----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Nitin Lata Waman <ni3t...@gmail.com> To: Sent: Tue, 6 April, 2010 2:07:30 PM Subject: Understanding Mayawati's Symbols
Understanding Mayawati's Symbols http://subalternexpression.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/understanding-mayawatis-symbols/ Santosh Desao,� 04 April 2010, � Why does Mayawati do what she does? Why does she build these enormous statues with giant elephants at a huge cost to the exchequer? Why does she have herself garlanded with obscene sums of money while claiming to represent the poorest among the poor? Why does she flaunt her power (and her handbag) in such a transparently magnified way? The answer to these seem to clear enough to a large section of society. Power has gone to her head and converted her into a raving megalomaniac and has robbed her of a sense of reality. She now lords over the very people she was meant to represent and is taking her constituency far too much for granted- It is thus only a matter of time before she gets her come-uppance. Without wishing to enter into a debate about the morality of her actions, since that is ground covered very well by others, let me instead focus on understanding why she would act the way she does. It is clear that she knows how her actions will be responded to. Her building of statues and flaunting of gargantuan garlands are both highly public activities, and both are designed for display. Far from attempting to hide these kind of actions, something that other political parties do well, she is intent on advertising them. The core issue is not about misuse of state funds or the use of illicit money in elections- both these could well be the case, but the key here is that there so many other ways of ripping off the state and collecting illegal funds. Most red-blooded politicians in power are adept at both, and practice their craft in the secrecy of their chambers. In Mayawati's case, the misdemeanor is being used deliberately as a highly visible symbol in order to make a point. For Mayawati irrational scale is a potent symbol. It is in effect finding a way to accumulate history and reverse it spectacularly. Visible scale is a way of communicating the shift in status of the Dalit community. For hundreds of years, prejudice has been a platelet count in our veins, having manifested in millions of little bits of humiliation that we have handed out in the name of caste. The story of Dalit oppression is not just about the occasional horrific incidents of lynching, rape and mass murder, but also about the everyday slights, the subtle and not-so-subtle process by which human beings were systematically reduced to an under-class, a sub-species that did not merit full human consideration. This prejudice cannot get reversed by a stroke of the pen, or the success of a single generation- it runs deep and howls wild. Mayawati's actions aim at making the implicit explicit, this time in reverse. She spectacularises her response; her actions seem to be way overboard, for that seems to be the only way of communicating the magnitude of the prejudice she is seeking to reverse. There is no civilized way of turning back the clock and for giving redress for the wrongs committed in the past. Scale is her primary means of communication; we can become aware of our own misdemeanours through the brazen scale of hers. In her case, remember, that the assault is largely symbolic. For all the crassness of the display she puts on for our benefit, it is still merely a symbolic show. There is no promotion of class hatred and certainly little incitement to violence. The use of the statues is revealing. Statues institutionalize memory as well as crystallize forgetfulness. We remember what the state wants us to remember, or at least that is what is hoped for. In reality, statues rarely evoke memory for they become a part of the attempt of the state to tell us what to value (like the new names of roads that no one bothers to use). What they do communicate is the intent of the state. And that is what makes Mayawati's statues a potent sign. It is her answer to the temples, buildings, auditoriums, parks and statues that carry names and insignias of the dominant class. It is her temple to herself and her community bought in the hard currency of today, money. Which is also why currency notes are so important. Money has no memory- a thousand rupee note is silent on its antecedents. And crisp, new notes have no past at all. Money allows for a celebration of the present and represents power shorn of history. It democratizes even as it finds a new axis of discrimination. With money, the once oppressed can be the now dominant. Consumerism is the ally of the suppressed for it speaks without an accent at least in its early stages. Brands create a caste system of the present based only on who can pay the price for entry. That is not to argue that Mayawati's actions are justified. Only that they are not irrational, at least not entirely so. And in any case, there can be no denying that the middle class views here with barely concealed disgust. When someone like Shashi Tharoor gets himself weighed in money, we shrug it off as a quaint electoral practice. When Mayawati does so, we are offended. But then, she does not tweet. -- Please consider the environment before printing this email Regards Nitin Lata Waman ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A man will fight harder for his interests than his rights" --- Napoleon
