http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/36/2010041520100415183549839f211ddb2/Woman-of-the-people.html
Woman of the people Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, an Executive Search Consultant is a long term Bangalorean with a wry take on life and living Priya Chetty-Rajagopal Posted On Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 06:35:49 PM I am trying to be honest about why I so dislike Mayawati. Why my lip curls in increasingly automatic nausea. By doing so, I am perhaps exposing my biases and the disgust that urban middle class professionals feel for politicians like her. Darn, but there it is. And *shrug*, I’m okay with it. Mayawati came to power in UP with a remarkable majority. Apparently, it is just insensitive, ill-informed people like us with a misplaced sense of what is right, that have become completely apoplectic about her. Completely misplaced? Of course. And, please don’t play the Dalit card. She’s gender and caste neutral on crass quotient. When the Women’s Reservation bill was being debated, she stood out as a proud example of women in high political office and the corruption that they too succumb to. We needed women role models in politics and we got Mayawati. She was a seemingly simple Ms Every Woman who had worked hard, and admirably moved up the political system to be the CM of India’s most populous state. Comparisons, then hopeful, were made about her and US President Barack Obama. However, she sold her people, and to a lesser extent, folks like us, down the river in the megalomania that followed her meteoric rise. She has undoubtedly done some good work. Yet, the image that will stay with me is the smug, chapathi-like countenance looking matter-of-fact and stately while huge, obscene money garlands were placed around that short neck. There was some talk about how poor Mayawati was being unnecessarily targeted and vilified by the media and the middle class...because she was a Dalit. It had not even entered my mind, except to hope that she would do her bit to help the same voluminous and troubled vote bank that got her elected. She hardly did. Unless, of course, the people of UP had a burning desire to eat the dust off the many statues she constructed, and bask in the heady (albeit non-nutritious) aroma of freshly minted Rs 1,000 notes fluttering crisply in the summer breeze. Adding a contemptuous slap to the face of her critics, aides asserted that garlanding her with currency notes would now be a regular practice. Her supporters say others have done gross stuff like this — weighed themselves in silver, gold, ghee, whatever. So why pick on her? I despise all of them. But why am I even more dismissive of this one? Because she is a woman? Because she could have been a beacon to women in politics? Because, once long ago, I do believe she had dreams for her people? Because she proved right the adage that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? In her quest for absolute power, she became blind and deaf to the impact of her actions. What perhaps irritates me in all this is her contempt for people like me. While she is admittedly no Miss Universe, the sheer gumption of installing paeans of praise to yourself in your own lifetime stinks of excessive, ultimate egotism. Defying courts, she sanguinely spends lakhs, even crores on large, ghastly and unwieldy statues of her and her mentor in every nook and cranny, and, adding insult to injury, serenely installs legions of cops to guard them. Presumably from pigeons and bees that she sees as Enemies of the State. The pigeons — if you excuse my politically incorrect comparison — are doing to her statue exactly what we feel they should do to the original. Is the anger I have because I feel that little upstart got a chance, blew it, and blew it publicly? Because she was too thick-skinned to even fathom how much beyond the pale she had gone? While I work hard and pay my taxes, this silly twit holds the people of UP to ransom, with her expectation of large monetary gifts, yet ensures she honestly pays her taxes — ironically, she is allegedly one of the highest tax payers we have. And pray, where does she get the darn money? A law unto herself, the illusionary Mayawati like her name, locked away in an ivory tower of her own making, has lost the ability to listen to her people (until the next elections, naturally) and work for their welfare, toiling instead on more pressing items like putting up umbrellas to protect her colossal statues from pigeon poop. ------------------------------------ ---- INFORMATION OVERLOAD? Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to [email protected], OR, if you have a Yahoo! 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