LESSON 13
Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath’s Obama - The Mayawati Moment? 10 facts about Mayawati
Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharathiya political observers may accuse me of taking this a tad too
far, but on some levels I do believe that this moment may the closest
we get to, in seeing the Obama effect in Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath.
You can say what you like about Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharathiya polity, call it dynastic,
corrupt, rigged etc, but the truth is that it’s clung onto its
democratic traditions to emerge as a shining beacon in a region of
failed democracies.
Sure, Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath is dwarfed by China in terms of international and
strategic importance, but the fact that a lady like Mayawati can emerge
from nowhere and become a contender for the highest office in a country
is praiseworthy and worthy of celebration.
The US took over 200 years for an Obama to emerge; in Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath, if
Mayawati ends up as PM, we’ll have seen the Obama phenomenon - someone
from the oppressed class / caste in office - within 62 years of
independence!
The comparison ends there.
So, what do we know about Mayawati?
1. She was born in Delhi to parents from the Dalit caste (previously
referred to as untouchables) and went on to pursue a career as a
teacher.
2. Her potential was spotted by the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and from then onwards, she’s never looked back.
3. The BSP, under her direction, have consistently increased their
share of votes across Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath as she’s tried to broaden their base by
inducting candidates from other castes and backgrounds.
4. She’s the Chief Minister of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath’s most populous state - Uttar
Pradesh (UP) and commands a majority, where most other states are
dependent on coalitions with other parties. As a result of her
dominance in UP (which returns the largest number of MPs to Delhi), she
can be sure of winning the lions share of seats there. Commentators
predict that if she gets upward of 40 seats, then its for her to decide
what happens in Delhi.
5. In 1995, at the tender age of 39, she become one of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath’s
youngest Chief Ministers and whilst her tenure was short lived, she
came to the fore and registered herself as a future contender, which
she’s lived up to becoming.
6. As is common in Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath, she’s ousted hundreds of police officers,
civil servants and the like due to their political allegiances lying
with her sworn enemy, the previous Chief Minister - Mulayam Singh Yadav
from the Samajwadi Party.
7. In a similar vein, she’s the subject of several court cases related to corruption and general goon behaviour.
8. To say she’s a megalomaniac is putting things lightly; her
birthday celebrations are huge media events that her foot-soldiers use
to ingratiate themselves. Recently, an engineer was killed after he
reportedly refused to pay money demanded by one of her tribe for her
birthday celebration fund.
9. Its also claimed that in 2007 - 08, she paid more income tax that
India’s richest businessman - Mukesh Ambani! Who say’s politics doesn’t
pay?
10. In terms of opportunism, all she’s concerned with is obtaining
office. She’s thrown her lot with the BJP and the Congress when its
suited her, and I suspect we’ll see more of the same this time around.
Apparently, with a focus on bursting onto the national scene, she’s
been taking advice on her image, having English tuition, and
socialising with Delhi types on a more regular basis!
As I said, I make the assertion that this
is Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath’s Obama moment, but
I’m not sure she’s Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath’s
Obama.
Mayawati teaches poll winning ‘mantra’ to BSP candidates in UP
By chennaivision at 4 March, 2009, 10:47 am
Lucknow,
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and Chief Minister Mayawati today
took all her time to discuss poll strategy with the candidates and
other senior leaders and taught them the ‘mantra’ of winning the
election.
In her two rounds of sittings with the BSP candidates and leaders,
Ms Mayawati discussed strategy to counter the opposition onslaught and
how to manage voters so that they vote for them.
She made it clear to the candidates that they should not compromise to any deal except for winning the polls at any cost.
”The candidates should ensure their win in the election so that the
BSP could have a stake in the government at the Centre,” she said
adding, only a BSP government at the Centre could ensure the well being
of the people of each and every society in the country.
She also asked them to go before the people with the achievements of
her around 2 year old government, which had provided several sops for
‘Sarva Samaj’.
The BSP had launched its Lok Sabha election campaign and party
supremo Mayawati had addressed a national workers conference and had
directed to highlight the achievements of the UP government yesterday.
Bhatt told PTI
that the question of alliance with any other political party or
supporting the candidate of the Third Front in the state does not arise
as the party has decided to contest for all the seats in the state.
When
reminded about the BSP’s experiment in Gujarat assembly elections in
2007 in which it lost to all 166 seats it contested on, Bhatt said it
served the purpose of expanding the base of the party in the state as
it had secured 5.72 lakh of total votes cast.
It amounted to 2.26 per cent of total voting, he added.
“The
BSP, if comes to power, would frame economic policies for the
betterment of all sections of the society and introduce quotas in
private sector for SCs/STs and OBCs, as well as economically weaker
sections of the upper castes,” Bhatt said.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party, the
Congress and their allies may appear as different parties, but when it
comes to BSP they all are one,” Bhatt said, adding these parties want
to keep BSP at bay.
“They do not want the party to gain power at the Centre,” Bhatt said.
When asked whether Mayawati would campaign for the party candidates, Bhatt said it would be decided in few days.
BSP candidate, Sukhada Mishra will defeat sitting MP and Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Sriprakash Jaiswal and the BJP candidate.
News4u-News Desk-Pune, Wishing to repeat its successful experiment
of social engineering in Maharashtra, Bahujan Samaj Party has decided
to field four Brahmin candidates from the state in the coming Lok Sabha
elections.
The party has also decided to contest in all forty-eight parliamentary seats in the state.
BSP state unit president Vilas Garud, while declaring four Brahmin
candidates last night, said as Maharashtra has been the experiment
state of Kanshiram and the party have “full confidence” that it will
repeating the social engineering experiment here after Uttar Pradesh.
D S Kulkarni, a city-based noted builder would contest from Pune, Garud said.
Other names are Mahant Sudhirdas from Nashik, Dr Jayant Parulakar from Ratnagiri and A K Tripathi From Thane, he said.
BSP
BSP is sure to be successful in Social Engineering for Social Transformation and Economic Emancipation in general and Maharashtra in particular and will win more than 20 seats with the support of the entire sarvajan samaj.Talking
to presspersons on his arrival here leading the Nava Sandesha
Yatra, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) State president K.
Muraleedharan said the Nationalist Congress Party did not rule out an
understanding with the Bahujan Samaj Party in the State. But the party
had not and would not enter into any election adjustment with the BJP.
Women voters outnumber men in five states, a union territory
NS Profile Mayawati
The “Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath SC/ST (untouchable)” and her rise to power in India
In the late 1960s, a little girl and her family set out from a Delhi
shanty town to visit her grandparents in a distant village. It was a
long journey, and her parents began to chat to other passengers on the
bus. When they revealed their destination was the chamar mohalla – the
area usually found on the outskirts of a village and inhabited by those
at the lowest level (Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath) who are the of the Indian caste hierarchy – the bus fell
silent. The little girl’s mother had to explain to her that other
Indians considered the caste to which her family belonged to be unclean.
More than 40 years later, that little girl, known simply as
Mayawati, is a political hero for Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath throughout the
north of the country. She is a Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath, a member of the caste known
historically as “untouchables”. And Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath in the state of Uttar
Pradesh hurry in their thousands to her rallies, where she tells them
how proud she is to have been born into a Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath family. “I am the
daughter of a Chamar [a Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath]. I am a Chamar. I am yours.” In May
2007, she became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time.
On taking the oath of office, she declared that “nobody can stop me
from becoming prime minister”. We shall find out soon enough if she is
right: India goes to the polls in a general election in April and May
this year.
Mayawati was born in 1956, the second of nine children from a family
which originally hailed from the village of Badalpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Unlike most of India’s Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath, she grew up in a city, in the
lower-middle-class Delhi suburb of Inderpuri, where her father was a
clerk in the department of post and telegraphs.
The family was poor, yet was able to send her to a government school
and then to university. After graduating with a teaching qualification,
Mayawati worked as a teacher in Delhi, where she met Kanshi Ram, the
founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Until Ram’s death in 2006, he
and Mayawati worked together to forge a new politics of Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath identity.
Central to this vision is the desire to end caste discrimination and
build a society founded on ideals of equality and fairness. Officially,
the practice of untouchability and caste discrimination was outlawed by
the Indian constitution in 1950. Unofficially, however, little changed.
A recent study by Action Aid illustrates the problems that Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath
continue to face. It found significant discrimination in the provision
of public services, including the denial of barber services and
separate seating and utensils in restaurants. In many of the villages
surveyed, Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath are banned from holding marriage processions on roads
and from wearing brightly coloured clothes.
Physical violence against Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath is common. The National Crime Records Bureau reports that each day two Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath are killed and three Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath women are raped.
In October 2007, a Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath woman in a village in Madhya Pradesh refused
to work alone to harvest an entire crop for a local farmer. The
upper-caste farm owners tied her to a tree and beat her, fracturing her
limbs. When the woman regained consciousness and asked for water, she
was given urine to drink.
Under Indian law, segregation is illegal. The problem lies not with
the law, but with the willingness of the state to implement it. Lacking
either financial or political clout, many Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath struggle to persuade
the local police to register complaints against abusive landowners and
others with money and influence. However, the BSP’s control of the
police force and judiciary in Uttar Pradesh has helped to protect Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath in that state against violence and intimidation.
The BSP has been active in politics in Uttar Pradesh since 1984,
when it began to attract Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath by speaking to them in a language with
which they were familiar. Mayawati and Kanshi erected statues of Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath
heroes (themselves included) and asserted Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath’ right to celebrate
their identity in public spaces. A well-trained and committed BSP cadre
travelled around the state spreading the message and enlisting support.
While upper-caste journalists mocked Mayawati, the BSP grew
stronger. From winning just 13 seats in the 1989 elections to the Uttar
Pradesh Assembly, the party now has a majority. Mayawati’s early
success came as a result of her ability to give political expression to
the aspirations of Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath . But their numbers (they make up a little
more than 15 per cent of the Indian population) meant a narrow,
caste-based identity politics, and no political party in India will
ever win a national election by appealing to one particular caste or by
campaigning on caste issues alone.
The 2007 state election demonstrated Mayawati’s ability to build
cross-caste alliances on economic and social issues. Since 2002, for
example, she has built support for the BSP among Brahmins,
traditionally at the apex of the caste structure. Just as Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath fear
the landholding castes in the middle of the caste system, so Brahmins
in Uttar Pradesh have felt their position threatened by this group.
Mayawati showed herself just as capable of addressing Brahmin fears
of middle-caste self-assertion as she was of mobilising Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath identity.
The approach paid off; the party increased its share of Brahmin
votes in the state election from 6 per cent in 2003 to 17 per cent in
2007. Mayawati campaigned on a platform of law and order, and on a
promise of equal development, irrespective of caste. Coupled with some
careful handing out of party tickets to ensure that all castes were
well represented, it was enough to win her power.
Mayawati has chosen to fight for Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath rights with the ballot box.
However, some activists say the plight of the Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath is so grave
– 59 per cent of Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa, that is, the Great Prabuddha Bharath in Uttar Pradesh live below the poverty line –
that only a violent overthrow of the state government will lead to
lasting change. The BSP leadership rejects this and maintains that the
costs of political violence are usually paid for disproportionately by
the poor. They point to the neighbouring state of Bihar, where the
Naxalite insurgency has led to the formation of upper-caste citizen
armies, with devastating results for the poor and the vulnerable.
Since the decline of Congress Party dominance, it’s a brave person
who tries to predict the outcome of an Indian election. At the last
general election, in 2004, psephologists widely assumed that the
Bharatiya Janata Party would win, with its “India Shining” campaign,
Hindu nationalism and appeal to the new, aspirant middle class. Few
thought to consider the relevance of a successful call-centre industry
to a drought-stricken farmer, or what a bullish stock market might mean
to a ragpicker.
Neither of the two major parties, Congress and the BJP, is likely to
win sufficient votes to form government on its own at the coming
general election. The surprise being the significant number of votes going to
the BSP.
Of 543 seats in total, Mayawati’s BSP will manage to win as many
as 272 seats needed to form a government, she will find herself the leader of the largest party
in the Lok Sabha.
Mayawati is an astute politician and the BSP has shown itself to be
extraordinarily well organised. The party had chosen more than 70 per
cent of its candidates for the upcoming election by early last year,
allowing each candidate time enough to get to know their constituency
and introduce themselves to voters. Fifty seats is certainly not out of
the question.
Mayawati cares
little for what other politicians or the media think of her, and does
not hesitate to let them know.
Maxine Loynd is a PhD candidate in the department of political and
social change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian
National University. This article is published in association with the
online magazine Inside Story (http://inside.org.au)