The Bahujan Samaj Party and its supremo are justifiably outraged when they are abused, but believe they do no wrong in being counter-abusive. Venom has been an intrinsic part of the BSP since its inception
If hate is a demon, Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati has unleashed it in full measure. In the name of empowering Dalits, she has sought to empower hate against other communities in a bid to win the forthcoming Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. Dayashankar Singh’s absolutely unpardonable remark gave her a reason to spew venom and largely escape public condemnation, but it also betrayed Mayawati’s and her party’s low-level politics. She has converted a personal remark against her as an insult to the entire Dalit community, which considers her as its sister (Behenji) and a “Devi”, and has sought revenge beyond the political boundary.
Dayashankar Singh, then an office-bearer of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit, had called Mayawati worse than a prostitute in the distribution of tickets. The crassness repulsed everyone, including senior leaders of the BJP. Cabinet Minister Arun Jaitely offered personal regrets to Mayawati on the floor of the Rajya Sabha and other members of the ruling party assured prompt action against the offender. Within hours of the comment, Dayashankar Singh was relieved from his post and subsequently thrown out of the party. But Mayawati had seized the moment, and during her intervention in the upper House, gave enough indication of her devious mind and the course her party would follow in the coming months. Her accusation that the BJP is afflicted with an anti-Dalit mindset, is par for the course, as far as politics goes. But the hate-demon that resides in her, came to the fore when she said that Dayashankar Singh’s abuse was as much for his own sister and daughter too and that her party will not let the slur go unchallenged.
This was just the signal — abuse for abuse — that her supporters and leaders were waiting for. The following day, large, angry crowds spilled on the streets of lucknow with posters and slogans that matched Dayashankar Singh’s slur. One placard called the disgraced former BJP leader a “dog”, while at least one senior party leader demanded that Dayashankar Singh’s wife and sister “be produced” (pesh karo) before them. Other unbecoming comments were made about the family. That neither the wife nor the daughter had anything to do with the earlier offending remark, or the fact that they had nothing to do with politics, mattered. If Mayawati is slighted, then not just the offender but his entire family, even if it includes a 12-year old girl, must be publicly humiliated. This is social justice in Mayawati’s court of law.
Equally shocking has been the brazenness with which senior BSP leaders have defended the response. Mayawati herself said that the outbursts were a spontaneous show of outrage and that Dayashankar Singh’s family would have been spared the trauma had they condemned his remark. Other BSP functionaries have justified the abuse with the argument that they could not “take the humiliation lying down”.
This method of retaliation is not new to the BSP. Hate as a weapon has been intrinsic to the party’s culture from the time Kanshi Ram founded it, and it has found new metaphors to propagate this mindset — Manuvadi, Saanpnath, Nagnath, are some of the endearing terms party leaders have coined for their political opponents. Not too many years ago, the BSP had trumpeted its hatred for non-Dalits and the upper castes (the Brahmins, the merchant community and the Kshatriyas) with the following slogan: “Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maro jute chaar”. All of this resounded with the Dalit community which had admittedly been pushed to the margins over the decades and had suffered enormously at the hands of the socio-politically influential castes. They had been treated worse than dirt for years, and struck instant affinity with the BSP. Kanshi Ram, followed by Mayawati, harnessed the injustice, converted it into hate energy, and unleashed it on the non-Dalits.
And yet, both Mayawati and Kanshi Ram did not hesitate to tie-up with the snakes and with those who should be lashed with shoes, when occasion demanded. From the Samajwadi Party to the BJP to the Congress, the BSP did business with them all. Old slogans were discarded and new ones invented to suit the situation. So, the ‘elephant’ (the BSP election symbol) metamorphosed from being a powerful animal that trampled on the hearts of the Manuvadi elements to being representative of lord Ganesh. It’s not just with these parties (in whose hatred the BSP’s heart overflowed) that Mayawati made a deal; she also lured the Brahmin community to her side (during the 2007 Assembly election), largely by playing them up against the dominant Yadavs under the Samajwadi Party dispensation. She managed to hold on to part of that vote in 2012, although it was not enough to assure victory to her party. This, by any standards, would be considered opportunism, but Mayawati and the BSP gave it a spin: It was all done to ensure the rule of the Dalits. In other words, the non-Dalits, especially the upper castes, are mere pawns to be used to further a Dalit-dominated raj. The transformation of the slogan, “Bahujan hitaye” to that of “Sarvjan hitaye”, was an illusion.
So, where will the BSP’s politics of institutionalised hate lead the party toIJ It’s unlikely that Mayawati and her flock are looking any far ahead for the moment than the early-2017 Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. Her love for Dalits failed in winning over their loyalty in the 2014 lok Sabha election. Now she hopes that the rekindling of hatred in them for others will do the trick. It’s possible that she will succeed, but she cannot win the election even with a near 100 per cent consolidation of Dalit votes in her party’s favour. Her, and her party’s, venomous response in the Dayashankar Singh case — extending the backlash against an individual to the family and finally to the non-Dalits — will have alarmed the upper caste community, including the Brahmins. The other castes and communities are in any case not with her. She had hoped to create a Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim nexus to unseat the Samajwadi party. With Brahmins possibly having second thoughts (and options in the shape of the BJP and the Congress) and the Muslims divided in their allegiance between her party and the SP, she has only the Dalit vote-bank left. The glue that she believes will more strongly bind the Dalits with her, is the politics of hate — revisited.
(The writer is a senior political commentator and public affairs analyst)