by Harihar Swarup
A force to reckon with among UP Dalits
WHEN MAYAWATI became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in June 1995, the then Prime Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, described the event as a miracle of democracy. This was the first time that a Dalit and a woman had become the chief executive of the most populous and politically sensitive state of the union.

Amethi jinx affects Vajpayee!
Amethi, the constituency which returned Rajiv Gandhi to the Lok Sabha, seems to be jinxed as a public meeting venue for successors of Rajiv Gandhi in the Prime Minister’s chair.

75 Years Ago

Collegiate education unattractive
THE Government review of the Bombay Education Report for the last year contains a reference to the growing unattractiveness of collegiate education in that Province.

by Harihar Swarup
A force to reckon with among UP Dalits

WHEN MAYAWATI became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in June 1995, the then Prime Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, described the event as a miracle of democracy. This was the first time that a Dalit and a woman had become the chief executive of the most populous and politically sensitive state of the union.

The Prime Minister, while addressing the captains of trade and industry in Paris, called the pitch-forking of a woman hailing from the most neglected section of society to the powerful office of the Chief Minister, as a marvel. The illustration enabled him to bring home to his French audience how firmly democracy had been entrenched in India.

Mayawati is contesting again from Akbarpur constituency, about two hours’ drive from Amethi, which has been the focus of national and international media. A predominantly backward area, Akbarpur did not get even a fraction of the attention received by Amethi but Mayawati soon became a force to reckon with among the Dalits in U.P. Unlike that of her bete noire, Mulayam Singh Yadav, her base remains intact.

Though she has little respect for ideologies, conventions, niceties or decency and known for uncouth manners, Mayawati is sure to raise her tally in the Lok Sabha from five. According to reports from U.P., she may easily double the present strength and there is every possibility of her party getting into double digits.

In the event of a hung Lok Sabha, her group is bound to play an important role in government making. She and Kanshi Ram have gone on record saying that they would like a fractured mandate and consequently instability.

In the current decade the BSP carried out several experiments with a number of political parties. In the 1991 U.P. Assembly elections the Kanshi Ram-Mayawati combine went alone and in the 1993 polls they worked out a successful alliance with their present enemy, Mulayam Singh. By 1995, the combine forged a deal with its arch-foe, the BJP, with a view to bringing down Mulayam Singh’s Government. In the 1996 elections Mayawati was the party’s star campaigner in U.P. fighting Mulayam Singh, the Congress and the BJP virtually single-handed. She is doing the same thing in the present elections.

It is still not known how she came under the spell of Kanshi Ram. It was in 1984 — the year of Indira Gandhi’s assassination — that Mayawati met, for the first time, her future mentor. She was teaching in a Delhi administration-run primary school. Perhaps, her aggressiveness impressed the little-known Kanshi Ram and both developed an instantaneous rapport. Gradually Kanshi Ram came close to her family. Mayawati’s house in the J.J. Colony, a lower middle class complex, in the Inderpuri area of Delhi, is decorated with two huge framed pictures of Kanshi Ram.

Apparently, Mayawati’s 67-year-old father, Prabhu Dayal, did not believe in family planning. He sired three daughters and six sons and Mayawati is the second child. All her brothers and sisters are happily married and settled.

Mayawati’s meeting with Kanshi Ram 11 years back changed the course of her life and possibly, like her mentor, she also decided to remain unmarried. The relationship between the two developed into close comradeship and it was manifested in Kanshi Ram’s total reliance on her in U.P. affairs. Mayawati was, in fact, the de facto Chief Minister of U.P. during the 18-month tenure of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Mayawati’s ham-handed functioning as party secretary evoked sharp resentment in the ranks of the SP-BSP combine during the rule of Mulayam Singh. So autocratic had she become that during legislature party meetings she would relax on a sofa and make the MLAs, even ministers, squat on the floor!

Her hostility towards the upper castes is attributed to the hard knocks she got at a young age and when she was a student. She is B.A. LLB from Delhi University and took B.Ed. degree from Meerut University. The scorn of higher caste students might have turned her into a rebel and a fighter.

Mayawati’s debut in Parliament was not without disappointment. She lost two byelections to the Lok Sabha from Bijnor (1985) and Hardwar (1987) and any one else in her place would have given up. But she was tenacious enough to contest for the third time from Bijnor and entered the Lok Sabha in 1988.

She was new to the House and was not conversant with rules and regulations. What impressed her was the practice of some Opposition members to rush to the well of the House when issues raised by them were disallowed by the Speaker and they often “gheraoed” the Speaker’s podium. Even on the slightest provocation she would rush to the Speaker’s podium and would not listen to any reasoning. But she was quite inquisitive about parliamentary practice and wanted to learn. Instead of giving her an opportunity to know the rules, she became an object of ridicule.

Certain women members belonging to princely houses did not like a sweating Mayawati and requested a senior MP to advise the BSP member to use perfume. Times have vastly changed since then. Mayawati is now more mature, does not rush towards the Speaker’s podium and has emerged as a political force in U.P. Of late there were reports of her estrangement with Kanshi Ram on certain issues.

Amethi jinx affects Vajpayee!

Amethi, the constituency which returned Rajiv Gandhi to the Lok Sabha (and in all likelihood will be the launching pad of Mrs Sonia Gandhi as well), seems to be jinxed as a public meeting venue for successors of Rajiv Gandhi in the Prime Minister’s chair. As Prime Minister and Congress president, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao had planned a political conference of the AICC in the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency in 1993. The attempt was to show the flag of the party in the hinterland of Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the Babri demolition. Grand arrangements were made. However, an unscheduled gale accompanied by rain wiped out the pandal and washed out the event itself. On September 30, a similar fate was in store for Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose public meeting at Gauriganj could not be held due to a heavy downpour. Worse, a policeman on duty died on the spot after being struck by a bolt of lightening. The same day, Mrs Sonia Gandhi addressed as many as four meetings in the vicinity of Gauriganj — at Jais (birthplace of Sufi poet Malik Mohammed Jaisi), at the industrial town of Jagdishpur and in the Amethi town itself. The weather God did not interfere with these meetings. After the incidents which stopped Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1993 and Mr Vajpayee this year from visiting the Amethi constituency, some are wondering if there is a jinx behind all this!

The BJP supporters, however, don’t subscribe to this theory. They feel the Amethi incident was just a coincidence. As for the rain Gods they have not been hostile to Mr Vajpayee all the time. As a case in point they refer to the recent controversy over the sharing of Cauvery waters between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Though the conflict reached a flashpoint when the Karnataka Chief Minister foiled a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority, headed by the Prime Minister, on an excuse that he was not feeling well, it were the rain Gods that came to Mr Vajpayee’s rescue. Heavy rains lashed the delta region on that fateful day, bringing immediate relief to the starving crops of Tamil Nadu. With the problem solved, the squabbling parties allowed Mr Vajpayee to postpone the meeting without much of a hue and cry.

The resurrected Mecca

After campaigning at Bellary, senior Congress leaders made a beeline for Amethi, to the chagrin of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who was looking after her mother’s campaign in her slain father’s parliamentary constituency. At one stage she had to tell the AICC office that she would prefer to be left alone and the party could deploy senior leaders elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh. However, as “senior leaders” were not entirely wanted in the rest of the state, they, perhaps oblivious of Priyanka’s mindset, preferred to camp in Amethi.

At least three candidates in UP are understood to have been unhappy with the ‘visits’ by ‘netas’ from Delhi. For apart from throwing out of gear their planned election meetings, those accompanying the ‘netas’ were more demanding resulting in putting pressure on both funds and time.

In a western UP seat close to Delhi, the Congress candidate refused to have any senior leader to campaign for him in the constituency. Barring a rally by the Congress President, this candidate preferred to run his own campaign with liberal help from his politician-brother who is a Minister in a neighbouring state.

In another part, a prominent candidate had sent a message to the AICC seeking intervention to prevent senior leaders from reaching the constituency. The reason, a ‘neta’ and his followers had checked into a luxury hotel and left the bill for the state unit to clear. So much for their campaigning.

In yet another instance, a candidate ended up losing one whole day thanks to the message of unannounced, uninvited arrival of a senior leader. The visit, intended to help the candidate was advanced without notice leaving the candidate throwing up his arms in despair as all the hurriedly-scheduled meetings had to be altered because the pilot of the helicopter which brought the leader decided that he could stay put only for 45 minutes, that too after arriving 90 minutes ahead of schedule. The result — the turnout at the meetings were poor.

Najma Heptulla

While the rest of the Congress party is busy in the general elections, Dr Najma Heptulla, the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha has been in the thick of it for the past four months internationally—for the Presidentship of the prestigious Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). Dr Heputulla, who is currently officiating as the President of the IPU, is contesting for the top job of Union, which has 138 countries as its members.

For the past four months, she has toured a number of countries canvassing across continents. The countries include, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Tunisia, Egypt, Germany, France and the United Kingdom to name a few.

In fact Dr Heptulla, who is also on the panel of spokespersons of the Congress party put up just one appearance unlike the regularity with which she briefed the media during the last general election.

With the IPU session scheduled to start on October 7, and elections to its President on October 16, she would be away awaiting with bated breath fortunes of both her party and herself in Berlin, the venue of the meeting this time.

Aftermath of a split

While everyone can judge the after effects of a split in a political party in elections, only a few can feel the pinch of such an occurrence.

The latest split in the Janata Dal now under two banners — one United and another Secular — may be fine by political workers, the staff of the party are said to be taking most of the after shocks.

Apparently, the money chest is empty and in earlier days the party MPs used to pool in money to maintain the office. Now it is anybody’s guess as to who would pick up the expense bills.

Maybe the new leaders would come out with some novel way to ensure that the fate of the staff would be better if not as good as theirs after the hustings!

Vajpayee and dynasty?

The BJP’s total focus on Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, during the campaigning for the ongoing polls has raised quite a few eyebrows. What is the difference between the BJP and the Congress?, has been the common refrain. While the BJP has been charging its primary Opposition with spreading dynastic rule, the ruling party too has been propagating one particular individual. It finally took the BJP President, Mr Kushabau Thakre, to set the record straight.

While the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, has been thrust on the people on the basis of her family linkage, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee has worked his way up to earn the distinction of a unanimous leader. His leadership is based on his merit and track record, Mr Thakre clarified at a news conference recently. As for dynastic rule, an amused Mr Thakre retorted “Vajpayee and dynasty?”. The Prime Minister happens to be a confirmed bachelor. There is no question of his having a dynasty, he said for the record.

Niaz Naik’s visit

There was much speculation about the visit of former Pakistan Foreign Secretary, Niaz Naik, the man who rose to prominence in India for his role in back channel diplomacy at the height of the Kargil conflict, to the capital last week. Though Naik’s visit was shrouded in secrecy, his presence in the capital raised several questions.

And, some of these questions were posed to the BJP President, Mr Kushabau Thakre, during his press conference in the capital last week. He was asked how come the BJP continued to talk about taking control of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on the one hand and pursuing secret diplomacy with that country on the other?

Did Mr Naik’s visit to India lend credibility to the stand taken by the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mr Farooq Abdullah, that the Line of Control should be converted into an international border? After all Mr Abdullah continued to be a supporter of the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP.

Mr Thakre clarified that even though Mr Abdullah was a supporter of the NDA, his party, the National Conference, continued to have its own agenda and manifesto, which was quite different from that of the BJP and its allies.

On Naik’s visit, he quipped it was possible that gastronomical temptations rather than diplomatic compulsions was the reason for his presence in New Delhi. He must have liked the food of some particular hotel in the capital and must have come for that, the affable BJP President said dismissing the whole controversy into a light hearted matter.

Incentives for forecast

Journalists complaining of poll fatigue can now make profitable use of their political understanding by trying their luck at the Press Club of India here. The club has announced a competition on poll forecast for its members. The winner of the competition is assured of a return ticket for two to London. The second prize is a free passage to any destination within India. The third prize is a three-day free stay in a motel in Mumbai. Apart from this, there are consolation prizes.The entries will be evaluated by a panel of senior journalists. Those interested in participating in the competition are required to buy an entry form of Rs 10 from the Press Club and answer several questions as “Who will win by a greater margin, Sonia or Vajpayee?”, “Who will be the next Prime Minister?”, “Who will win the following seats — Lucknow, Akbarpur, Nainital, Nalanda, Bellary, Gandhinagar, Srinagar, Tura, Madhepura, Sambhal and Guwahati?” The forms have to be submitted before October five. But the deadline is not the only criterion that needs to be fulfilled. Only members who have cleared their club dues till July-end are eligible to enter the competition.

(Contributed by SB, T.V. Lakshminarayan, K.V. Prasad, Tripti Nath and P.N. Andley)

75 YEARS AGO
October 3, 1924

Collegiate education unattractive

THE Government review of the Bombay Education Report for the last year contains a reference to the growing unattractiveness of collegiate education in that Province, as shown by the decreasing number of candidates that appear for the B.A. examination from year to year.

So far as we are aware, this tendency has not been noticed in any other Province of India. On the contrary, in most of them there is a growing demand for more colleges being started and larger accommodation for college students.

One reason for the decreasing number of candidates in Bombay is said to be that the B.A. degree does not graduate profitable employment.

In other Provinces also, the same is the case but the demand for it has not in any way decreased on this account.

Bombay is different from other Provinces in India in the matter of providing facilities for industrial and commercial activities and this probably accounts for the growing unattractiveness of a purely literary education.

In any case, the change should be welcomed and we hope that the energies of students will be diverted to obtaining Technical and industrial training and that greater facilities will be offered by the Government in this direction.