Despite rampant crimes against Dalits during BSP rule, Mayawati retains their loyalty
First, they tried to strangle her. Then, the five of them took turns to rape her. When they were done, they realised that she recognised them. So, they poured kerosene on her and set her ablaze. The charred body of this 35-year-old mother of three was found by her family inside their home in Etah, in Uttar Pradesh.
Barely 30 kms away, that same day, two men raped a 14-year-old girl inside her house in Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.
The night before, policemen allegedly raped a 38-year-old woman they had arrested for stealing a cell phone, while they were escorting her to the police station in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh.
The day before that, two men gouged out the eyes of a 14-year-old girl they were raping because she had dared to resist them. They left her bleeding in the fields of Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh.
That same day, an 18-year-old girl was raped at gun point when she was on her way home in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh.
Only 24 hours before that a 16-year old was found dead in the sugarcane fields. She had been raped for three days before she was murdered in Gonda in Uttar Pradesh.
At the same time, a 20-year-old was being raped in a hotel after she was picked up two days ago from the railway station in Kanpur.
These horrific incidents that took place in the second weekend of June last year shook the nation and put Uttar Pradesh under the scanner. It was the State’s weekend of shame but was, nevertheless, a reflection of all that had gone so horribly wrong under the stewardship of then Chief Minister Mayawati.
This is in spite of the fact that Ms Mayawati herself is a Dalit, who heads a predominantly Dalit party and gains much of her political strength from the Dalit community. Yet, throughout her regime, Dalits continued to face all kinds of atrocities. Dalit women, particularly, found themselves to be further marginalised. As abduction, rape, torture and murder of Dalit women became a matter of routine, the women found themselves retreating further into their shrinking social space. Already, placed at the bottom of the social ladder by virtue of their gender and caste, it is hard to imagine that these women could have been subjected to any worse a social situation but that was exactly what happened.
Uttar Pradesh is home to about 35 million Dalits who make up approximately 20 per cent of the total population. Dalit women make up about 45 per cent of that number and yet they have no position or protection in society.
With Ms Mayawati at the helm, they had hoped that much of that would change. After all, she too was a Dalit ki beti — she was one of them, and surely, she would take care of her and the the rest of them. She would provide them with equal opportunities and equal pay, with safe streets and schools and rapist-free fields and homes; she would overturn the goonda reign unleashed by her predecessors and maybe someday, more women like them would also find their place in the corridors of power in Lucknow, if not in New Delhi. With Ms Mawayati at the helm, the possibilities for these women were endless — or, so they thought.
Yet, by the end of Ms Mayawati’s tenure, those dreams had been shattered. The State has registered the highest number of cases of abduction of women and it also has the maximum number of cases of violence against women. It is second in line with regard to the rape of women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In fact, when it comes to crimes against SCs and STs in general, Uttar Pradesh tops the list.
For all practical purpose, Ms Mayawati had proven to be only marginally better than her predecessors with the Dalit community enjoying only a few tangible benefits.
The promised rations cards, pensions papers and BPL cards hadn’t really materialised while widespread corruption in Government was taking its toll on the voters as well. The Assembly elections of February and March were then the ideal platform for the Dalits to vote Ms Mayawati out, and perhaps be wooed by a rival political faction.
Yet, this was far from the case. Instead, the Dalits — both men and women — came out in full strength to vote for their leader. While the rest of the country baulked at Ms Mayawati’s narcissistic display of political strength when she built giant statues of herself and her mentor across the State, the Dalits saw in them a physical manifestation of Dalit aspiration. The alarming increase in her personal wealth and assets may have been widely criticised as proof of the large-scale corruption she is known to endorse and encourage but for the Dalit community it served as a potent reminder of Dalit power.
Ms Mayawati may have failed to deliver on many of her promises, even as a woman she may have done little to protect other women, yet she had something right. She may not have brought electricity to Dalit villages, or schools and canals but she had allowed them a new found respect and position in society that they had not enjoyed in centuries.
They say that in Uttar Pradesh, the voters don’t caste their vote but vote their caste. This is more than true in the relationship that the Dalit community shares with Ms Mayawati. Never mind everything else that has happened.
(.This article appeared in the Op-ed section of The Pioneer on March 23, 2012)
