http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/uttar-pradesh-mayawati-dalit-politics-noida-park-bsp/1/158147.html
Amitabha Pande New Delhi, November 1, 2011 | UPDATED 10:30 IST
Caste bias behind the flak for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati
The Indian middle classes never seem to be able to come to terms with
Mayawati. At best there is grudging and condescending admiration of
her rise to power against impossible odds; at worst there is a
visceral loathing for her extravagant ways, her vulgar aggrandisement
of wealth and the crudities of her style. Her obsession with creating
monuments, which host her statues along with the Dalit pantheon is
seen as being pathological and evokes uniform outrage. Yet, she seems
impervious to ridicule and continues to do exactly as she pleases,
decreeing as Kubla Khan reportedly did, yet another stately pleasure
dome.
And 'Stately' those domes indeed are. They are designed in the grand
imperial manner, they are pure pastiche - an extravagant panty raid
into the Lutyens closet-vaulted arches, Corinthian columns with an
Indian twist, a wide stepped entrance, intricate stone jaali work and
of course the phalanx of elephants with raised trumpets. Every feature
is meant to strike awe. Triumphalism has rarely had so elaborate an
expression.
Monuments
I pass by the Noida monumental 'park' every day. While it may not
conform to my standards of architectural aesthetics, there is no doubt
that the whole complex is pleasing to the eye. The proportions, the
massing, and the groupings of the various structures are competently
done. The quality of stone work is astonishing. The scale is very
impressive and anyone who claims not to be impressed by the sheer
grandeur of the structures and the landscape is pretending. Any day,
in terms of design, the complex is far more impressive than the
Akshardham temple or the Birla Mandir and infinitely superior to the
'modernist humdrum' monstrosities churned out by the CPWD.
Why then do the sneering and condescending classes feel so outraged?
The expression of outrage normally runs along the following
predictable lines: 'Mayawati is an epitome of corruption, venality and
pursuit of vaulting ambition and this obsession with scarring the
landscape with her own statues is a typical example of her pathetic
record of governance. The squandering of public resources on such an
unprecedented scale, when essential priorities in health and education
are so woefully neglected deserves unqualified condemnation. Our
politico cultural traditions do not tolerate commemorations of the
living.'
This deserves rebuttal. It is necessary, firstly to distinguish
between Mayawati's accumulation of personal wealth through the abuse
of State power and her wasteful use of public resources. My guess is
that Mayawati's spend on parks and monuments contributes little (If at
all) to her personal wealth, this expenditure being highly visible and
subject to public audit. Most corruption income is not through such
visible public expenditure but through the clever use of State power
in such areas as grant of concessions for the use of land, mining,
allocation of natural resources, licencing and the granting of
approvals for various private economic activities. Associating her
monumentality with her corruption is therefore incorrect. We need to
de-link the two.
Mayawati's corruption or the growth of her private wealth through the
use of political power has a political, cultural dimension which is
often ignored. It does not justify it, but it may offer a possible
explanation for the blatant manner in which it is done.
Purely in terms of scale Mayawati will rank quite low in the gallery
of rogues in comparison with many members of the Union Cabinet, many
present and former Chief Ministers, sundry progenies and sons in law
of prominent political dynasties, and other shadowy denizens of Indian
political life. Yet while most others will evoke nary a reaction from
the chatterati, Mayawati's conduct invariably evokes voluble
expressions of revulsion. Caste prejudice is undoubtedly at work here.
There is also no doubt that as much as the upper classes hate her, her
own constituency adores and admires her despite or maybe even because
of the growth of her wealth. Her identification with her own lot is so
complete that her growth is their growth and a form of retribution for
centuries of servitude and exploitation.
Rationale
The growth of her personal wealth also corresponds to the growth in
her political stature in a mutually reinforcing relationship so that
her wealth and her open flaunting of it makes a strong political
statement - that in a world so hostile to Dalits she has
singlehandedly fought her way to the top. Her wealth is to be admired
for the power it gives to her to continue fighting for Dalit pride.
For them she increasingly becomes more iconic and each statue of
herself that she unveils confirms the durability of the mythic hold
she has in the minds of her worshippers. It is not vanity or
megalomania, it is a powerful political statement.
Whether intentional or not, these investments also have a sound
economic rationale. First, it means enclosing a public space, adding
value to it through architecture and design, and making it into a
useful public asset. Compare this to what most politicians in power
do- appropriate public spaces through means legitimate and
illegitimate, create deliberate land scarcity, hive off scarce land to
speculative developers/ builders and then take a share out of the
windfall gains through the artificially induced astronomical rise in
real estate prices.
In Mayawati's case public assets remain public and in fact become
useful public recreational space. Second, as an asset creation
investment which provides meaningful employment to thousands, it is
far superior than any number of those brainless, rent seeking yojanas
churned out by the Central Government Ministries and the Planning
Commission in the guise of poverty alleviation (NREGA included) which
create substandard assets designed to sink and collapse soon
thereafter, to keep alive the rent seeking opportunities. Those
investments perpetuate dependence on the state through wage slavery,
while these provide to the workers and creators an income gain
substantial enough for them to overcome their dependent status.
Third, they are a major contributor to urban regeneration. Anyone who
has visited Lucknow after Mayawati came into power has to acknowledge
the regenerative and transformational role these creations (with
accompanying upgrade of civic infrastructure) have played in rescuing
a city which had seemingly degraded and decayed beyond redemption and
making it into a hub of urban vitality. Fourth, the interventions
generate very substantial employment for a class of artisans steeped
in traditional building skills, particularly, stone masonry and stone
carving skills, which were otherwise well on their way to extinction.
Lost skills have been regained and reacquired without having had to
set up expensive National Skilling Missions.
Priorities
One of the arguments hurled against her monumentality is that of
perverse priorities. While Mayawati's fiscal mismanagement maybe
comparable to most Chief Ministers (and probably no worse than Punjab,
or West Bengal or Andhra or Orissa) singling out her monumentality as
an example of irresponsibility is uncalled for. There is an economic
justification and more than that in any democracy, decisions on
priorities in public expenditure are the sole prerogative of the
Legislature and the elected Government.
If an investment is openly and transparently a part of the Legislature
approved and voted Budget, the question of priorities stands decided.
That is the way of federal democracies and merely because we would
have determined priorities differently if we were in a position to do
so does not make Mayawati's priorities any the more inferior.
- The writer is a former civil servant
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