The late winter chill in Delhi is a trifle too treacherous and therefore it is not unusual for people to seek refuge within the warmer, inner recesses of their respective places of dwelling once the sun beats a retreat. That is why the loud knocking on the door at this middle class household in Inderpuri, well past the evening hours, took the family members by surprise. But little did they and the rest of India know that the stranger who had come calling that night, towards the fag end of 1977, would pave the way for the world’s largest democracy to have its first female “dalit” (backward caste) chief minister and the nation’s political circle its ubiquitous “behenji” (sister)!
Kanshi Ram, the leader of the dalit community, who later founded the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh (UP), was much impressed with Kumari Mayawati’s debating skill. He had heard her speak in Karol Bagh and was so taken in by the mesh of logic woven by the 21-year-old law student that he came calling the very next day.
And the visit turned Kumari Mayawati’s life on its head.
Mayawati, who always aspired to join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), was convinced by Kanshi Ram to join politics instead and take up the cause of the dalit community in India. Apparently, during that late-night impromptu parley at Mayawati’s residence, Kanshi Ram had told her that while she wanted to contribute to society by serving in the IAS, he would chalk out a far better career course for her, whereby, IAS officers would be queueing up to take orders from her.
What prophecy!
By the time Mayawati took oath of office as the chief minister of UP in 2007 — for the fourth time, after three shorter stints earlier — she had indeed sent out a loud and clear message to the officers of the state’s administrative and police service cadres: put your best foot forward for the CM’s ball!
For the next five years, the administrative machinery in India’s most populous state was busy matching vibes with behenji. The tantrums never ceased and the IAS and IPS (Indian Police Service) top brass in UP were kept on tenterhooks. Kanshi Ram had spoken of IAS officers queueing up before Mayawati to take orders. In reality, they were made to dance to the CM’s tune, and how!
From a security officer burnishing behenji’s shoes — after her helicopter landed on a dustbowl of a patch in a rural district — to state officials being scolded by the CM in full view of the public during official functions ... Mayawati the horrible boss came to the fore.
And of course, there was this particular incident that took the cake. According to media reports, behenji had apparently sent a chartered jet all the way from Lucknow to Mumbai to fetch a pair of fancy sandals of her favourite brand — all on public money. When WikiLeaks blew the lid, Mayawati blew her top. “Mr [Julian] Assange [of WikiLeaks] should be sent to mental asylum ... and in case if there is no place for him, he should be sent to UP. We will put him in the Agra mental asylum,” she retorted.
In fact, one of the WikiLeaks cables also mentioned an incident in which the CM had made a state official do sit-ups for an apparent dereliction of duty.
Obviously, Mayawati has vehemently denied all such allegations. But one issue that even she failed to brush off as mere media propaganda was her decision to build statues of famous dalit leaders — including herself! While there is no dearth of megalomaniacs in Indian politics, no one has actually gone to the extent of doing something as outrageous as erecting one’s own statue. But behenji did that with her trademark nonchalance, throwing propriety out of the window. Her government had reportedly spent between $500 million (Dh1.8 billion) and $1.2 billion on these statues and other memorials.
This abysmally poor sense of priority and proportion perhaps had a lot to do with her troubled childhood. Born on January 15, 1956, Mayawati had her first taste of a skewed gender bias at a very early age when all her six brothers were sent to private schools with higher tuition fees, while she and her two sisters were admitted to government institutions, where education was largely free and the standard below-par. Her father’s penchant for the male child and his desire to ensure a bright future for his sons had steeled Mayawati’s resolve to make a mark for herself.
The problem was that her meteoric rise in politics got to her head and that started showing in her public profile and her personal standing. It is indeed ironic that someone who had supposedly taken to politics to fight for the rights of the socially downtrodden and deprived had actually ended up in the headlines for having allegedly amassed assets disproportionate to income! Mayawati’s personal assets had doubled during her last stint as CM and stood at Rs1.11 billion (Dh62.6 million) in March 2012, according to her own declaration. That indeed is a lot of money for someone with a modest background, with no prior role in public life.
From allegations of siphoning of funds meant for the Taj Heritage Corridor to being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the disproportionate assets case, Mayawati has often been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The disproportionate assets case did not proceed further as she was granted a reprieve by the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, the stigma could not be brushed off too easily.
Quite in keeping with the electoral symbol of her party — an elephant — Mayawati has always harboured a jumbo-sized ambition of one day becoming the prime minister of India. But leave alone the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi, with politics of polarisation reaching a fever pitch in UP, making a comeback to the corridors of power in Lucknow is a tall order for behenji for now — the recent panchayat poll success notwithstanding.
This column aims to profile personalities who made the news once but have now faded from the spotlight.
What she said:
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately dismiss him [V.K. Singh]. He should be sent to jail for harbouring such low-level mentality towards dalits.”
— On Union Minister V.K. Singh’s comment, comparing dalits with dogs.
“Babasaheb Ambedkar got you the right to social equality ... Kanshi Ram tried to get these rights implemented, and I am here to accomplish their unfulfilled dream.”
— At Kanshi Ram’s funeral procession
“Mr [Julian] Assange should be sent to mental asylum ... and in case there is no place for him, he should be sent to UP. We will put him in the Agra mental asylum.”
— On the WikiLeaks exposé on her sending a private jet to fetch her favourite brand of sandals from Mumbai
