The Mayawati era is over. Bye Bye Behenji

 The Mayawati era is over. Bye Bye Behenji

Unable to reinvent herself, BSP chief Mayawati is left with no straws to clutch at.

Shivam VijSHIVAM VIJ 27 January, 2020 3:06 pm IST

File photo of BSP supremo Mayawati | Nand Kumar/PTI

File photo of BSP supremo Mayawati | Nand Kumar | PTI

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Last week, more than a thousand workers of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Basti district of eastern Uttar Pradesh quit and joined, wait for it, the Samajwadi Party. They were led by a local BSP leader of some standing, along with one former MP and two former MLAs.

This is no big deal, sympathisers of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) might say. People have been joining and leaving the BSP forever. The vote is cast in Mayawati’s name. The rest are mercenaries for hire.

But it’s different this time. Mayawati’s supporters and voters are no longer sure if Mayawati still commands the unquestioned loyalty of Dalit voters.

Also read: The unlikely winners in a CAA debate between Amit Shah and Owaisi, Kejriwal, Mayawati

Spoilsport Behenji

The proof was the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BSP fought on almost equal number of seats. The BSP won 10, the SP five – a clear indication that many Dalit voters did not listen to Mayawati’s advice to vote for the SP.

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If Mayawati is unable to make her vote transfer, is she really the supreme leader of Dalits?

But Dalits might still vote for Mayawati, the BSP could argue. If the elephant is there on the EVM, their motor memory won’t allow them to vote for anyone else.

Although, even that seems to be increasingly doubtful. Mayawati’s hold over the Dalit vote is facing a multi-pronged attack. It is significant that politicians from the Basti district are joining the SP, and not the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Congress. Akhilesh Yadav has been able to project an image that is different from how Dalits have so far seen the Samajwadi Party.

When Mayawati blamed the SP, called it names, and unilaterally broke the alliance after the 2019 Lok Sabha election result, Akhilesh Yadav did not respond. He continues to wish her on her birthday. This has made Mayawati seem like the spoilsport in the larger purpose of joining forces against the incumbent BJP, while Akhilesh Yadav comes across as the good guy.

Also read: Sonia, Mamata, Mayawati era receding. India is only grooming men as gen-next politicians

Generational change

There’s another threat that Mayawati faces: Chandrashekhar Azad of Saharanpur. Mayawati is so rattled by the Bhim Army chief that she names him in her press conferences, and accuses him of being a part of the conspiracy to cut BSP votes. But Chandrashekhar Azad has become a face of curiosity and aspiration in Uttar Pradesh politics. Azad wants to do agitational politics, shake things up, be a force of disruption. Mayawati wants to stick to her old formulas that stopped working in 2014.

Chandrashekhar Azad has already announced that he intends to launch his own political party. Whether this party will contest all seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2022, or enter into an alliance with the SP or Congress, remains to be seen. The amount of traction he would get can also only be a matter of speculation. But Mayawati is making sure that Chandrashekhar Azad becomes a well-known figure for Dalits across Uttar Pradesh by naming him in virtually every press conference.

The rise of the BSP was about fighting against ‘upper’ caste domination. But today, Dalit youth want more than that. Having won the first round and made their point against caste domination and discrimination, the new generation Dalits want to assert equality. It is a different aspiration and Chandrashekhar Azad epitomises it.

Also read: Why UP bypolls, not Maharashtra & Haryana verdict, threw up a bigger surprise for Mayawati

BSP under siege

Dalits have already been deserting the BSP for the BJP since 2014, especially non-Jatav Dalits. Some Jatavs, too, have been attracted to the BJP thanks to Modi’s economic populism: free houses, toilets, LPG cylinders. And then there’s the Congress party, which Dalits used to vote for until the rise of the BSP in the early 1990s. Mayawati has also been attacking Priyanka Gandhi. Dalits going back to the Congress has always been her fear.

In other words, Mayawati is under siege from all sides. And she is not reacting astutely at all. Her response reveals her anxieties. All she wants is to retain her Dalit vote-bank. And therein lies the mistake. The biggest reason why even Dalits are giving up on Mayawati is because they see no hope of her returning as chief minister any time soon. She’s unable to project ‘winnability’.

Also read: Who trolls Mayawati on Twitter and what it says about Indians

Closed to new ideas

For this, Mayawati has only herself to blame — although if you ask Dalit intellectuals, they will blame her Brahmin aide, Satish Chandra Mishra. Mayawati has closed herself to any new ideas. She thinks the old formula can still work: marry Dalit vote-bank to non-Dalit candidates, who will also bring votes of their own caste. Two plus two equals victory.

This formula worked in the past. But now, caste politics alone won’t work. The once fragmented ‘lower’ Other Backward Classes (OBCs) have been solidly mobilised by the BJP, whose caste coalition is formidable. But caste is not the only thing that matters.

As part of her old formula, Mayawati did not need to campaign on the ground. She only needed to address a few big rallies on election eve and that was enough. But as the BSP stares at a likely implosion, Mayawati needs to get out and travel across Uttar Pradesh, re-establish connect with the masses. Kanshiram built the BSP on his bicycle. Mayawati will need to leave her ivory tower – even though it seems unlikely that she will. She might think it will reduce her stature.

All she can think of is going back from a ‘Dalit+Muslim’ strategy to a ‘Dalit+Brahmin’ strategy. So, the leader of the BSP in the Lok Sabha has been changed from Muslim to Brahmin. What she really needs to do instead is travel across Uttar Pradesh and campaign on law and order, utilising the perception that law and order in the state is best when she is the chief minister.

She doesn’t think she needs to campaign. At least not until a week before the first phase of the polling. Why campaign when you are the queen of social engineering?

Mayawati losing the plot: Time running out

The ‘Dalit Ki Beti’ as she calls herself, has often been mocked as ‘Daulat Ki Beti’ but now she appears to be politically isolated

SP chief Mayawati

SP chief Mayawati

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Ashutosh

Published: 07 Nov 2020, 5:45 PM

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Two U-turns in three days left even the most ardent supporters of Ms Mayawati baffled. There was no urgency or necessity for her to hold a press conference and say that BSP would do everything to ensure the defeat of Samajwadi Party candidates in the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha. If necessary, BSP would vote for the BJP, she asserted.

The stakes for the Rajya Sabha seats was not very high for the SP or the BSP, which could hope to win just one seat in the best-case scenario. Why would Behen Ji make such a loaded statement and give her game away, even if she had reached an understanding with the BJP? There was really no need for her to give the statement.

But within 48 hours she appeared to have realised the faux pas made by her; and she came up with another statement, saying this time that she would never join hands with the BJP under any circumstances. If the statement was made as a damage control measure, it predictably failed. On the contrary it cemented the impression that the BSP chief is confused and lacks clarity and foresight. There was a time when Ms Mayawati used to tie ‘Rakhi’ on the wrist of senior BJP leader Murali Manojar Joshi. She thrice formed a government in Uttar Pradesh with the help of BJP. For her BJP was never ‘untouchable’ in UP. But since 2014 she had been vocal in her criticism of both BJP and the RSS. So much so that in 2019 she dropped her animosity for the Samajwadi Party and embraced Akhilesh Yadav in a bid to stop Modi and BJP’s juggernaut.

She never forgave the Samajwadi Party for the attack on her at the State Guest House on Mirabai Road in Lucknow in 1994. She was reportedly humiliated and roughed up by SP workers then and she had ruled out any truck with it on several occasions in the past. Therefore, her decision to swallow the insult and her pride and join hands with SP was a major political departure for her. She clearly saw BJP and Modi as a bigger threat in 2019. Therefore, when she suddenly spoke of supporting the BJP, the question people asked was whether it was an off-the-cuff political statement of pique or whether there was more than met the eyes.

Mayawati, a school teacher, had led the movement to restore power under her mentor Kanshi Ram. Her achievement was nothing short of a miracle. It was no mean achievement to enable suppressed Dalits to stand up to dominating upper castes in the feudal state. She played an important role in continuing the movement for social justice that Baba Saheb Ambedkar had steered. But while Baba Saheb electrified the Dalits, ensured Reservation for them and energised the Dalit movement, he could not secure for them political power. He himself lost elections and the Republican Party remained a marginal force. It was Kanshi Ram who understood the requirements of electoral politics and moulded the Dalits in UP as a strong, political force. By the nineties, one could not even imagine of politics in the state without the Bahujan Samaj Party.

It is worth noting that Mayawati has been the chief minister of the largest state five times. On one occasion BSP secured an absolute majority by itself; on three other occasions she formed governments with support from or in alliance with the BJP. She also headed a government in which both BSP and SP were partners. Indeed, in 2007 she even succeeded in broadening the party’s appeal to the upper castes and secured a majority for herself. It was a breathtaking political experiment and an audacious act when upper castes extended their support to the party of Dalits.

Much of the credit for BSP’s success in UP goes to Kanshi Ram. But though Mayawati was his chosen successor, she lacked his vision and failed to take the movement forward. For Kanshi Ram, BSP and a share in political power were the means to empower the Dalits and strengthen the movement for equality. But for Mayawati, winning elections and forming the government became an end in itself. The inevitable result was a serious erosion in her support base among Dalits, who voted for the BJP in large numbers in the last Assembly election in the state. That explains why BJP bagged over 300 seats in the state assembly. Dalits found themselves reduced to just being voters and Mayawati as just one more leader.

When a Dalit woman was gangraped in Hathras and the Government of Yogi Adityanath persistently refused to acknowledge it as such, there was not a word from Mayawati. When the woman succumbed to her injuries after a fortnight, a host of political leaders called on the family to express their support and solidarity, among them Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi of the Congress and Jayant Chaudhary of the RLD. The UP government turned the victim’s village into a police garrison and tried to stop the leaders outside the village. But Mayawati was conspicuous by her absence and silence.

If Mayawati cannot stand by Dalits when they are in need of support, why would they stand by her? Chandrashekhar of the Bheem Army is doing what Mayawati should have been doing. And that is why his popularity among Dalits in UP is rising while hers is on the decline.

These are challenging times for Mayawati. She hasn’t won an election since 2012. She lost elections in 2014, 2017 and 2019 rather badly. Her support base has shrunk and today she is seen less as a Dalit leader and more as a leader of only the Jatavs. She cannot be oblivious of BJP’s attempts to draw the rest of the Dalits to itself and her diminishing relevance. But she increasingly appears to be clueless. The uncharacteristic flip-flops when she first gets into an alliance with SP and then breaks it as quickly before planning to lean on the shoulders of the BJP show a drift which is troubling.

This is not the Mayawati I have known. She looks helpless but she is a prisoner of choice. She needs to get out of her fortress-like house and hit the streets again. She must aggressively take up the cause of Dalits and get arrested, beaten or sent to prison. If she doesn’t, time is running out for her. She will soon be History.

(The writer is a senior journalist and political commentator. Views are his own.)