In India, Once-Marginalized Now Memorialized
by Corey Flintoff
Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approx.
9:00 a.m. ET
Stone elephants line a newly inaugurated park dedicated to Dalit, or
lower caste, leaders in a suburb of New Delhi, India. Mayawati, a
politician known as the "Dalit queen," says previous governments did
nothing to honor the leaders who fought for Dalit rights.
Enlarge Pankaj Nangia/AP
Stone elephants line a newly inaugurated park dedicated to Dalit, or
lower caste, leaders in a suburb of New Delhi, India. Mayawati, a
politician known as the "Dalit queen," says previous governments did
nothing to honor the leaders who fought for Dalit rights.
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October 28, 2011
In India, a land of ancient monuments, people are talking about a
newly built monument for the nation's most marginalized people.
It's a memorial to India's Dalits, the people once called
"untouchables," and it was built by the country's most powerful Dalit
politician.
The Indian monument best known to Westerners is the Taj Mahal, but the
country is bejeweled with magnificent temples and palaces, built by
whoever happened to be ruling India at any given time.
Related NPR Story
Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Mayawati waves after being
presented a garland made of money
'Queen' Of Poor Flaunts Riches
Opulence on display at a political rally seems to have gone too far,
even by Mayawati's standards.
This latest monument continues that tradition: It's a colossal domed
building carved from pink sandstone.
It sits in a park across the river from the Indian capital, New Delhi,
and is flanked by 24 life-sized statues of elephants, with their
trunks raised in a gesture of welcome.
The elephant is the symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party, and this
memorial is very much a project of the BSP and its leader, the Dalit
politician known simply as Mayawati.
"[The monument] almost takes you back to antiquity and the old,
medieval days and ancient days where the emperors used to build these
things," says journalist Ajoy Bose, the author of a biography of
Mayawati.
Bose says the memorial is calculated to do for her just what the
monuments of old did for the emperors: to simultaneously flaunt and
preserve her power.
Criticism For The Lavish Memorial
Mayawati, chief minister of the northern Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh, gestures as she prepares to open the newly built Dalit
memorial on the outskirts of New Delhi on Oct. 14.
Enlarge STR/AFP/Getty Images
Mayawati, chief minister of the northern Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh, gestures as she prepares to open the newly built Dalit
memorial on the outskirts of New Delhi on Oct. 14.
On the day of its dedication earlier this month, the plaza was
thronged with BSP members, chanting slogans as they waited for the
woman who is known to some as "the Dalit queen."
Mayawati is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, one of India's
largest and poorest states, so the monument's price tag of more than
$150 million has raised significant criticism — not least for the fact
that the pink dome houses three giant statues of BSP leaders,
including one of Mayawati herself.
She is portrayed in bronze, at least three times life size, toting her
trademark handbag.
There are other statues of her in the park, and many more scattered
around Uttar Pradesh, especially in the state capital, Lucknow.
In her dedication speech, Mayawati flung a defiant answer to those who
say this is extravagance, and that it's spending public money on
partisan symbols.
Previous governments, she says, did nothing to honor the leaders who
fought for Dalit rights, so it was up to the BSP to do it.
Giving The Dalits Heroes They Never Had
Bose says the statues that Mayawati is so proud of have a special
resonance for Dalits, the people once regarded as untouchable.
"They were not allowed to go into temples, so they never had their own
icons, their own totems, their own gods and goddesses," he says.
Bose says Mayawati's buildings and statues help supply the Dalits with
the imagery of themselves and their heroes that they never had,
shrewdly including herself in the pantheon.
"That is going to be a lasting legacy that has been created for the
Dalits, so it's a matter of great pride for the Dalits," Bose says.
That pride, he says, is more important to the lowest people on the
caste ladder than any other social benefits that Mayawati's government
could provide for them, including health and education.
Mayawati's main political rival in Uttar Pradesh has vowed to pull
down her statues if he's elected, but Bose says that threat may just
galvanize her supporters.
"She is almost challenging anybody to come and, you know, to break her
statues if she ever goes out of power," Bose says. "For their
community, it's so important that she stays in power, so that these
statues are protected."
Mayawati makes no secret of the fact that she would like to cross the
Yamuna River, which separates her fiefdom from the national capital in
New Delhi, to be elected the first Dalit prime minister.
In her speech at the memorial, she taunted the opposition, saying
Dalits and other members of lower castes would never vote for anyone
else.
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