You may not like Mayawati and you may disagree with her brand of politics, but there is no way you can ignore her. And, it seems, Mayawati couldn’t care less. In the last four years that she has been the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, she has given no interviews to the media; her media briefings are restricted to a statement, and rarely does she answer questions. People have scoffed at the Dalit parks and memorials she has built, but she has pressed on with messianic zeal. Mayawati’s world, you see, is different. She is a Dalit leader. Every time she challenges conventional wisdom, her followers cheer wholeheartedly.
Mayawati’s forbidding persona has ensured that very little is known about her. This is unfortunate. She is one of the shrewdest political brains in the country, and has singlehandedly united the Dalit community, of Uttar Pradesh at least, into a powerful political force. This makes Ajoy Bose’s Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati (Penguin, 2008) invaluable.
Mayawati was born into a modest household. Her father, Prabhu Das, was a very junior government functionary. The turning point came in late 1977. She had done her graduation, was studying law at Delhi University, preparing for the civil services exam and also had a teacher’s job in a primary school. In September that year, the Janata Party had organised a conference on the Dalit question at New Delhi’s Constitution Club. Raj Narain, who was riding high after having defeated Indira Gandhi in the recent general elections from Rae Bareilly (Prime Minister Morarji Desai had made him the health minister in his cabinet), kept referring to Dalits as Harijans. Even in those early days, she used to find the term, coined by Mahatma Gandhi, condescending and thus hugely offensive. She walked up to the stage and tore into Raj Narain.
A couple of months later, on a cold winter night, Kanshi Ram visited her at home. The burly Sikh had quit his government job to fight the cause of the Dalit community. He needed somebody like Mayawati. During the visit, he ignored Prabhu Das and got Mayawati to join his movement. Over the next few years, she helped him build the organisation that Bahujan Samaj Party has become. While campaigning, she rode a bicycle from village to village. Since then, it has been a long journey. Somewhere along the way she also became extremely protective of her mentor, Kanshi Ram. And when he died in a Delhi hospital in 2006, Kanshi Ram’s family bitterly complained that Mayawati wouldn’t let them meet him in his last days.
The other constant is Mayawati’s life is her strong dislike for Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. In the 1990s, Mayawati had supported Yadav as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. On June 1, 1995, she withdrew support and laid claim to the chief minister’s office with support from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Yadav, naturally, was upset. On the afternoon of June 2, Mayawati was confabulating with her legislators in her suite in the state guesthouse when it was attacked by around 200 men from the Samajwadi Party. Mayawati locked her door from inside, and that perhaps saved her that day. By the time order was restored it was late in the evening. Mayawati consented to unlock the door only at night. Since that day, the two have been arch-rivals.