Reviewing Dalit Status
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Mayawati to put up more of her statues
Mayawati to put up more of her statues
August 7th, 2008 - 12:35 pm ICT by IANS
Lucknow, Aug 7 (IANS) Undaunted by all the criticism from her
adversaries, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief
Minister Mayawati is to get three more of her statues installed in the
state capital where two imposing bronze memorials are already in
place. An 18-feet-tall statue is proposed in the neighbourhood of
BSP's Prerna Sthal (inspiration home) where Mayawati had got her first
statue installed inside an imposing stone structure shaped like a
Buddhist stupa.
The space for the statue was created after demolition of BSP's own
office that was built barely four years ago on a 50,000 sq ft plot
just behind the state governor's house.
The statue will adorn what has been christened Bahujan Nayak Park,
being laid in place of the party's state headquarter, that has been
shifted to a brand new building erected over the debris of a
government bungalow.
An identical statue is planned for Kanshi Ram Memorial that was coming
up on a sprawling 32-acre plot of land taken from the Lucknow district
jail. The memorial is slated to cost the state exchequer about Rs.3.5
billion.
The third statue is likely to find place at a prominent spot in
Mayawati's first ever dream project - Ambedkar Park cum Memorial that
was being built on a giant scale at a cost of nearly Rs.5 billion.
Officials dealing with the statue projects were tight-lipped.
However sculptor Ram Sutar, who has been assigned to create the three
statues in bronze, admitted that he was on the job and had been asked
to accomplish the task at speed.
"I have assured the administration I'll complete the statues in record
time", he told IANS.
While none was willing to divulge the cost of these statues
officially, it is said that each will weigh between 20 and 25 tonnes.
Mayawati justified her decision to install her first statue at the
Prerna Sthal, saying: "I always felt that memorials should be built
during the lifetime of icons.
"That is why I got the first statue of my mentor Kanshi Ram installed
in Lucknow during his lifetime. But because he wished that I should
also have my own statue next to his, I decided to put mine too."
The same explanation was repeated when she unveiled her own statue
along with that of her mentor Kanshi Ram last June.
Mayawati's arch adversary Mulayam Singh Yadav had not only condemned
her fad for installing her own statues but also threatened to get
these bulldozed once he came to power.
An 'Untouchable' Leader for India?(Time Article)
An 'Untouchable' Leader for India?
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1828755,00.html
India on Friday took another step closer to completing a civilian nuclear-energy agreement with the United States, as the International Atomic Energy Agency approved the controversial deal. The nuclear deal, if finalized this fall, will be the most significant foreign policy achievement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's four years in office. But he won't be the only one crowing. The real winner in the deal, according to Indian political observers, is the earthy, shrewd, audacious Indian politician known simply as Mayawati.
Having used widespread Indian opposition to the nuclear deal as the organizing principle to gather a hodgepodge of nine political parties around her, Mayawati is positioning herself to become India's first Prime Minister who is a Dalit, a member of the low-caste grouping sometimes referred to as "untouchables." "This woman is a national Dalit icon," says Jai Mrug, a pollster and political analyst based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). And she will use that image in India's election next year to galvanize opposition to what she says is a government that has focused on foreign policy at the expense of addressing the concerns of India's poor and unemployed.
It's a message that strikes the ruling Congress Party in a vulnerable spot. Mayawati's class-based message appeals not just to the roughly 16% of the population who are counted as Dalit but also to the one-third of Indians who live on less than $1 a day. Congress may find it more difficult to appeal to India's underclass with its broad platform of change through economic development.
Singh staked his political future on pursuing the nuclear deal, and his party has to convince voters that the deal is really about energy security and bringing electricity to the 44% of Indian households who have none. Rising Congress star Rahul Gandhi tried to make that rather esoteric case in his recent speech before Parliament, but the inheritor of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty struggled to make himself heard above the noisy disruptions by irate legislators from Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
It was a classic example of Mayawati's brand of political theater. As Gandhi spoke, Mayawati's supporters waved documents purporting to prove that a massive corruption case against her was politically motivated, and accused Congress of using its power to persecute a "daughter of Dalits" who has survived on her wits and guts — a direct appeal to her base. Even her opponents admit to her skill at mobilizing voters. "The BSP's on the rise," says Devwrat Singh, a Congress MP from central India. The Uttar Pradesh regional elections last May were a runaway victory for Mayawati, who became chief minister of India's largest state and had the satisfaction of watching Congress finish fourth in a state it once dominated. While he doubts that Mayawati's message will succeed nationally, Devwrat says Congress learned a lesson in Uttar Pradesh: "We didn't have the organization."
Mayawati will need that organization to mobilize Dalit votes in states outside northern India where her party isn't traditionally strong. She'll get help from her new friends, an odd lot of parties ranging from urban Marxists to the backers of Hyderabad's high-tech economy. If she can turn the parliamentary alliance she built against the nuclear deal into a grass-roots political machinery, Manmohan Singh and his Congress Party may struggle to remain in power.
Mayawati seeks to align with greatness
Mayawati seeks to align with greatness
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080803/FOREIGN/891974872/1103/SPORT&Profile=1103
Hannah Gardner, Foreign Correspondent
- Last Updated: August 03. 2008 11:11PM UAE / August 3. 2008 7:11PM GMT
Mayawati, the chief minister Uttar Pradesh, centre, attends a prayer ceremony in New Delhi. AFP
NEW DELHI // Though both may be small in stature and full in figure, Mayawati, the controversial chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states, is no doubt hoping the similarities between her and Queen Victoria do not end there.
Mayawati, who has set her sights on becoming India’s first Dalit – or “untouchable” – prime minister, has commissioned a 50-foot bronze statue of herself to be modelled on the British monarch, who also had the title “Empress of India”.
Mayawati has already earned herself the regal moniker “Dalit Queen” because of her low caste and her popularity among the 160 million Dalits in India, who still endure prejudice and the denial of basic rights more than half a century after discrimination on the grounds of caste was outlawed.
The statue, one of 40 sculptor Shraavan Prajapati has made of Mayawati, will show the five-foot politician in a seated position and will be based on a marble representation of Queen Victoria housed in a museum in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh’s capital.
The statue’s starting price is 425 million rupees (Dh37m) but Mr Prajapati said the final cost could be closer to 700m rupees as the cost of materials is rising.
“Apart from being bedecked in jewels and a crown, the statue has grace and powerfulness – the essence of being a ruler, that is why we thought of emulating it for Mayawati,” Mr Prajapati said in an interview with The National.
The statue is the largest and most expensive Mayawati – who goes by only one name – has commissioned since Mr Prajapati began making sculptures of her in 1993, highlighting her growing political clout and ambition ahead of nationwide elections next year.
A foretaste of the power Mayawati could wield came last month when a no-confidence vote was called after leftist parties withdrew their support for the government in protest over its decision to push ahead with a civilian nuclear energy agreement with the US.
Mayawati’s Uttar Pradesh-based Bahujan Samaj Party then joined forces with the Communists and other parties to create a second opposition in parliament.
The government narrowly survived the vote, but analysts said Mayawati emerged as the ultimate winner having boosted her national profile enough to give Congress or the main opposition party, the Bharatiay Janata Party, a run for their money in the next national polls.
“At the next election a whole host of smaller political parties will be jostling for seats, and Mayawati’s party could emerge as a front-runner,” said Ajoy Bose, who has written a biography of Mayawati.
“She has a potential constituency all over the country,” Mr Bose said.
While it is unlikely her party would win more seats than other more established parties, a win of 40 seats to 50 seats for the BSP could mean she helps decide which of the two main parties would form a government by entering in to a coalition with them.
Some analysts think she might even be able to wrangle the premiership for herself, a post she has said she would be interested in occupying. Her stronghold in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, will help her realise that ambition with 80 of the 543 seats in the lower house reserved for the state. Of India’s 13 prime ministers, eight have come from Uttar Pradesh.
The daughter of a clerk from the Chamar, or leather handling caste, and an illiterate mother, Mayawati used affirmative-action programmes designed to help India’s downtrodden to train as a teacher and then as a lawyer.
But since first becoming chief minister in Uttar Pradesh for a short period in 1995, she has been dogged by scandals and allegations of corruption.
Last year the Indian government reopened an investigation into her “disproportionate assets”, after she declared she was worth 520m rupees ahead of the state elections.
Only three years earlier she said she was worth 110m rupees. The increase she said was from supporters who had gifted her with money, art and jewellery.
In 2003, she was also caught up in a corruption scandal surrounding plans to build a shopping mall next to the Taj Mahal, which is located at Agra, also in Uttar Pradesh.
Opponents accuse her of squandering public funds that are desperately needed to repair the state’s shoddy roads and overhaul the struggling electricity grid.
Some critics estimate she has spent 22 billion rupees on statues and other monuments over the past 13 years.
In June, she ordered officials to remove a 12-foot statue of her in Lucknow and replace it with one three-feet taller so it would be the same height as other statues nearby.
Mr Bose said the real reason may have been that the sculptor forgot to include her trademark handbag.
Mr Prajapati, who provided the replacement, said Mayawati insists it is incorporated in all of her statues.
The total cost of the exchange, which was carried out in the middle of the night, was estimated to be 950,000 rupees.
But rather than dent her standing in the eyes of the poor and repressed, the erection of statues has only enhanced her popularity, Mr Bose said.
“Dalits are unique – unlike other oppressed groups they were denied even the gods. The temples were closed to them,” Mr Bose said.
“They had no icons, so these statues have become their totems. They feel this is their due.”
Wikipedia on Ram Vilas Paswan
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