Response to Jug Suraiya’s Article: Behenji and Bane-ji

Response to Jug Suraiya’s Article: Behenji and Bane-ji
Jug Suraiya is way off the mark. He perhaps aims to be the new poster boy of the downtrodden, underprivileged classes a la VP Singh by writing such drivel which not only does an injustice to Ms Mayawati and the Indian electorate but is especially offensive to the Indian middle class.
The thought of Mayawati as prime minister is not repugnant because she is a Dalit. Nor has it anything to do with her being a woman, classy or otherwise. I think the Indian voter finds the thought of any of the pretenders in the numerous regional parties we have equally repugnant as prime ministerial material. That goes for the likes of Sharad Pawar, Sharad Yadav, Paswan, Lalu Prasad, Jayalalita, Deve Gowda, Karat and wife Brinda, Naidu and a whole lot of other pretenders and wannabes.
The reason has nothing to do with caste, class, race, colour, creed or any personal animosity with the above persons. It is simply that these leaders have no base outside their own state. A Dalit from Andhra or Assam or Gujarat may not have even heard of Mayawati. Outside of UP, her party has restricted appeal and that is what irks the thinking voter. That we may actually get a Prime Minister from a hotchpotch conglomeration of small parties, each having differing and in many cases opposing ideologies, each aiming to make good while the going lasts is not a pleasant thought. And the Prime Minister's party may have no more than forty to fifty seats in Parliament. Imagine the compromises, the deals and the pounds of flesh each constituent will extract. That is what we find repugnant Mr. Suraiya. India wants and needs a stable polity.
Let Mayawati’s BSP win at least 150 seats. I don’t think anyone will have a problem of accepting the lady as PM. And that goes for the others too.
Let us also stop this comparison with Obama. It is odious. The American President asked for votes on the basis of performance and not on the colour of his skin. We need to replicate that model and cease asking for votes based on our religious and caste affiliations. That day is still unfortunately a long way off.
As an aside, a scribe with literary pretensions once asked George Bernard Shaw for advice. Shaw’s response was classic. "Your story is a trifle that may have been written by any amateur. Don't make a confounded nuisance of yourself ... don't bother me with this rubbish." Unfortunately, we don’t have a GBS to advise the likes of JS. And the gentleman won’t certainly read my column.

Behenji and Bane-ji
1 Apr 2009, 0010 hrs IST, Jug Suraiya
Why does urban middle-class India hate Mayawati so much? In a recent poll, over 70 per cent of the respondents said that they would be horrified if she were to become India's next prime minister, which not a few political observers feel could be a distinct possibility in the post-poll scenario of forming what almost certainly will have to be another coalition government
. Why does the urban elite find the thought of Prime Minister Mayawati so repugnant? The fact that she is a Dalit should, if anything, be in her favour instead of against her. Post-Obama, among those who like to consider themselves to be India's liberalgentsia casteism is as out of fashion as racism is in the US: it's not just politically incorrect but also socially uncool openly to discriminate against an individual because of her caste, particularly if the caste in question is that of a Dalit. In any case, many years ago didn't we have a respected Dalit defence minister (who almost became prime minister) in Jagjivan Ram?
No, it's not caste that accounts for the urban liberal's aversion to Mayawati. So if it's not caste, is it class? As her nickname suggests, is Mayawati the archetypal 'Behenji', crass and vulgar in her manner of dress and general social deportment? With her 350-kg birthday cakes and diamond jewellery, Mayawati is obviously not a believer in the efficacy of social and sartorial understatement. But then neither is Jayalalithaa, another would-be PM, who is renowned for her larger-than-life cut-outs and a fanatical following which includes supporters who have had her image tattooed on the insides of their eyelids so that they may be able to gaze upon their revered Puratchi Thalaivi even when their eyes are shut. Yet Amma does not invite the same scorn and loathing that Behenji does.
The most common accusation made against Mayawati is that she is corrupt, the so-called 'Taj corridor' case being cited as the most visible example of her venality. But to say that an Indian politician particularly a politician such as Mayawati who has to sustain a large support base is corrupt is to state the obvious. It is like saying that an egg has shell, or a banana a peel. Like the shell of an egg, or the skin of a banana, for an Indian politician with a mass base which has to be sustained through patronage, corruption is a necessary condition for existence. Barring a few exceptions such as Manmohan Singh who has no grassroots base which supports him and which he in turn is obliged to look after corruption seems to be an occupational moral hazard for Indian politicians. What with the Nagarwal case in Indira Gandhi's time, and Bofors during Rajiv's regime, even what is often called the first political family of the land has not escaped the taint of corruption.
So why single out Mayawati for being corrupt? Why such singular animosity towards her? Perhaps the reason is that, more than any other politician today, she represents a full frontal assault on our ingrained social and political hypocrisy, the odour of sanctity with which we seek to surround ourselves. We like to showcase in our public figures the virtues of conspicuous austerity (see how Gandhiji travelled third-class on trains) and holier-than-thou renunciation (see how Soniaji renounced prime ministership).
With her over-the-top style and her unabashed ambition to become prime minister indeed, her party manifesto has that as its single-point agenda Mayawati offends our sense of sanctimoniousness. Instead of mouthing platitudes about aam aadmi and the downtrodden, she has the honesty to be upfront about what she is: a Dalit, and a doubly disadvantaged woman at that, who is hungry for power to reverse the tide of thousands of years of oppression. Mayawati represents a revenge against our righteousness, our hypocritical belief in our moral superiority. Maybe that's why Behenji is our real Bane-ji.