By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,
The apparently bizarre nature of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s politics can be understood by remembering that she is driven by an intense desire to make a mark in politics and, moreover, to do so in a manner which she believes will impress the core group of her supporters, the Dalits.
As a newcomer in politics and that too from a depressed community, she has had to build her career from scratch, as it were, without the help of an established party or an influential social network. Hence her unconventional ways.
Her preferred method is to turn accepted political wisdom on its head. If a high-thinking-plain-living style is the norm among politicians, at least for public consumption, then she deliberately flaunts her wealth, as the latest act of receiving garlands made up of high denomination currency notes showed.
It was to underline her tactic of flouting the basics of politics that Mayawati began her political journey with the provocative slogan – “tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maro jootey char” (beat with shoes the Brahmins, Banias and Thakurs) – where harmonious caste and communal relations were the objectives of all political parties.
Even parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party, which catered to the backward castes, refrained from directly lambasting the upper castes while a “communal” organisation like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) insisted that it had nothing against the average Muslim, only those who were unpatriotic in its view.
Although Mayawati has since changed her tune by roping in the Brahmins to her rainbow coalition in Uttar Pradesh because of electoral compulsions, she is not averse to whipping up casteist sentiments in her party’s favour by slandering Rahul Gandhi, saying he washes himself with a “special soap” after spending time with the Dalits.
This kind of calumny was never a feature of Indian politics before Mayawati and her equally provocative mentor, Kanshi Ram, appeared on the scene. One of their most offensive observations was in the context of their rejection of Mahatma Gandhi’s description of Dalits as Harijans or the children of god. If Dalits are the children of god, asked the self-appointed messiahs of the community, are the Brahmins the offsprings of the devil?
These examples show how confrontational Mayawati’s politics is. Her combative, in-your-face style is reflected not only in a defiant display of wealth but also in a cynical disregard for principles. Where other parties try to camouflage their opportunism under various pretexts, Mayawati is quite bare-faced about it. Her explanation, as also of Kanshi Ram’s, was that the pursuit of naked power was her primary objective. Only when the Dalits had the levers of the administration in their hands would they be able to gain in stature.
This was the unvarnished motive which made her side with the BJP to form a government in Uttar Pradesh in the mid-1990s although her favourite categorisation of the BJP was that it was Manuvadi or the follower of the ancient Hindu lawgiver, Manu, with his pronounced Brahminical bias.
Mayawati can, of course, claim that her achievements are testimony to the fact that her aggressive brand of politics works. If her opponents deride her show of opulence as vulgar, her supporters seem to regard her amassing of a fortune as a sign that at least one of the Dalits has emerged from the centuries of deprivation and upper caste dominance to audaciously defy those in the higher social strata.
The psychology behind this attitude can be discerned in V.S. Naipaul’s “A Turn in the South” where he says “for about a hundred years after the abolition of slavery (in America), the Black people had no heroes … But then, when a political life developed … West Indian Blacks acquired leaders … For these early leaders, who were their very own, West Indian Blacks had more than adulation …they wished their leaders (who had started as poor as everybody else) to be rich (by whatever means) and powerful and glorious. The glory of the Black leader became the glory of his people”.
It is, however, too early to say whether the glory of Mayawati will become the glory of the Dalits in the long term because of two reasons. One is that ‘bhog’ or conspicuous consumption has never been extolled in India. Indians are by nature abstemious. This is all the more so in politics where ‘tyag’ or renunciation is admired.
Another kind of person whom the Indians respect is the gyani or the scholar. Hence the high esteem with which B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution, is regarded. Before him, the 19th century social reformer, Jotiba Phule, became famous for his pioneering efforts in women’s education and for striving for the emancipation of Dalits from brahminical exploitation.
Mayawati’s and Kanshi Ram’s argument was that while these stalwarts of their community were praised, there was no positive impact on the condition of Dalits, who remained mired in poverty and ignorance. However, even Mayawati has learnt that unconventional politicking can only be partly successful.
While her earlier teaming up with the BJP and the present, grudging incorporation of the upper castes into her camp in Uttar Pradesh are a concession to the ground realities, she may also learn that a brazen display of wealth can have a negative impact after a while if only because she will become an object of ridicule, something which the Dalits will find embarrassing.
To an extent, she has realised this danger of mockery and scorn in the context of the statues of herself that she ordered to be built. There has been a slowing down of their construction. Now, the garlands of Rs.1,000 notes may begin to resemble a noose – and not only because of income tax probes.
(20.03.2010 – Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected])