7 Novermber 2008.
The US election has caught the fancy of the entire world. From Nigeria to France to Chavez in Venezuela, everyone wants a vote. This isn’t just because the US is the most powerful nation on Earth that influences the rest, its also because of the refreshing and inspiring Barack Obama. He’s new, he’s unconventional, he’s educated, he’s not pedigree, he’s an aam aadmi and he’s dark skinned. Hard as we may try to pretend that race is not a factor, it is. And there is nothing wrong with it. A colored man being president of the USA is symbolically huge and cannot be ignored.
In all this there is much talk of India’s Obama. Rahul Gandhi who is restructuring the Youth Congress said at a press conference in Dehradun that he was trying to create a system that would create “thousands of little Obamas running around”. Editorials, TV shows and Indian voters are looking for an Indian Obama.
Is that possible? And if it is, is it what the TV watching column reading class wants? Is our very complex and fragmented society, which is not even a fraction as homogenized as the US prepared for one such? Caste is a reality in India much as urban India may not know of or acknowledge it. It has divided India in ways obviously apparent and more subliminal. Can one unifying factor solder the fissures? In a country where people don’t even speak the same language, and if you do, how you pronounce the word opportunity (op-or-tunity or op-er-tunity) determines where you will be slotted, ready for one who is new, unconventional, educated, not pedigree, aam aadmi or aurat, and dark skinned? Yes? Are you ready for Maywati? In case that leads to jaw drops and eyes rolling, it’s the standard reaction. It’s the - don’t rock my boat - syndrome.
I quote from Paul Krugmans’s column talking about Republicans this election – “It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting”...”
India is deeply prejudiced and racist. Far more than America. Casteist remarks are something we shrug off. It’s all around us. Is such a society equipped to handle one of “their people” becoming Prime Minister? Because just like Obama is “the other folks” in India Mayawati is “the other folks”.
Lets face it I’ve attended dinners and parties and made small talk with corrupt politicians or corrupt members of their families. Some are so brash or stupid that they actually boast about the deal they struck and the allotments they got as if its an achievement to be proud of. I’d have no problem naming them if I had a camera rolling to prove it. Libel is the only reason their names don’t appear, not out of any coyness or politeness. People laugh, smile politely or look the other way when such sophisticated corruption is reveled. But God forbid if you are as tolerant of Behenjis alleged indiscretions. So its not alleged corruption that is the source of revulsion. That’s a constant across party lines. Oil for food, fodder scam, Bofors, defense deal payoffs, Tehelka, Taj corridoor - take your pick. They are scams that implicate (none proved in a criminal court) people across parties including Mayawati. Then what is it that makes her harder to digest than the rest? How is she different? It’s simply that she didn’t attend public school, you wouldn’t know what to say to her if you met her at an evening cocktail or champagne brunch on a spring day. Its what makes many in the Republican base and far right fear Obama. And much as we’d like to flatter ourselves we represent that far right of the class and caste divide that doesn’t want to rock the India boat just as we’re getting all comfy in it. Mayawati rocks that boat. Change, she needs.
Mayawati is as close as we get to real change. She represents more of the country than anyone else. This is a woman who rose from a land and social strata where being a woman is as good as being sheep. She has been the first woman Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Most people who read this column have not visited rural UP unless its to stop for lunch at a dhaba while going to see the quaint Kumbh fair. Its hard to explain just how big a deal it is that she has got to where she has. Out of 18 chief ministers in UP since independence she is the only woman. A Dalit. A Woman. Dalits celebrated. Women did not. Because seminar-attending feminists identify more with the cotton sari clad Fab Indian, not a diamond studded poplin salwar suit clad Behenji.
I’m not saying women don’t have it hard in other social milieus. The trauma of one of “our” women being groped while on a rickshaw or in a market isn’t unreal. Neither is obvious sexism in urban workplaces. I’m not being flippant about it but surely comparing that to the life of a woman living in UP bad lands of Mainpuri, Etawah, Faizabad is extreme self indulgence. When a cop is rude to me or a lathi wielding khaki clad lout is offensive at a police check point as I drive home late at night, I feel rage enough to sock him in the face. But if I start comparing that to the angst or rage of a community not allowed access to the village well by upper castes and cops its simply ridiculous.
To come out of that and become the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh is HUGE. The first time Mayawati became chief minister the then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao described it as “a miracle of Indian Democracy” (no he didn’t say this to me, I quote from the book Behenji by Ajoy Bose) such was the shock that a woman like her could have succeeded Tripathis and Misras and Guptas and Pratap Singhs and Thakurs and Yadavs. Mayawati - A name that stood out with no prefix or famous surname. A name without caste since Mayawati renounced Hinduism.
Manmohan Singh has some of those qualities of bringing people together that Obama has. He is soft spoken with no ego as such. He has been gracious and reached out to the Left after a bitter parting of ways which not many would do. Atal Bihari Vajpeyi too was perceived as one such statesman. No ego, soft spoken and the ability to take a 13 party alliance to its 5 years without a threat to his govt. He brought a Narendra Modi and Farooq Abdullah on the same platform. Mannmohan Singh too oversees a 13 party coalition pulling in different directions. Both Prime Minsiters have that ability to unite and bring many divergent views to a table even if its only for the sake of power and not change.
Now cut to rural India.
Manmohan is looked upon as one who united the haves leaving out the have nots. Vajpayi is looked upon as the leader of the party that has promoted and overseen an upper caste dominance within the party and in states they ruled. They didn’t bring cross sections of society together, they brought a longitudinal section together. In India there is a huge difference in bringing people together and bringing political parties together. And it’s a mistake to assume one reflects the other. The divide in India is vertical. The unity of the polity is horizontal. It keeps the top of the pyramid clinging together because change will rock the boat. Change we need. Change we believe in.
Hard as these parties tried they couldn’t stop the Mayawati juggernaut. And when Maywati came to power – no, she didn’t get water, electricity or drainage systems for her shockingly poor voters in Uttar Pradesh. She named parks, erected busts and statues after Phule, Baba Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and herself.
A very valid argument is that shouldn’t 100 crores be spent of drains and nalas and roads instead of busts and parks named after dalit leaders? Absolutely, for you and me. Spirit intact - build infrastructure. But for those whose spirits have been crushed, infrastructure comes second. For a community that has been driven into the earth its not so simple. A symbol of power goes a long way just the way a black man in America goes a long way in how the world will perceive USA. Where you stand shapes what you consider important. Cleaning up corruption and empowering the marginalized are both imperative. For me the priority may be cleaning up corruption but for a dalit who has not had the courage to file an FIR even when his daughter is raped, corruption has no meaning. Social empowerment is everything even though the two are connected. The fact is that today a cop will think twice before telling a dalit woman to go home after doing what he wishes, should she come to lodge an FIR of rape in rural UP. After Mayawati came to power there is the recorded case of a woman dismembering her rapist’s member when he attacked her for the nth time and going to the police station surrendering both weapons. The one that was used to humiliate and subjugate her for months and her knife, with the belief that now the government has changed and Behenji will take care of her. Change, she believed in.
Confidence- that’s the change one needs to see most. Confidence is something we take for granted. It’s hard to understand that for some it’s a very carefully rehearsed action. It’s not an impulsive reaction. Confident action is as alien to the disempowered as restraint is to the empowered. Someone pushes me - a violent push back is impulse. It’s not a thought out action, in fact we do yoga to curb such violent impulses. Turning the other cheek is a higher form of confidence when its done out of choice. It’s power we take for granted. For those who cant, its new, its thrilling. Its change they need.
The Indian Obama wont be sitting in studios of news channels, he/she will be battling the anarchic melee that is much of India. Its where stakes are higher, where failure could mean death, where battles are far messier and where the party isn’t as pretty. Welcome to the other party. Mob attacks in Noida with a CEO of a multinational being beaten to death, violence in newly industrialized areas of Maharshtra, Bengal, Gujarat. Some newscasters and newspapers ask - is India heading towards anarchy? No we’re not. It was always like this, we just didn’t know it. What scares people most about Mayawati is that she is bringing that party to your doorstep. Change you need?
An Indian Obama isn’t possible in this generation or even the next. Its arrogant and pompous to assume anyone has all the answers and can change a nation as complex as India, overnight or even over a generation. Its not possible to fix everything. As human beings or as leaders the only choices that confront anyone are - can one leave the situation better than one found it? To me homogenizing a situation makes it better. The chances of it getting cleaned up are greater if more people are involved since its in the interest of more to clean it up. Mayawati does that. If she can “level the playing field” an Obama in the next generation can get an open terrain to make a run for it. And leveling that playing field will spoil your and my landscaped garden. Change you believe in?
I’m not saying that Mayawati is the Indian Obama but before we go looking for India’s Obama, think long and hard. A story I read as a kid by W W Jacobs - The Monkeys Paw, taught us, be very careful what you wish for. You might just get it, or him…. or her.
