---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: anoop kumar <[email protected]> Date: 2009/4/20 Subject: A review of Behenji: A Political Biography Of Mayawati by Mark Tully To: [email protected]
*Behenji: A Political Biography Of Mayawati* by Ajoy Bose , Viking, Price: Rs 499, Pages: 288 By Mark Tully Behenji is an apologia for Mayawati, a defence of her, but it is far from being a whitewash. Ajoy Bose doesn't present her as a paragon of administrative probity and he devotes a whole chapter to the extraordinary wealth she has accumulated. The only defence he can make is that other politicians, too, become inexplicably rich. But he believes an apologia is required "because there is a huge disconnect between the perceptions of what the urban intelligentsia consider good administrative qualities and that which the vast multitude still struggling for basic rights and facilities, consider essential". Behenji is an attempt to connect the intelligentsia with Mayawati. Inevitably it is difficult for the intelligentsia to understand how a woman born into a Dalit caste, and brought up in a jhuggi-jhopri colony of Delhi, could be so successful. Bose chronicles the struggle which has taken Mayawati from her unpromising beginning to the chief minister's office in Lucknow four times, and then assesses her significance. He doesn't rule out the possibility that this unique politician will become the prime minister of India. That is her stated ambition. According to Bose, the intelligentsia misses the fundamental point about Mayawati, which is the loyalty she commands among the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh. At first her followers were limited to her own caste, but now the entire Dalit community is backing her. It is not shocked by Mayawati's wealth but, according to Bose, is proud that a Dalit leader has more wealth than the upper castes. "Her riches have become a symbol of Dalit empowerment," he says. It is this loyalty which also enables her to manage her party, BSP, in a way no other Indian party has ever been successfully run before. There have been plenty of autocratic party leaders, and there still are, but which autocrat promised nothing to grassroots workers? According to Bose, association with Behenji is enough for them. There is no ladder they can climb to become MLAs or MPs. Many of her electoral candidates don't even come from her party. When Brahmin and Bania candidates are selected to bring those castes into the fold, her Dalit constituency doesn't object. Agitations, so much a part of traditional Indian politics, are forbidden by Mayawati. Bose says that her mentor Kanshi Ram, the founder of BSP, taught her never to pit the party cadre against the state because agitation "damaged the purpose of capturing power through elections". Mayawati owes her present prominence to the start Kanshi Ram gave her. If he had not been so impressed by her courage and dedication to the Dalit cause, she would be, at best, just another Scheduled Caste government official. But Bose says that BSP in Uttar Pradesh is almost entirely Mayawati's creation. He believes Mayawati and Kanshi Ram complemented each other. While he built the party, she provided the charisma, the ability to mesmerise a crowd. That partnership was far more important than the speculation about the exact nature of their relationship. It is clear from Behenji that Mayawati can't be dismissed as a maverick version of a typical caste politician. She understands that development is only one aspect of governance. Equally important is what happens in daily life, a Dalit's relationship with the thanedar, the patwari, the sarpanch, and of course, the upper castes. These relationships change when Mayawati comes to power. She shows that any party that wants to win the votes of the Dalits must have a leader they can take pride in and so take pride in themselves. The Congress never learnt that lesson and that is why it lost the Dalit votes in Uttar Pradesh. There was Jagjivan Ram, but Dalits do not think the Congress showed him proper respect. Bose says a Dalit woman achieving such prominence shouldn't just boost her community's pride, she should also boost the pride of all Indians in their democracy. His apologia for Mayawati should also make all politicians and bureaucrats realise how strongly Dalits resent the centuries of humiliating oppression they have suffered, and how wounded they are by the sense of inferiority inflicted on them. -- Ranjit --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
