Friday, October 21, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Maya & Ambedkar: Incongruous? May be not

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/62828/maya--ambedkar-incongruous-may-be-not.html

Maya & Ambedkar: Incongruous? May be not

17 IBNLive IBNLive

At a time when Mayawati's Dalit memorials have sparked off a raging
debate, it might be instructive to consider what the original Dalit
icon, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, would have done in a similar situation.
What is almost certain is that, unlike the UP chief minister, he would
not have ordered the construction of his own statues. A fierce
rationalist, Ambedkar disliked all forms of political idol worship.
"In politics, hero worship is a sure road to degradation and eventual
dictatorship," he said in a seminal speech before the Constituent
Assembly in 1949.

Sixty two years later, there is little doubt that Mayawati has emerged
as the great dictator of Uttar Pradesh, someone who controls India's
most populous state with an iron fist - which is why she can insist on
having her own life-size statue alongside those of Ambedkar, Phule,
Shahu and Kanshi Ram. Which is also why she can brazenly claim that
the 675 crores spent on the Dalit Prerna Sthal has come entirely
through party donations when the fact is that the UP government had
already budgeted a whopping Rs 3000 crore on Dalit memorials and parks
across the state. This in a state where 38 per cent of Dalits have
never attended school, where 70 per cent is still the estimated school
dropout rate among Dalits and where hundreds of children die of
encephalitis every year because of lack of healthcare facilities.

Surely, Ambedkar, for whom education was the biggest weapon of
empowerment, would have chided Mayawati for her misplaced priorities.
He would have been equally critical of the personal wealth which the
UP chief minister seems to have acquired through questionable means
and might have winced at reading that Mayawati spent Rs 51 crore of
public money in renovating her official bungalow, apart from acquiring
prime properties across the national capital.

Not that Ambedkar lived a frugal lifestyle, but his wealth was
acquired through legal and scholastic prowess, not through treating
the political system as a vehicle for self-aggrandisement. As his
biographer Dhananjay Keer writes, "Ambedkar's house was not a detached
villa that gave you the appearance of seclusion. His vast library, his
rich clothes, his enormous pens, his grand car, the numerous varieties
of shoes and the rare collection of pictures were the living marks of
his conquering personality." Mayawati is unlikely to share Ambedkar's
love for books. If handbags are her fashion accessory, so was the
fountain pen in the case of Babasaheb. If for Gandhi, the loin cloth
symbolised his asceticism, the three-piece suit was Ambedkar's style
statement to tell the world that his origins were no hindrance to
rising up the social ladder.

To those who are critical of the manner in which Mayawati celebrates
her birthdays, it needs to be stressed that Ambedkar's birthdays too
were occasions for public celebration with his followers taking out
processions with his pictures in palanquins. In a sense, the need for
such public ceremonies stems from a conviction that it is necessary to
show that if caste Hindus can have their own gods and ceremonies, then
so must Dalits. Ambedkar may not have been comfortable with idolatory,
but he did not entirely reject its symbolic value either on such
occasions.

Which is why the personality cult which Mayawati has built around
herself cannot be entirely scoffed at. The Indian super-elite - many
of whom will not think twice before spending crores on weddings -
maybe contemptuous of Mayawati's millions, but there is a distinct
method in the seeming madness of the Bahujan Samaj Party leader. If
the fortress around Sonia Gandhi's personal life heightens her
mystique, then the imperious style of functioning of Mayawati gives
her an empress-like status amongst her followers. If there are dozens
of memorials in the name of members of the Congress' first family and
freedom fighters, then Mayawati appears equally determined to create
her own pantheon of Dalit legends. And if the Sangh Parivar can aspire
to build a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as a symbol of religio-political
identity, then Mayawati too sees her Ambedkar parks as assertions of
Dalit identity.

Seen from that competitive political perspective, it is entirely
possible that Ambedkar may even have grudgingly approved of Mayawati's
grand projects. Ambedkar's great dream always was to acquire political
dominance for the Dalits even while seeking an end to caste
discrimination. But the keys to the gates of power remained firmly
locked during his lifetime. The Independent Labour Party which he
formed had only limited success and he lost the first general election
in 1952 as an independent candidate. That he became the country's
first law minister was only due to the vision and generosity of Gandhi
but his political fortunes never matched his intellect. Indeed, it was
his frustration with an upper caste-dominated socio-political system
that eventually led him to embrace Buddhism.

Contrast that with Mayawati who has clearly shown that it is possible
for a Dalit woman to make it to one of the most powerful political
positions in the country entirely on her own terms. If Ambedkar was
the ultimate constitutionalist, Mayawati, guided in her early years by
the equally redoubtable Kanshi Ram, has been the consummate
politician, breaking and striking alliances with ease. The ethical
standards employed in achieving power may be deeply troubling, but in
the political akhara of UP, norms and rules have been routinely bent
by the principal players.

Which is why Mayawati's achievement of being the daughter of a post
office clerical employee who rose to becoming a four-time chief
minister of the state is quite remarkable. A Mayawati statue next to
the architect of the Constitution may seem incongruous today, but many
years hence, it may well become a place of pilgrimage and inspiration
for millions of Dalits.

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