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Overpowering Maya
By Susenjit
Guha
July 24, 2008 |
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Sometime
back L K Advani lamented on a television channel
after his book was released that there was no
connection - the leaders of two major national
parties literally do not see eye to eye---
between the BJP and the Congress party of the
ruling UPA.
Dialogues between the ruling and the major
opposition parties are considered essential for
a healthy democracy.
L K Advani also mentioned in the interview that
Rahul Gandhi once asked him how to combat the
rise of so many regional parties. He tried to
impress upon Rahul the need for more contacts
between Congress and the BJP to stem the growth
of regional players.
Perhaps they had a premonition that Mayawati
from India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh, a
state which can make or break governments at the
centre was single-handedly capable of giving
them sleepless nights.
And while delivering his speech on the morning
of 21st as leader of the opposition before next
day’s most infamous proceedings for the trust
vote in the nation’s history, L K Advani, the
projected Prime Minister of the NDA coalition,
never expected Mayawati also to stake her claim
at the same time for the post with just 17 MP’s.
She let herself loose form the confines of UP
politics and deliberated on the N-deal, a major
foreign policy issue or obsession, which
warranted a
trust vote in the first place.
Unconsciously, Advani had conceded defeat on the
first day itself by saying ‘the government may
win the trust vote’.
Why was the BJP crestfallen and
uncharacteristically muted when there were
several gaping warts in the UPA’s governance on
which salt could have been sprinkled at random?
Do the Congress and the BJP have similar
interests and common foe?
The BJP was never against the N-deal apart from
the clause that India could do another nuclear
test at her own peril. If UPA fails to come to
power in the next election, the NDA and BJP
would be saved from the dirty mess of doing the
deal.
And two major political parties at the national
level can have two prime ministerial candidates
contending each other. And of course, if a third
front can cobble up a coalition, there would be
at best another one to contend with from the
fringes.
In the Vedanta of the Hindus, Maya or illusion
is best elucidated by a rope and a snake. A rope
is mistaken for a snake and feared. But this
Maya or Mayawati of UP as per M J Akbar’s byline
few months back is no illusion.
After all who would make a bid for the Prime
Minister’s office with just 17 MP’s from a
single state?
She can, because her traditional electorate, the
Dalits, represent 16% of the population and if
SC/ST’s, also clubbed under Dalits are included,
it would be around 40%. Then there are converts
discriminated in their own communities---the
Sikh, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist Dalits.
Poor people, farmers on suicide mode and outside
the NDA’s rurally- elitist bank loan waiver
scheme and Dalits naturally careen towards her.
Sudden pontifications on economics by Rahul
Gandhi, ‘discovery’ that poverty and energy
needs are inter-twinned inspired by ‘Bharat
darshan’ was bereft of any cost-benefit analysis
for the villagers.
Mayawati has made life safe for them in UP from
the higher caste law-keepers and engineered
social interaction across castes unthinkable in
the past. Even though she is confined only to
UP, Dalits in other states will impact election
results favouring political parties allied to
her. In Andhra Pradesh with a sizable Muslim
population, her alliance with TDP, TRS and the
Left is formidable.
And she is neither uncomfortable wearing bigger
shoes nor treading on huge toes. Both the two
major political parties in India cannot ignore
the reality by mistaking her for a harmless
rope.
The combined percentage with her latent
electorate can be mind-boggling and capable of
upsetting anybody’s applecart.
Mayawati, quick on the political uptake, will go
on an overdrive on the deal issue to counter
allegations of BSP’s former alliance with the
BJP in
UP.
But the NDA’s obsession with Bush and the trust
vote win will feed complacency that the deal is
not anti-Muslim even though Muslims around the
world despise him and are pinning their hopes
for an on-the-ground perception change of the US
administration with the next president.
‘Sardar’ Dr. Manmohan Singh may have braced up
after the trust vote and Mayawati may have been
over-powered for now, but accidentally a can has
been quietly prized open, the contents of which
will spill out gradually and perhaps warrant
more dialogues between the major national
political parties of India.
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