http://www.livemint.com/2011/11/21000147/How-we-love-to-hate-Mayawati.html
Posted: Mon, Nov 21 2011. 1:15 AM IST
How we love to hate Mayawati
Criticism against Mayawati has drowned out even her commercially
friendly qualities
Anil Padmanabhan
Last week, I was in a meeting with a group of visiting financial
investors, where a Mumbai-based investment banker, pitching India and
Indian companies to the visitors, launched a broadside against Uttar
Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati.
Self-righteously, he held her up as an example of everything wrong
with India. He argued that she was obsessed with caste politics, faces
a raft of graft charges, and concluded that in his mind, people like
her were the reason why the country in general and Uttar Pradesh in
particular was unable to tap into its obvious potential for growth.
One example he held up for scrutiny of the potential foreign investors
was the "waste" of Rs. 650 crore in erecting statues of Mayawati and
her mentor, Kanshi Ram.
Unfair criticism: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati during the
inauguration of the Rashtriya Dalit Smarak Park in Noida. (HT)
Unfair criticism: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati during the
inauguration of the Rashtriya Dalit Smarak Park in Noida. (HT)
That sounds familiar, doesn't it? The banker, after all, was merely
connecting all the dots of a picture of Mayawati and her state popular
among many people, especially the chatterati in the metros. Was he
being fair? This writer thinks not. Mayawati is far from perfect (no
politician is), but criticism such as the banker's reflects a
blinkered perception about another facet of this complex country.
Broadly, the popular criticism of Mayawati can be narrowed down to her
feisty personality; obstinate refusal to cultivate a persona
acceptable in elite circles, like Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Naveen
Patnaik in Orissa have; being not very articulate in English, and
belonging to the socially oppressed Dalit class, although no one will
ever articulate this. All these have been amplified so
disproportionately that they drown out even her commercially friendly
qualities that our investment banker friend would have found
remunerative to hawk to his associates.
Take, for example, what she has done commercially for Noida (a
colleague just returned from a home visit to Lucknow and insisted that
there is a transformation on even in that city that has long been in a
state of gradual and genteel decay). Beginning with the just-concluded
F1 race—the first ever in this country and on a world-class track—and
working backwards, she has progressively worked to enhance the
commercial value of real estate.
There are no aggregate figures on hand, but there are sufficient
anecdotal stories to reveal how the middle class that was smart enough
to invest in the early stages has recovered their investment many,
many times over. That's a more enduring legacy than what the Congress
party bequeathed to New Delhi after spending crores of taxpayers'
money in organizing the Commonwealth Games.
To be sure, the last five years have coincided with the best years
ever of the Indian economy, but even a cursory visit to the area will
reveal the imprimatur of the state government. While claims of graft
abound (and are a real issue, much like in other parts of India),
developers of real estate have to subscribe to basic ground
rules—including delivering apartments on pre-arranged deadlines;
failure implies fines, divided between the state government and the
apartment owner. Rarely does anyone dare to go up against the lady and
her writ, something very akin to China, where the ends justify the
means.
Let us not forget that Uttar Pradesh is among the poorest states in
the country—40% of the people in the most populous state in the
country live below the official poverty line. It has, since
independence, struggled for want of good governance as regime after
regime sought to retain the status quo of poverty and illiteracy,
because this would ensure the continuance of caste politics. Experts
aver that there are over 60 castes in Uttar Pradesh, with some of the
leading groupings completely opposed to each other.
While this lethal status quo may be unravelling and aspirations are
finding flight across social classes, it is still impossible for any
political party to make an appeal solely based on the platform of
development. It is not without reason that Rahul Gandhi has been
making the extra effort of targeting the Dalit vote-bank by frequently
partaking of the fare of Dalit households in highly publicized events.
Caste clearly matters in the state, and Gandhi is taking the battle to
Mayawati by targeting her core vote bank.
Without the caste-based coalition and the political realignment that
led to the marginalization of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata
Party, the BSP could never have hoped to grab power. (Ironically, it
is precisely the loosening of this hold together with anti-incumbency
that has now opened up room for her political rivals.)
The statues that our investment banker took umbrage to are symbols of
a politically astute tribute to the ascendancy of the Dalits. Most of
us don't know or conveniently overlook the impact of social
oppression—where people are denied clean drinking water, good
education and a decent home because they are Dalits.
To be economically backward is one thing, but to be socially
disenfranchised puts one in an unenviable category altogether. To
these people, the so-called architectural eyesores are actually
temples of hope; don't be surprised if they soon end up as preferred
pilgrimage hotspots for Dalits from across the country.
It may be another matter though that Mayawati may lose in the upcoming
state elections. Uttar Pradesh is in the same position India was in
the 1990s—a revival of the economy had begun alongside an acceleration
in policy change. Any incoming regime will be hard pressed to reverse
the momentum; smarter politicians will ride it and hopefully take
Uttar Pradesh, with or without partition, to an entirely different
growth trajectory. And, this could not have happened without the BSP
supremo's qualities that our investment banker friend overlooked.
Anil Padmanabhan is a deputy managing editor of Mint and writes every
week on the intersection of politics and economics. Comments are
welcome at capitalcalculus@livemint.com
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