Once touted as a potential PM, today Mayawati has reached a dead end
It appears that even her core supporters no longer trust in her brand of Dalit aggression
The law of physics says whatever goes up must come down. But such a law does not necessarily apply to political parties; some of them go up and down like a yo-yo, some keep going up and up and some vanish without a trace. Take the case of the Republican Party of India (RPI) founded by India’s first Dalit icon, Babasaheb Ambedkar. A series of fratricidal divisions later, today it totters on the brink of dissipation, a token minister in the NDA government notwithstanding.
The second serious attempt to forge a Dalit party, spearheaded originally by Kanshi Ram and taken to dizzy heights by his compatriot and chosen successor, Mayawati, is now facing an existential problem: Can the party recover from the abyss into which it has sunk and, if so, through what strategic innovation?
Had it not been for its near obliteration in Uttar Pradesh after this year’s assembly election, Mayawati loyalists may have entertained some hopes of its phoenix-like rise. But with its decimation in the one state which it once ruled, even its hard-core supporters will find it difficult to paint an optimistic picture.
The biggest question the feisty Dalit leader must be asking herself now is where have her supporters disappeared? What about the fabled organisation Kanshi Ram had bequeathed to her? Whatever happened to her flirtation with Bahujan (the Dalits plus Other Backward Classes (OBCs) plus underprivileged Muslims) and later Sarvajan (an all inclusive if ephemeral phalanx of all castes and communities)? The unkindest cut of all for Mayawati is that today even her core support base of the Dalits seems to have deserted; the rest could not have been banked upon anyway.
Kanshi Ram was an organisation builder. Starting with a trade union of government employees called BAMCEF, he built the fledgling DS4 (Dalit-Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti), focusing on his home state of Punjab. The DS4 achieved no real electoral success and Kanshi Ram realised that without a firebrand leader (which he was not), a new political party would never make a mark. He zeroed in on a school teacher from western UP to don that mantle, and after several false starts, Mayawati began to taste success in the early 1990s.
In 2007, the BSP swept to power in UP on the back of its Sanskritised poll plank ‘Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay’ (in the interest of all, for the happiness of all). By then she had realised that the Dalits alone could not propel her to office.
Disastrous power sharing arrangements, first with the Samajwadi Party and later, the BJP, convinced her that her authority even as chief minister in any coalition regime would be limited. Besides be it the OBCs (read Yadavs) or upper castes, none would readily treat the Dalits as equals. But directly reaching out to them on her newfound ‘Sarvajan’ platform yielded rich dividends, when a sizeable section of upper castes, non-Yadav OBCs and a smattering of Muslims switched to the BSP.
But much water had flowed down the Ganga and Yamuna by the time Mayawati attained her ambition of becoming UP chief minister with a clear majority in the assembly. The influence of Mandal versus Kamandal politics may have waned somewhat by then, but it remained a potent force. More importantly, Mayawati’s record of five years in office did little to enhance her credibility even among the Dalits.
She enacted several legislations to curb atrocities against members of her community, posted Scheduled Caste officers in the administration and police in most districts, but could not do anything to change feudal mindsets or break the dominance of the Rajputs, Brahmins and Yadavs in rural society. Moreover, her reputation as a corrupt and self-serving politician steadily gained ground. Her claim that Dalits should be proud that a “Dalit ki Beti” was seen in glittering solitaires did little to enthuse her impoverished followers.
But she might have retained her grip on the Dalits had the BJP not launched an aggressive campaign to reach out to them, using Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s message of Antyodaya. But even more devastating was Narendra Modi’s stupendous success in selling the prosperity dream to the Dalit and other backwards. Both in 2014 and 2017 election campaigns, Modi sold aspiration to the people, pointing to development as panacea to their abject poverty.
The BJP took identity politics head on and convincingly asked the Dalits how Mayawati’s rule had benefited them economically. Having gained little from BSP rule, the Dalits were prepared to experiment, especially in 2017. The fact that Mayawati failed to make headway in any other state, primarily on account of her authoritarian style, appears to have convinced even her core supporters that the brand of Dalit aggression championed by her was on the decline.
Relegated to a cul-de-sac, Mayawati can only hope for a miraculous turnaround in her fortunes. Dismissed as an untrustworthy ally, she will also find it difficult in future to strike electoral alliances. The present cul-de-sac may well be the end of the road for the woman who was once touted as a potential prime minister. a state with preponderance of the trading class. It is here that Gandhi’s attack and the Congress’ propaganda have hit home and it is such damage that Shah seeks to rectify.
The assembly elections in Gujarat in fact reveal the orchestrated power of the BJP’s electoral politics. With Shah in control, and myriads of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers in every sector, the ground is literally cleared for the entry of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress needs to rethink its longterm strategy. The immediate task it is engaging in, to balance the demands of Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani, is more the immediacy of balancing tickets and interests. These are crucial and piecemeal issues. However, what one senses is a reactive politics, with Gandhi questioning every BJP move but not being able to dent the electoral imagination.
Today the Congress does not appear a holistic party, autonomous in its decisionmaking. It is content to play a hyphen, an auxiliary even to two-bit players in every region. It is true Gandhi appears more dynamic but his moves appear like a game of Chinese checkers, while Modi and Shah play out the grand strategies of chess.
The differences in style and inevitability of results makes one almost pity the Opposition, saying promising things about every hiccup raised by Patel and Gandhi. These almost appear like distracting antics before the cinematic interval. After the interval, in the final lap, one senses the BJP juggernaut taking over. It is such inevitability that makes Gujarat politics eventually distressing and less hopeful for the Congress.