, 23 per cent of Dalits have been changed to agricultural contractors rather than cultivators. That means they have become landless labourers.” He added: “She is not bothered about the Dalits. She has used them as a vote bank and is emotionally exploiting them. I have been in UP for 34 years and I feel pity for her and pity for the Dalits. They are inflicting wounds upon themselves.”

Other critics have seized on the vast amount of public funds that are being spent on questionable projects. In addition to the six statues of herself, Mayawati has commissioned similar statues of Ambedkar and the BSP’s founder, Kanshi Ram. She is now building a park at a cost of some $100m (£50m) in the centre of Lucknow to honour Mr Ram, her mentor and the man who selected her as his successor as party leader in 2001.

In addition to the investigations carried out into her own personal wealth – estimated at more than £7m – there have been inquiries into her plan to build a shopping mall next to the Taj Mahal, perhaps the most famous building in the world. In a state where incomes are well below the national average, questions have also been asked as to why the administration has chosen to focus its efforts on building a £5bn highway along the banks of the Ganges.

Mayawati was unavailable for comment. But her Revenue minister, Phagu Chauhan, defended her policies and her decision to insist that her elected officials and supporters contribute to her schemes. “The wealth she is accumulating is for the mission and she gives money to the people who are carrying out [those tasks],” he said. “She takes money from the party cadre and others while other politicians take money from the industrialists and bureaucrats.”

He praised the Chief Minister for her ability to take important decisions and asked whether he believed Mayawati could become prime minister, he said: “Why not? She wants to be the first Dalit prime minister. With the type of politics that is going on, that is quite possible.”

With a general election likely to place in 2009, most analysts believe Mayawati and the BSP would struggle to make enough of a national impact for her to become prime minister. “The BSP can only have partial success in 2009,” said Dr Vivek Kumar, a political analyst at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

However, some believe she has enough political momentum in UP and in other states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, that the BSP could win enough seats to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Such power explains why the likes of Mr Singh and Mrs Gandhi were phoning her on her birthday.

It also explains why Mr Prajapati, the sculptor, is busy completing the statues of Mayawati and her political mentors. “In 2003, Kashi Ram asked that we put up statues in their lifetimes. We don’t know what will happen after our demise,” he said.

“Now Mayawati is building a statue that is 18ft high and will be placed on a pillar that is 100ft… She wants her memory to be immortalised.”

Agenda after 2007 elections

It’s a historic day for Indian politics – a Dalit woman took oath as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh after winning an unprecedented social mandate.

After taking oath as Chief Minister, Mayawati on Sunday gave a stern message to her opponents that the BSP government would not brook communal violence and withdraw security of criminal elements and came out in support of reservations for economically backward sections.

In a clear reference to the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government, she announced that all the decisions taken by it since February after the elections were declared have been scrapped and a probe ordered into it.

“All investigations into these decisions will be done without any political vendetta,” PTI quoted Mayawati as saying.

The Industrial Development Council set up by the previous government will be scrapped and a new policy evolved.

Her top priority will be to establish an injustice-free, fear-free, crime-free, corruption-free and development oriented government.

“Law and order will be established. The life and property of people belonging to all religions will be protect and nobody will be allowed to indulge in violence in the name of religion,” she added.

“Goonda tax will not be allowed to be extracted as was done during the SP government,” Mayawati said adding that a special drive will be launched to track down criminal elements and end the jungle raj.

“Security given to criminal elements will be withdrawn and they will be behind bars where they should be,” she said.

In keeping with her new social engineering, she said she favoured reservation for poor among the upper castes along with the weaker sections.

Ending a 14-year era of coalition government in the politically-turbulent state of Uttar Pradesh in a historic win, BSP supremo Mayawati was sworn in as the 40th Chief Minister of the state on Sunday.

She will now head a jumbo 50-member state Cabinet.

Along with the BSP supremo, 19 cabinet ministers, 21 Ministers of State with independent charge and nine Ministers of State were also administered the oath of office and secrecy.

UP Government policies and achievements

• constituted a separate
  welfare department for every segment of that society
• selecting
  under the “Dr.Ambedkar Rural Development Scheme” villages with
  preponderance of the Dalit population in particular has decided to
  cover them with every kind of essential amenities
• Urban Integrated Development Scheme
• under a “Sarvjan Hitay
  urban Slum Area Ownership right Scheme” has decided to give ownership
  right to residential plots measuring a maximum of 30sq. meters and
  minimum of 15sq. meters and commercial plots for employment measuring
  a maximum of 10 sq. meters
• provided scholarship to the poor children from the Other Backward
  Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities, particularly Muslims
• send students of the newly established
  Gautam Buddha University in Gautam Buddha Nagar district (Great Noida)
  at government expense to Europe or other foreign countries for higher
  education
• separate provision of 25 per cent fund has been
  made for the first time in the budget for SC/ST
• for creating a sense of
  security among the Bahujan Samaj people a provision of “reservation”
  has been made for the first time in the country for police station
  officers
• by including the economically backward people in
  the Muslim society in the list of the backward classes, our party’s
  government has for the first time in the state made available to them
  the benefit of reservation in education and state level government
  jobs
• cleared the backlog of the “reserved
  quota” vacancies for the people of the Scheduled Castes/Tribes and
  Other Backward Classes in government jobs and other areas at the state
  level which had not been filled up for years
• securing the
  benefit of “Reservation” for the Scheduled Castes/Tribes and Other
  Backward Classes in the areas like the judiciary, council of
  ministers, Rajya Sabha, Legislative Council and the private sector
• congress party and BJP and their
  allies have been trying to end reservation gradually by giving to the
  Private Sector on a large scale those “government departments” and
  “institutions” in the Centre and all the states of the country
• B.S.P. government is the only one in the entire country which has
  ensured a guarantee for maintaining the earlier available reservation
  system even after a “government department” and “institution” is
  handed over to the private sector
• party is in favour of providing
  separate reservation to the poor people of this class on an economic
  basis
• our party’s government has always been fully
  sensitive and serious over the issue of social security
• instead of giving unemployment allowance
  to the youths is giving them an opportunity to live with dignity,
  self-respect and self-reliance by making provision for permanent
  employment
• our government has granted
  “inheritance right” to unmarried daughters from the Sarva Samaj in the
  property of their father
• “Mahamaya garib Balika
  Ashirvad Yojana” (Mahamaya Scheme of blessings for poor girls). After the launching of this
  scheme, the birth of a girl child instead of being viewed as a burden
  will strengthen a tendency to view it as a welcome event
• Savitri Bai Phule
  Balika Shiksha Madad Yojana” (Savitri Bai Phule Scheme of assistance
  for education of girls)
• full honour and respect to many Sants, Gurus and great men born
  in the Bahujan Samaj
• create in the
  entire country an atmosphere free from “injustice, crime and fear” by
  establishing a “Rule of Law by Lawful Means”
• wean them away from the path of Naxalism
• our party will pay full attention towards terrorism also
• Better National Rural Employment Guarantee
• our party wants growth of capital and not
  development of capitalists in the country
• every “Economic Policy” of our country will be designed to
  bendfit the general public and not make the rich richer and the poor
  poorer
• “Clean uttar pradesh” policy enabled safai karmacharis ( sweepers etc) to enjoy a respectable livelihood, prompting many non-dalits to take up these jobs !!!

High Impact schemes for Dalits

Mayawati’s statues are taking away from the good work she’s doing.

The outrage over Mayawati’s acts of self-glorification such as building statues of Kanshi Ram and B R Ambedkar and herself, appropriating public spaces for a personal and political project, has obscured some important decisions taken by her in the last few months. The Ambedkar parks, museums in Noida and elsewhere, have been lambasted not just on grounds of aesthetics, but also because they have levelled hundreds of trees to create vast expanses of concrete, choking up the city’s lungs. A 30-feet high wall is coming up around the Lucknow home of the Chief Minister, on a road that is barely 25 feet broad.

But the fact is, Mayawati has done two things lately which haven’t got the attention they deserve. First, in this academic session, four engineering colleges will be set up in UP, where 75 per cent of the seats will be reserved for Dalits. The land has already been allotted for these colleges and for now, the classes are being held in other institutions, However, the work is on at full speed and before the academic years ends, the students will move to their new premises. Imagine what this will do to a class of people who thought they were condemned to doing menial labour, and if they were exceptionally lucky, they would, at the most, get a government job.

Six months ago, she announced that a fourth of all government tenders would be reserved for Dalits. This is another way to begin the process of capital formation among the Dalits. Combine the two developments and a new sensibility is likely to emerge in a few years: Of a Dalit entrepreneur, a person whose social identity, so far, used to be defined by a government job.

This is what makes you wonder that if Mayawati has been so sensible about some things, then why not about the others ? Some years ago, Mulayam Singh Yadav tried to create a Muslims vote bank for himself basically with a Muslim-under-threat campaign. What he did not reckon with was the Hindu retaliation — after all, the police could not be present in every small hamlet and shanty to protect the Muslim when his property and family were being attacked.

Similarly, Mayawati is encouraging assertion by the Dalits, without ensuring their protection or safety. The number of attacks on Dalits, and worst of all, on Dalits girls, has gone up cosiderably in the last few months. Two days ago, a little Dalit girl was raped and murdered in Chitrakoot. In Muzaffarnagar, two Dalit youth were arrested and one of them killed in police custody. In Kanpur there have been two cases of atrocities against Dalits in the past two days. All this is retaliation — caste-Hindus taking their anger against Mayawati, out on any Dalit they can find anywhere. The Supreme Court ordered that Dalits participate in the mid-day meals scheme. This creates no problem so long as Dalit women confine themselves to collecting firewood or cleaning utensils — but if they start cooking the meals, well, then upper-caste children will simply not eat the food. It is to circumvent this that the former Women and Child Development Minister, Renuka Choudhary, launched a campaign for providing packaged od. If under the NREGA, a caste-Hindu labourer gets 60 or 80 per cent of the wages he has been promised, then a Dalit gets 40 or 50 per cent. In UP, their job cards are the property of the gram panchayat head — they don’t even get the physical possession of the card. In many cases where banks disburse the wages through supposedly caste-neutral channels, the bank administration conspires with the panchayat chief to appropriate a ‘fee’ from the Dalits.

Mayawati has done nothing to ensure land rights for Dalits, the central problem of their existence. But she can’t open all fronts simultaneously. What she can do, to take the project of finding Dalits a new identity — not just defined by their social status but by their entrepreneurial status — is to do some thinking to provide two elements to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that it lacks at present. The first: BSP has no foreign policy. For a party that aspires for the prime ministership, how can it not offer its voters a foreign policy? Beyond an ill-considered and gratuitous attack on the US’ Iran policy in the run-up to the elections, Mayawati has said nothing on India’s external relations. Second, the party has no coherent policy on industrial development and land. This is simply not tenable. The problem with the Dalit leadership is that it neither has the time nor the interest to go beyond social-civil rights issues of dignity. With her technical-education initiative, there is an indication that Mayawati is addressing this. She needs to do more lateral thinking.

Challenge to Mayawati’s PM Dream

In the summer of 2007, as the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party galloped towards an absolute majority in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, a bureaucrat in the outgoing regime took a bet on the fourth-time Chief Minister’s career trajectory. “You will see a very different Mayawati this time,” he told journalists. “Her goal is Delhi, not Uttar Pradesh, and she will want the world to see a forward-looking, mature leader capable of running a large and diverse country.”

There was no reason to doubt his words. Ms Mayawati’s implausible journey from a Dalit background of deprivation and discrimination to Chief Minister on her own strength was a story without precedent. (Barack Obama came later.) It had been made possible as much by grit, struggle and courage as by strategy, craft and a keen understanding of what to do when. Ms Mayawati plotted her victory with precision, making a gradual but astute shift from the exclusivist, strident Dalit-centred agenda of the past to a pragmatic politics of inclusion and reaching out.

The dividend came in the form of what U.P. referred to as the “plus” votes — votes of castes and communities other than Dalits. The plus voters were the key to winning an electoral majority but they were also the hardest to get because of their historical prejudices against Dalits. It did not help that the BSP was itself born in fierce opposition to the manuwadis. That in the end she breached these barriers is a tribute to Ms Mayawati’s perseverance, intelligence and willingness to adapt to the demands of changing times. In the hands of new-age Mayawati, bahujan (depressed classes) became sarvajan (all classes), while an innovative new jingle — haathi nahi Ganesh hai, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh hai (not elephant but Ganesh; Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh) — displaced the rabble-rousing slogans of a previous era. Who could miss the symbolism in the transformation of the aggressive BSP elephant into a genteel, universal God?

The embrace of conciliatory, sensible politics had expanded Ms Mayawati’s support base and placed her at the head of U.P.’s first majority government in 16 years, and it stood to reason that she would go along on the same path — both to consolidate her position in the State and to extend her appeal beyond it.

Rashness

However, in office, she showed a rashness that turned on its head the very logic of her recent makeover. Having worked so hard to achieve the most important milestone of her career, Ms Mayawati seemed to have wantonly squandered it all — the goodwill, the votes, the respect, the admiration. Even without the extraordinary significance of her ascent to power, the slide would have seemed too quick, too apparent. But this government had come with high expectations; its historic import was acclaimed internationally. Indeed, from the vantage point of where Ms Mayawati stood in May 2007, it seemed entirely in order that the next stop in this incredible odyssey should be the Indian prime ministership.

And yet as one travelled in the State for an assessment of the voter mood prior to the Lok Sabha election, it was impossible to miss the disillusionment. The two-year-old Mayawati government carried a heavier burden of anti-incumbency than Manmohan Singh’s government of five years at the Centre. Nothing the Chief Minister had done since assuming office seemed designed for any great future role. What was evident on the ground was quite the opposite of the responsible politics that pundits prophesied would take her to the high seat of power in Delhi.

Ms Mayawati’s 2007 victory was the result of an accommodative politics whose key elements were prudence and moderation. In office, these were dumped for a self-obsession that was excessive even allowing for the exigencies of history. Her unique position as a self-made Dalit woman politician allowed Ms Mayawati liberties not granted to others. In a country where dynasties habitually came to power, she had single-handedly overcome debilitating discrimination to reach where she had. That in the India of Ms Mayawati Dalits continued to be subjected to unspeakable crimes might have seemed an unacceptable paradox, but surely the fact was also a pointer to her own struggles en route to power.

Viewed from this perspective, many things acquired clarity, be it the admiration she evoked in her community or her own urge to embark on a grand celebration of Dalit power. In her previous three terms, Ms Mayawati had devoted considerable time and energy to erecting memorials and statues to Dalit icons — which was small compensation for the entrenched institutional prejudices against the community. The gesture went down well with her core voters who saw it as sweet revenge for centuries of exclusion and humiliation. Ms Mayawati also afforded a measure of security to Dalits by strictly enforcing the Scheduled Castes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. However, significantly, she also earned a reputation for running a tight, disciplined administration that many in U.P. would later cite as the reason to have voted her to power in 2007.

Had Ms Mayawati dedicated a few more projects to the Dalit movement in her fourth term, few would have objected. But she made building of memorials and statues the centre piece of the BSP government’s programmes. A score of gargantuan new projects aside, hundreds of crores of rupees were lavished on razing and redoing projects already executed at a huge cost in her previous stints in office. From Lucknow to Noida on the Delhi border, the pink dholpur stone was omnipresent, testifying to the culture of waste and self-indulgence made into a credo by the BSP government.

Even this excess might have passed scrutiny if the Chief Minister had not erected dozens of her own statues, obsessing over their exact dimensions, and indeed ordering that they be re-made if they were not to her satisfaction. The immaturity was evident in the treatment meted out to a bust of Rajiv Gandhi originally placed at the centre of a modest roundabout just off the chief ministerial bungalow in Lucknow. The Mayawati government banished the bust, minuscule compared to her own statuesque versions, to a far corner of the roundabout, and installed a fountain in its place.

Poetic justice for what the savarna jatis (forward castes) had done to Dalits? Not really. In Ms Mayawati’s fourth term, her supporters expected more than token gestures from a leader who had brought them out from the seclusion of their condemned Dalit existence and taught them to think independently. True, Dalit support for Ms Mayawati was undiminished, some even compared the Dalit memorials to the profusion of samadhis dedicated to the elite Nerhu-Gandhi clan, but a vast majority wanted a better standard of living, and a greater and more visible share in the power structures, which continued to be dominated by the forward castes thanks to Ms. Mayawati’s sarvajan formula.

At Baraipur, an Ambedkar village en route to Phoolpur, residents pointed to the disproportionate influence of forward castes on the Mayawati regime, and nostalgically recalled the BSP’s founding slogan, vote hamara raj tumhara nahi chalega (we will not brook a system where our votes got your rule): “It is still our vote and their rule.”

Irony

The irony was too large to miss. In its current term, the Mayawati government had gone all out to placate the Brahmins, handing them plum posts in government and allotting them a ticket share of 20 of 80 Lok Sabha seats in comparison to only 17 for Dalits. Brahmins are roughly nine per cent of U.P.’s population while Dalits form 21 per cent. But the Chief Minister’s generosity was largely wasted on the community which harped on her preoccupation with statue-building and rued the migration of goonda elements from the Samajwadi Party to the BSP. Brahmins and other forward castes saw this as a deliberate slight by a party that had made ending the “goonda raj” of the Mulayam Singh government the central plank of its 2007 election campaign.

A lot rode on the Mayawati government, which was expected to show the same enlightened vision that brought it to office with a full majority. That vision meant directing the government’s scarce resources towards larger programmes aimed at the uplift of the poor and the deprived. The many claims in the BSP government’s publicity brochures notwithstanding, in the public perception, governance under Ms Mayawati remained confined to a single agenda: promotion of the Chief Minister. The BSP chief campaigned widely outside the State, projecting herself as a potential Prime Minister. The travels did not bring the expected dividends, and the neglect of her own backyard showed up in the form of the BSP’s far from respectable performance.

Until 2009, the BSP was on the up and up; its vote and seat shares increased with every election. Election 2009 has broken that trend. But there is a message in the BSP’s 27.42 per cent vote share: That all is not lost yet, and she can recover the ground lost provided she reclaims the qualities that brought her to power two years ago.

Feudal, Casteist attacks ( Rita Bahuguna remarks)

Tempers raised by Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s intemperate remarks against Mayawati will probably cool off now that a Moradabad court has granted her bail. However, the incident has drawn attention to a host of attitudinal issues relating to Dalits and women.
The Rita Joshi episode and its aftermath reflect poorly on our political class
It is hard to tell which is worse: Ms Joshi’s sexist-casteist attack on the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, the Congress’s appalling refusal to unequivocally condemn the party’s State unit chief or the regressive subtext to a quarrel that has centred on feudal notions of “honour” and “izzat” (respect). On the one hand, both sides have tossed about the word “rape” as if it was a legitimate political weapon. On the other, there has been a suggestion that rape is a disgrace, a loss of honour for women for which there can be no compensation. Neither position is acceptable; indeed both positions betray an archaic thinking that reflects badly on the political class as a whole.
The case has got mired in a welter of conflicting emotions. There is Ms Joshi’s offending statement, which has hugely, and rightly, upset Ms Mayawati and her followers. There is also the undeniable counter fact of arson and violence by alleged activists of the Bahujan Samaj Party, which has been seized upon by the Congress as if the latter somehow mitigated Ms Joshi’s offence.
Ms Joshi used gutter language against a fellow woman politician. The only legitimate response to this was her dismissal from the post followed by an unqualified apology tendered to Ms Mayawati by the Congress leadership. Instead, the Congress responded by clubbing regret for what Ms Joshi said with anger at the violence that followed. From Manish Tiwari to Rahul Gandhi, the attempt has been to divert attention from Ms Joshi to the law and order situation in U.P.
Mr. Gandhi in particular has disappointed. It was expected of the young leader to take the moral rather than the political path. In this case, the moral was also the political path. For the last year or so, Mr. Gandhi has been fighting with the BSP chief for a slice of the Dalit vote. Here was his opportunity to prove that the Congress truly cared for the community by clearly and unambiguously denouncing Ms Joshi for her insult of Ms Mayawati. Analysts have tended to confuse between the abrasive personality of Ms Mayawati and the larger Dalit cause. The U.P. Chief Minister’s polices and conduct are open to criticism, but to treat her failings as licence to mount personal attacks on her is to hurt the self-respect of a community that justly glories in her long and difficult journey from a deprived Dalit background to the high seat of power.
In the season of competitive Dalit politics, it is easy to forget what Ms Mayawati means to Dalits. Even when they lament her neglect of the community, Dalits unfailingly come to her defence, saying that she is one of them, that they feel elevated by her elevation. The BSP’s overall vote dipped by three percentage points in the 2009 election, but Dalits remained loyal to her. As a survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies showed, 84 per cent of Jatavs and 64 per cent of other Dalits supported Ms Mayawati even when she was seen to have failed them.
By showing statesmanship, Mr. Gandhi would have won over Dalit hearts, of course. He would have also established himself as that rare politician who has the courage of his convictions. Yet Mr. Gandhi almost justified Ms Joshi’s remarks, holding that her intent was laudable even if her words were not. Forget for the moment that Ms Joshi insulted Ms Mayawati, and focus on what she told the Dalit rape victims. She asked them not to accept monetary help, adding, “ask Mayawati if, as a victim, she would accept Rs. one crore.”  Implicit in this challenge is the suggestion that rape is dishonour, a blemish that the victim must bear for life. Nobody can claim that rape is not a heinous crime. It is. It is an attack on the dignity and privacy of the individual. But to say that the victim must feel disgraced by the act is to stigmatise and shame her, and to feed into feudal, patriarchal notions of chastity and morality. Monetary compensation pending criminal prosecution of the accused is often the only immediate redress available to a victim.
As president of the Congress’ U.P. unit, and as a woman herself, Ms Joshi ought to have shown greater enlightenment. Sadly, Ms Mayawati, a woman born into a Dalit family, comes off no better in this slanging match. As Congresspersons have pointed out, Ms Mayawati similarly told rape victims to refuse the monetary compensation awarded by the predecessor Mulayam Singh government, urging them further to ask if he would accept money if the victims were his own kith and kin.
In the course of the current case, Ms Mayawati also made the baffling announcement that she would replace the Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act with a broader law for the sarvajan (all) castes if the BSP was voted to power at the Centre. The future Act would make rape punishable by death, she said.
The proposal defies logic. The Prevention of Atrocities Act (POA) is a piece of legislation hailed far and wide as progressive. If there is a problem with the Act, it is its deliberate non-implementation by the various State police departments. A sarvajan Act in its place would mean denying the history of Dalit oppression, and negating years of struggle towards recognising and addressing the institutional prejudices against the community.
As Dr. Srivella Prasad, secretary, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights and National Dalit Movement for Justice, told The Hindu, “Convictions under the POA have been too few, so we have in fact been fighting to strengthen the Act with more enabling amendments. Mayawati’s proposal will neutralise the Act.”
The U.P. Chief Minister’s emphasis on the death sentence for rape is a typical knee-jerk reaction to a crime that is rarely reported because of the stigma attached to it. In his book, Men who rape: Psychology of the offender, A. Nicholas Groth describes rape as “sexuality in the service of non-sexual needs” — meaning rape is more a demonstration of power than a means of gratification.  The trauma caused to the victims must surely be addressed, but alongside rape must be de-stigmatised as that is the only way to rob rapists of their sense of control and power. Rather than deliver justice, dramatic calls for the death sentence invest the crime with just the kind of power that makes it so fearsome.

Vindictive Politics

POLITICAL vendetta has found a new patron in Uttar Pradesh. In an unprecedented move, Chief Minister Mayawati got more than 140 cases filed against Samajwadi Party (S.P.) president and her bete noire, Mulayam Singh Yadav, in over 40 districts of the State for alleged misuse of the Chief Minister’s Discretionary Fund when he headed the government between September 1995 and May 1996. She also got first information reports (FIRs) registered against Mulayam Singh, his party general secretary Amar Singh, S.P. Legislature Party leader Azam Khan, and S.P. Member of the Legislative Assembly Shivpal Singh Yadav, younger brother of Mulayam Singh, for making public compact discs depicting her as making derogatory remarks against Hindu religious practices and demanding money from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers, MLAs and Members of Parliament. The CDs are believed to be showing her seeking money for party funds either as a birthday gift or from their respective local area development fund.

PRAKASH SINGH/ AFP

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati at a rally in New Delhi on April 6.

Mayawati’s intentions are clear. “He (Mulayam Singh) had misused the Chief Minister’s Discretionary Fund during his tenure. He will have to spend the rest of his life behind bars,” she declared at a party rally in Lucknow on April 14. The rally, christened pardafaash (expose) rally, was expected to be Mayawati’s reply to the S.P.’s move to release the CDs. She declared to loud applause from party workers: “Mulayam and his supporters had doctored and edited the tapes with the sole intention of defaming me. He will have to face the consequences of twisting facts and cooking up stories and for surreptitiously recording my party’s private function.”

Setting a new trend, Mayawati also announced an inquiry against Congress(I) leader Motilal Vora for “misuse of discretionary fund” during his tenure as Governor in 1992-93. She has been targeting the Congress(I) ever since Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi, played an active role in helping a Dalit in the Amethi constituency, whose house was demolished by members of the Thakur community in November last. Accusing Vora of “financial bungling”, she said: “I have ordered a high-level probe into the misuse of the Governor’s Discretionary Fund too. Vora doled out as much as Rs.18 crores out of this fund over a span of eight months in gross violation of laid down norms and rules. He too will not be spared.”

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi on April 17, Mayawati said Mulayam Singh had committed “a serious crime” by spying on her party meeting and making the contents of the CDs public. On her visit to the national capital, she said she was there in connection with party work. “It is not my habit to run to Delhi to meet BJP leaders for no reason. I do so only when it is urgently required,” she clarified.

THE political turmoil that has followed Mayawati’s actions was only to be expected. S.P. workers have taken to the streets, holding demonstrations, burning effigies of Mayawati, and forcing road-and-rail blockades, demanding the withdrawal of the cases filed against their leaders. The protests turned violent in many parts of the State: three jeeps were set on fire in Gorakhpur; in Bahraich protesters clashed with the police after they were stopped from holding dharnas; in Jhansi, over 60 S.P. workers, including it’s the party’s national treasurer Chandrapal Singh Yadav, were taken into custody after they tried to block traffic on the main thoroughfares. Party workers disrupted traffic on the national highway in Sant Kabirnagar district for over four hours, leading to the arrest of 100 of them. Reports from Farrukhabad, Mainpuri, Etah and Etawah said S.P. workers burnt effigies of Mayawati and demanded immediate withdrawal of the criminal cases. In Lucknow too dharnas, demonstrations and the burning of effigies continued.

Both Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh dubbed the cases as “politically motivated” and dared Mayawati to arrest them. “I have done no wrong. There was no misuse of the Discretionary Fund during my tenure. The use of this fund was found to be as per rules by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The High Court has given me a clean chit, and even the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, of which the BSP was a part, approved the sanctions,” Mulayam Singh said in Delhi.

(Meanwhile, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has stayed the arrest of the S.P. leaders for four weeks until May 16. The court asked State BSP president K.K. Sachan, Principal Secretary (Home) Pradeep Kumar and other respondents to file a counter-affidavit in the meantime. Amar Singh had filed a petition in the court seeking the quashing of the FIRs and a stay on their arrest, stating that the cases were “politically motivated”. He expressed fears that those named in the FIRs could be arrested any time under Mayawati’s pressure.)

Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh.

Amar Singh called a press conference after the Lucknow rally and rubbished Mayawati’s charges, saying she should order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe to ascertain whether the tapes were doctored. As for the Discretionary Fund, he said: “Virbahadur Singh and Narain Dutt Tiwari had dipped into the Discretionary Fund to help the needy. Even Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee must have done so in the case of the Prime Minister’s Fund.” He went on: “Whatever Mulayam Singh Yadav had granted from the fund was placed on record and neither the Allahabad High Court nor the CAG had found any fault. It is also in the Assembly records. He alleged that Mayawati was trying to get him killed. “Mayawati recently told a goon from Aligarh to eliminate me. I have written to Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani about it,” he said. He declared that his party would take out cycle rallies between April 19 and May 12 in each district and block headquarters of the State to highlight “Mayawati’s politics of vendetta and blatant corruption”.

The Congress(I), agitated over Mayawati’s decision to order an inquiry into the distribution of money by Motilal Vora, hit back demanding a white paper on the misuse of government funds during Mayawati’s tenure as Chief Minister, a demand which has been supported by the S.P. “If a white paper is released on the misuse of public money during Mayawati’s three terms as Chief Minister, she will be thoroughly exposed before the people,” Pradesh Congress(I) chief Arun Kumar Singh Munna told reporters in Lucknow. He said Mayawati’s decision to order an inquiry against Vora was “nothing but an act of political vendetta”. Motilal Vora questioned the Chief Minister’s powers to order an inquiry into the Governor’s actions. Besides, he said he had not misused the fund but given the money to needy persons. “That was done at my discretion and nobody can question that,” he said in Lucknow.

Significantly, even the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has often bent over backwards to keep its coalition with the BSP going, in the fond hope of benefiting from the latter’s Dalit vote bank during the Lok Sabha elections, is caught in a dilemma unable to either defend Mayawati’s move or oppose it.

Senior BJP leaders, have expressed their disapproval of the move, albeit in a guarded manner. “Despite political differences, leaders have been avoiding negative criticism. The trend has changed now,” Kalraj Mishra, senior BJP leader in charge of Uttar Pradesh affairs, said. BJP State president Vinay Katiyar said, “It is difficult for me to decide which side I should take. My only fear is that this new trend should not affect the development of the State.” Party spokesman H.N. Dixit said, “U.P. may go the Tamil Nadu way where vendetta has become the order of the political set up.” Even Pramod Mahajan, former Union Minister and a top party leader, said: “This does not look like the normal case of the law taking its own course. Political vendetta cannot be justified.” He added that the cases also raised the question of how the whole process started in the first place.

ONE of the CDs shows Mayawati making derogatory remarks about Hindu religious practices and rituals. This could hurt the core vote bank of the BJP, but it is not in a position to protest. If it keeps quiet, it will lose politically. The BJP’s core vote bank (for example, the Thakurs) is already a frustrated lot with the innumerable compromises the party has had to make to stay in power. The Thakurs find themselves alienated from the BJP because of the party’s failure to stand up for the jailed Thakur MLA, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, who was put behind bars by Mayawati under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) after he led the rebellion by independent MLAs last year.

It has become more than obvious for even the most naive that Mayawati is using her political power against her adversaries. Her message to politicians in Uttar Pradesh is: support me or languish in jail. The case of Akhilesh Kumar Singh, MLA, is a classic example. Akhilesh Kumar Singh, who was elected as a Congress(I) candidate from Rae Bareli, was put behind bars following accusations about his involvement in some murder cases. He was expelled from the Congress(I), but he walked over to the BSP camp, gave a written statement to Mayawati that he supported her government, and is a free man today. BSP MLA Jaiprakash Yadav, who raised the banner of revolt against Mayawati was arrested, but he too is out now, after he apologised to her for having been “misled” into behaving the way he did.

This vindictive style of Mayawati’s functioning could cost the BJP dearly but it continues to hope that it will benefit from her Dalit vote bank in the Lok Sabha elections. Hence its reluctance to do anything that could break the alliance. So much so that even her remarks against Hindu religious practices have not been opposed by the BJP. In fact, some obliging BJP leaders have gone a step further and found justification for the support to Mayawati – that in the Hindu religion there were atheists, andso there was nothing new in what Mayawati said about rituals.

The BJP leadership in Delhi, though, has been rattled by her declaration that she would lead an exodus of Dalits to Buddhism if the ills in Hindu society were not rectified. This, if it happens, would make the BJP’s experiment of forging a Dalit-upper-caste unity fall flat on its face. Senior BJP leaders, who until now were willing to give the coalition some more time, have started expressing their reservations about the continuance of the alliance. “This alliance is cutting at the very roots of our vote bank. Besides, her conduct so far has not indicated that she will allow the BJP to gain in any way from the alliance at the time of the Lok Sabha elections,” one of them said.

Although BJP leaders may not say it in so many words, a stock-taking exercise has begun at the top level in the party about the benefits of the alliance. “Now they are saying the same thing that we had been saying all along,” stated a State leader referring to the party high command’s apprehension over the alliance. The BJP is worried that Mayawati’s repressive tactics would benefit the S.P. in the long run and seriously damage the BJP’s prospects in the Lok Sabha elections.

Why dalits have slammed Mayawati’s Sarvajan Formula

S.R.Darapuri

Email: srdarapuri@yahoo.co.in

Kanshi Ram and Mayawati started their politics with “Tilak, Traju aur Talwar- inko maro jute char” (beat the Brahmins, Banias and Thakurs with shoes) and “Vote hamara raj tumhara nahin chalega” (we won’t allow you to rule us with our vote). Besides this, in order to attract Dalits (Scheduled Castes.) they gave the slogans like “Baba tera mission adhura, Kanshi Ram karenge pura” (Kanshi Ram will fulfill the mission left incomplete by Dr. Ambedkar) and “Political power is the key to the entire problem.” Through these slogans they aimed at attracting and agitating the dalits against the ‘Savarans’( higher castes) and they succeeded also to a good extent. This polarization of dalits was further facilitated by the political vacuum created by the division and downfall of Republican Party of India which was established by Dr. Ambedkar himself in 1956.

Since 1995 Mayawati made various experiments to broaden the base of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In the beginning it was known as the party of the dalits only. Later on Muslims and Other Backward Castes were also co-opted. It fought the 1993 Assembly election jointly with Samajwadi Party (S.P.), a party of Other Backward Classes and made good gains. It resulted in the formation of first coalition government of BSP and SP in Uttar Pradesh state of India. This coalition of natural allies became a subject of discussion all over India but soon a clash of personal ambitions resulted in its fall in June, 1995. Kanshi Ram and Mayawati grabbed the post of Chief Minister by making an unethical and opportunist alliance with Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP.), a party of orthodox Hindus and the bitterest enemy of dalits. This put the dalit movement and dalit politics on the path of opportunism bereft of principles. It not only confused the direction of dalit politics but also fogged the difference between friends and foes of dalits. This alliance not only gave a lease of life to the dying BJP but also broke the natural alliance of dalits and Backward Castes for ever. This unprincipled and opportunistic alliance was justified as being essential for getting into power and party workers were mislead by this briefing.

This alliance with BJP not only confused the dalits but Muslims also moved away from BSP as they consider BJP as their bitterest enemy. During the first tenure of BSP rule in 1995 some land was distributed to empower the dalits because till then the party workers had some presssure on the party leadership. But later on in order to please the Upperr Caste people dalit interests were given a go bye and getting power became the sole motive of the party leadership. After first tenure of Chief Ministership of Mayawati, this process became faster and BSP raced towards ‘Sarvjan’ throwing aside the Bahujan. In every election moneyed, musclemen and mafias were given preference being winning candidates and dalits were restricted to reserved seats only. Party mission was overtaken by money power and muscle power. Old missionary party workers and those who were close to Kanshi Ram were made to exit the party unceremoniously. As such dalits were put on the margin in the party but they continued to be with the party with the hope that one day they may also get some benefit of government but their hopes were belied.

From 1995 to 2003 Mayawati thrice became the Chief Minster of Uttar Pardesh (U.P) but she always took the help of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). During this period neither any dalit agenda was chalked out nor any effort was made in that direction. During 1993 this author during many discussions with Kanshi Ram suggested chalking out a dalit agenda but my suggestions were ignored. I think it was done purposely because declaration of an agenda brings upon a duty to implement it and if failed it brings upon the responsibility and accountability for the failure. It is a matter of regret and sorrow that a party seeking political power in the name of dalits has not framed any agenda till to date as a result of which the dalits have been deprived of any gain coming from a government being run in their name. The result is that the dalits of U.P. are the most backward dalits in whole of India barring those of Bihar and Orissa. During this period moneyed and musclemen of Upper Castes have been managing to get Assembly and Parliament tickets and getting elected they been enjoying the fruits of power whereas dalits with a meager representation have been deprived of all such benefits.

BSP, which is doing politics in the name of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, in its effort to secure power has totally ignored his warning in which he had said that “dalits have two enemies. One is Brahmanism and the other is Capitalism and dalits should never compromise with them.” But Mayawati has compromised with both by co-opting Brahmans and Corporate sector. At present dalit politics has become a tool for power grabbing. It reached its height when before 2007 Assembly elections Mayawati formed Dalit Brahman Bhaichara Committees (Dalit Brahmans Brotherhood Committees) headed by a Brahman president  and a dalit as secretary.

The election success of BSP during 2007 was mainly attributed to the important role played by Brahmans and they got a lion’s share in power which was much disproportionate to their population. Dalits were reduced to the level of second class players in the Party and in minister ship. This methodology of co-opting Upper Caste people was publicized as new “Social Engineering” and BSP was transformed from the Party of dalits to a Party of Sarvjan (all inclusive).

During this period slogans such as “Haathi nahin Ganesh hai, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh hai” (it is not an elephant but a trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh- all Hindu gods) and “Brahman shankh bajaiga, Haathi dilli jaiga”( Brahman will blow the conch and elephant will march towards Delhi) were coined to placate the Upper caste persons much to the chagrin of dalits. Elephant symbolizes the symbol of BSP. The Varna system of graded inequality became fully operative in the Party and dalits were further pushed to the margin.

Even now during the present régime of Mayawati, dalits have been totally ignored and Sarvjan have occupied the front seats. All important ministerial posts have been given to Upper caste people. Mayawati’s personal corruption has percolated to all the branches of administration and U.P. has been assessed to be “ an alarmingly corrupt state”. The various welfare schemes aiming at empowering dalits and other weaker sections of society have fallen a prey to all pervading corruption thereby depriving the intended beneficiaries of their benefits.Balatant corruption came to light during recruitment to the posts of Safai Karamcharies (Sweepers). Similar complaints surfaced during other recruitments also. It is said that there might be only a few lucky persons who escaped payment of high price for government jobs. The funds intended for development works were spent on installation of statues including her own and creating royal memorials and parks.

Since 1990 UP has been deprived of any development and creation of employment opportunities. This lack of development has adversely affected the dalits as a result of which they have become the most backward dalits in whole of India. As per 2001 senses their sex ratio, literacy rates and works participation rate are much lower than their counter-parts in other states. A fall of 13% dalits from the category of cultivators to the category of landless labourers during the last decade (1991-2001) indicates their disempowerment.

If judged from the angle of protection against atrocities on dalits, there has been no decrease during Mayawati’s rule. On the contrary as a result of written and oral orders of Mayawati the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act-1989 has become inoperative. This act was intended to prevent atrocities and award stringent punishment to the perpetrators of atrocities on Dalits. The atrocity cases against dalits are taking place as before but they are not being registered by police. As a result of non-registration of cases the dalits are condemned to suffer atrocities and deprivation from monitory compensation. The intention behind not allowing the registration of cases is to keep the crime figures low thereby projecting a crimeless state. In spite of all this burking of crime, UP stands first in whole of India in terms of crime against dalits. As such Mayawati has totally failed to give even legal protection to dalits.

The action of Mayawati of ignoring the dalits and giving preference to Upper Castes has resulted in disillusionment and anguish amongst dalits. This has been displayed by them during the recent 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Most of the criminals, moneyed men and muscle men fielded by Mayawati have been defeated as the dalits did not vote for them. Mayawati now and earlier also gave tickets to the persons whom she had herself accused of threat and assault during the Guest House case of 2^nd June, 1995. But dalits refused to oblige her and almost all have been defeated.

Mayawati as before had confined the dalits to 17 reserved seats only out of whom only 2 have been elected. If we look at the allotment of tickets during this election it is found that Brahmins being 7.5% of total population of the state were given 20 tickets i.e. 25% of total seats whereas the dalits with 21% population were given 17 reserved seats only. Out of the total 20 seats won by BSP, 5 are Brahmins and only 2 are dalits. On account of this hold of Brahmins in the party, the people have started calling BSP as a Brahmins Samaj Party. From the angle of representation dalits are marginalized in the party. This has been one of the major grievances of dalits against Mayawati.

With a view to attract Most Backward Classes, Mayawati sent a recommendation to the Central Government for inclusion of 16 castes in the list of Schedule Castes. Earlier Mulayam Singh had also made a similar attempt which was opposed by dalits as it would have harmed their reservation quota. It was challenged in the court and had to be dropped. This action of Mayawati irritated the dalits. Whereas Mayawati strongly recommended the case for 10% reservation for the poor among the Upper Castes, she did not show a similar interest in respect of dalits. Her declaration of granting 10% reservation to dalits in private sector has remained on paper only.

Mayawati’s way of ignoring dalits and treating them as a bonded vote bank has irritated a large section of awakened and oppressed section of dalits and has instilled in them a feeling of alienation. But as before Mayawati tried to befool them by projecting a possibility of her becoming the Prime Minister of India. But most of Dalits refused to be taken in. A big chunk of Chamar and Jatav votes, which is the core vote bank of Mayawati, moved away from her to Congress fold. The other Dalits sub-castes like Pasi, Dhobi, Khatik and Balmiki had earlier moved towards SP and BJP. Most Backward Classes also deserted Mayawati. Afraid of Mayawati’s love for BJP Muslims also walked away from BSP. This resulted in a limited success on 20 seats only as against a projected tally of 50-60 seats whereby she could stake her claim for the Prime Ministership.

The disheartening defeat of BSP during this election has clearly shown that vote base of BSP has shrunk. Not only Muslims and Most Backward Classes have deserted BSP but a big chunk of dalits have also moved away from it to Congress. Dalit society has been badly divided on sub-caste lines. Dalit movements and dalit politics have fallen a pray to opportunism, corruption and immorality. Today it is standing at cross roads. It is not only a danger signal for Mayawati but for whole of dalit society. Will Mayawati and Dalit intellectuals think over it with their cool mind? If it is not done immediately it may again result in betrayal of dalit interests. There is a fear of dalits again becoming political slaves of Congress. It should be a matter of grave concern and serious introspection by all Ambedkarites.

Going by present signs Mayawati has refused to learn any lesson from her debacle. As rightly pointed out by B.G. Verghese in ‘Deccan Herald’ dated 2009 “the lesson Mayawati requires to learn is that she has been cut to size not on account of conspiracies against Dalit-ki-beti (daughter of a dalit) but because of her own greed, corruption and authoritarianism that is fast blunting her original appeal as a Dalit leader intent on forging a wider social alliance. People do not want innumerable self-aggrandizing statues and mausoleums at the cost of good governance and welfare. She perhaps still has time to learn and mend her ways.”

The recent election results show that dalits have rejected Mayawati’s much trumpeted up “Sarvjan Formula” and she needs to do a serious introspection and learn from her mistakes otherwise it will prove to be a missed opportunity.

Mayawati’s Idolization and the Questing of Dalit Emancipation

S.R.Darapuri I.P.S.(Retd)

During the Assembly elections 2007, the people of Uttar Pardesh (U.P.) India and especially the Dalits voted Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to absolute majority. They expected that this time with a stable government she will be able to take U.P. out of the quagmire of underdevelopment and backwardness. They also hoped that now she will work out a development agenda for the State as well as for the Dalits and implement it faithfully. During her previous three stints as Chief Minister she took the plea that due to her dependence on other parties for support she could not act independently. As such she needed a government with majority to give her a free hand in running her government. But even this time Mayawati did not come up to the people’s expectations.. Neither she neither worked out development agenda nor stopped wasting public money on installing statues, creating memorials and making parks.

If judged from the point of view of development, at present U.P. is the one of the most backward states of India. As per 2001 Census Repot it has the largest population (16.16 crores) which stands as 16.16 % of total population of India. According to development parameters the total literacy rate of U.P. is 56.30 % (Male 68.8 and Female 42.2 %) whereas at the national level it is 68.84 % (Male 75.26 and 53.67 %). The sex ratio of U.P. stands at 898 whereas the national ratio is 933. According to available statistics the per capita income in U.P. during 2005-06 was Rs. 13,316 which is the lowest in the country excepting Bihar (Rs. 7875) whereas at the national level it is Rs. 25,716. During this period the per capita power production and consumption in U.P. was 113 and 167 K.W.Hour as compared with 563 and 372 K.W.Hour at the national level.

From the Public Health angle the birth rate, death rate and child mortality rate for U.P. were 30.4, 8.7 and 73 respectively whereas the national rates were 23.8, 7.6 and 58 respectively. As per the findings of NFHS-III, 2005-06 the infant mortality (number of infant deaths per thousand live births in the last five years) rate at national level is 57 whereas for U.P. it is 73. In India, 46 per scent children under three yeas of age are underweight whereas in U.P. it is 47 percent. Almost 38 % children (under three years age) are stunted (too short for their age). In U.P. their percentage is 46. Almost 79 % of children (6-35 months) and 56 % of women in India are anemic. In U.P. the figures are 85 and 51 percent respectively. From the employment angle during 2001 in U.P. only 23.78 % of total workers were Main Workers and 66 % were engaged as Agriculture Labourers. At present 32 % of U.P. population is living below poverty line against the national average of 27.5 percent.

From the above details it is clear that from the development point of view U.P. is one of the most backward sataes of India. In such a situation, not only Mayawati but every government is expected to utilize all the resources of the State for the development of the people. But it has not happened for last many years. Accordint to Sudha Pai “There is evidence that the conditions of the poorer sections in U.P. which include the major chunk of the Dalits have become worse during the 1990s. The National Human Development Report (NHDR) has pointed out the poor conditions of life in comparison with many other states. The State’s position in terms of Human Development Index was 29th in 1981 and has fallen to 31 out of 32 states (NHDR 2001:140-41). Similarly the Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure registered a fall in the State between 1993-94 and 1999-2000; that this is due to a drastic reduction in the consumption expenditure on food between two periods clearly suggest deterioration in the standard of living. This down slide took place when the B.S.P. supported by B.J.P. was in power in U.P. for the most part (National Herald, Lucknow May 1, 2002). Despite the fact that the BSP. had formed a government twice during the 1990s and was again in power with the support of the Bhartiya Janta Party, the conditions of Dalits have not improved according to the draft proposals of the Tenth Five Year Plan (Jha, 28 December, The Times of India, New Delhi-2002). The BSP. did not put forward any policies for improving the socioeconomic conditions of the subaltern sections of the Dalits. The emphasis has been on political empowerment only.”

It is well known that Mayawati did not take up any development agenda during all her tenures of Chief Minister ship. During the elections BSP never came out with an election manifesto. This was done purposely. Because declaration of an agenda beings about the responsibility of implementing it and failure to do so invites public wrath. Mr. Kanshi Ram, the mentor of Mayawati, attracted Dalits by promising to fulfill the incomplete mission of Dr. Ambedkar but cleverly he never defined it in writing. “First capture political power and then any work” was the promise given by BSP. In the beginning, Dalits were instigated against higher castes by raising emotional and non-material issues but later on all sorts of unprincipled and opportunistic alliances were made to get political power. All the principles of Ambedkarism were thrown to winds and dalits were exploited emotionally in the name of caste. Personal ambitions were pursued in place of Dalit issues. This unprincipled, non developmental and corrupt politics has resulted in poverty, unemployment and backwardness of the people of U.P. and the Dalits at large.

Now it will be pertinent to see on what items the budget money was spent during this period. It has been found that major part of budget was spent on non-development projects. It is noticeable that 90 % of Cultural Department and about 40 % of Public Works Department budget was spent on parks, memorials and statues. What ever money was spent on welfare programmes, a major apart of it was eaten away by corruption. As such the poor were deprived of any benefit their of. The main cause of it has been the personal greed and corruption of Mayawati which may land her in jail in the near future. She has spent a major portion of state budget on installing statues, making parks and creating memorials. Along with the statues of Dr. Ambedkar and some other Dalit icons she has installed her own statues along with her mentor Kanshi Ram. She seems to have taken inspiration from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Ill. She has made history by installing her own statues as a living person. According to available information she has spent more than 3,000 crores of Rupees on statutes and parks. These statues and memorials are so grand and costly which can put any king or queen to shame. According to one German scholar Maren Schempp, “Mayawati is building her own Rome.” Another scholar has labeled it as a criminal waste of public money.

Now Mayawati is ruling the State for the fourth time and she proclaims to be the savior of Dalits. In the face of this claim it will be proper to see what she has done to for the upliftment of Dalits of U.P. According to 2001 Census Report the population of Dalits in U.P. is 3.51 crores which is 21.2 % of State population and is the largest in whole of India. Ordinarily it is expected that in a state where a Dalit Chief Minister has occupied the chair for the fourth time, the Dalits of that state might have benefited much from her rule. But the ground reality is totally to the contrary. At present U.P. dalits are the most backward in whole of India leaving aside the Dalits of Orissa and Bihar. According to 2001 Census Report the Male- Female sex ratio of U.P. dalits is 900 whereas the national average of Dalits is 936. Similarly the literacy rate of U.P. Dalits is 46.3 % (Male 60.3 and Female 30.5 Percent) against the national average of 54.7 percent (Male 66.6 and Female 41.9 %). According to above Census report out of 1.33 crore children between the age of group 5-14 yeas only 58.3 lacs ( 56.4 % ) were going to school.

According to above census Report among total workers U.P. has got 42.5 % dalits working as Agriculture Labourers against the national average of 45.6 %. The percentage of U.P. dalits below poverty line is about 50 %. In U.P. Work Participation Rate of Dalits is 34.7 % which is lower than the national average. Being a dominantly agriculture based society land is an important source of production. In U.P. the number and size of land holdings with dalits is very small but land reforms have not been given proper priority in the State. What ever land was given to the landless, most of it is under illegal possession of higher castes and Mayawati cannot afford to annoy them as they form an important part of her Sarvjan (all included) followers.

On account of feudal social set up caste discrimination and practice of untouchabiity are the main factors behind atrocities against Dalits in U.P. Their number is highest in whole of India. A decrease in atrocities and prompt action against the offenders is the general expectation from Mayawati but the reality is totally otherwise. During 2001 Mayawati in order to keep her crime figures low issued a written order suspending the use of Scheduled Cases and Scheduled Tribes ( Prevention of Atrocities ) Act but was forced to withdraw the same in 2003. This had a very adverse effect on dalits. The atrocities continued to be perpetrated but their cases were not being registered by police. Besides this, the practice of untouchability is quite prevalent in midday meals in Primary Schools, Anganwari Centres and government hospitals but very little action is taken at government level. Thus Dalits continue to suffer under Mayawati’s rule. They have not experienced any empowerment material or otherwise.

“The statues serve as a source of inspiration for dalits” is the argument put forward by Mayawati for justifying her idolization. But this argument is quite contrary to the philosophy of Dalit icons. Let us see what Dr.. Ambedkar said in a letter published in Bombay Chronicle in 1916. Following the death, in 1915, of Pherozeshah Merwnjee Mehta, one of the founders of Indian National Congress, and of Gopal Krishana Gokhle, another Congress leader and founder of Servants of India society, Ambedkar notes: “The memorial for Gokhle is to take the form of establishing branches of Servants of India Society at various places, while that of Sir P.M. Mehta is to stand in the form of a statue before the Bombay Municipal Office.” While appreciating the memorial for Gokhle, Ambedkar records his dismay over a statue for Mehta being “very trivial and unbecoming.” He is “at pains to understand why this memorial cannot be in a form that will be “of permanent use to posterity.”. He suggests that the memorial should be a public library named after Mehta. Drawing from his experience at “one of the biggest universities in the U.S., Ambedkar laments how we have not yet “realized the value of the library as an institution in the growth and advancement of society.”

Later, Dr. Ambedkar acted on these principles when he had the opportunity. He was driven by the belief that education was the greatest weapon for advancement. He founded “People’s Education Society” in 1944; three branches of Siddharth College beginning 1946; and Milind Mahavidhyalya in 1950. With a view to benefit the maximum number of students he established colleges in Bombay and Marathwar which is the most backward area in Maharashtra.

It is true that statues serve as source of inspiration but this role is very limited. The lasting inspiration comes by following their ideals and propagating their philosophy. But Mayawati has done hardly any thing in this direction. If the money spent on statues had been spent in establishing educational institutions in the name of dalit icons, it would have brought a qualitative change in the society.

From the brief above discussion it transpires that the emancipation of dalits can be achieved not by installation of statues but by working out a Dalit development agenda and implementing it honestly. In stead of spending crores on the statues, establishing educational institutions, hospital, libraries and useful institutions in the name of Dalit icons will be a true honour and memorial to them.