UP touches the nadir of development but its CM’s personal and political fortunes soar
The fact that the country’s 15th general election is coinciding with the second anniversary of the Mayawati government taking over in Uttar Pradesh – May 13 – has turned her performance (in a nutshell, deeds weighed against misdeeds) into a major part of the election campaign. Whatever the electoral outcome, she will be creating history by marking two years in office – her longest tenure. And, if the voters of India’s most populous state strengthen her claim to the office of Prime Minister, it will be yet another milestone for the Dalit girl who became a multimillionaire.
To give credit where it is due, the story of Mayawati’s rise is in many ways as inspiring as Barack Obama’s. One of nine children born to a lowly telecom clerk in Delhi, her caste background, as an untouchable, would in the normal course have led to a lifetime of leather work, or sweeping the floors of train bogeys, or cleaning animal excrement. But Mayawati managed to wrest an education and then trained as a teacher.
The seeds of political ambition must have been there for she attended public meetings. At one such rally, so the legend goes, she was spotted “spitting fire” by Kanshi Ram, the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party. He took her under his wing and thus began Mayawati’s political career. She gained valuable experience in several unsuccessful local campaigns in the 1980s, until finally, in 1995, she secured the chief ministership of UP on a reputation as the champion of the slumdog. Subsequently, she has been in and out of power, with her current tenure being the fourth. For millions across the subcontinent, Mayawati provides a shining example of how anyone, irrespective of caste or sex, can rise to the top.
Thereafter, her career in the context of UP’s development contains little to admire. UP has notched up many firsts, creditable and otherwise. It is the first state where a Dalit woman has become Chief Minister for the fourth time. It is the most populous state and also has the largest population of Scheduled Castes (35.1 million). It has the highest number of malnourished women and children. It has the highest incidence of polio cases.
In governance, UP has the largest cadre of bureaucrats. In an unprecedented move, Mayawati created the posts of Cabinet Secretary and Additional Cabinet Secretary in a state. Even in this, she created history by appointing a non-IAS person (former pilot Shashank Shekhar Singh) as Cabinet Secretary. She set a new record in transfer-posting and it became a veritable industry in her government, tarnishing UP’s image – so much so that the World Bank halted development grants for a while and warned the state government to fix officers’ tenure.
An obvious issue of interest is the position of UP’s Dalits in comparison to Dalits in other states. UP has the highest number of cases of atrocities committed against Dalits, according to the Chairman of the National Commission for SC/ST.
According to SR Darapuri, a retired IPS officer and Independent from Lucknow, the state has a tradition of every Chief Minister trying to show lower crime figures than his or her predecessor. Mayawati is particularly emphatic about it. During her first stint as Chief Minister in 1995, she had terrorized police officers by suspending, transferring or punishing them in other ways for even a slight increase in crime figures. During her second term in 1997, she prohibited the use of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,1989, becoming the first CM to slam this Central Act in the absence of any power to do so. This was done under the excuse of preventing its misuse but was actually a ploy to placate her Sarvjan upper caste supporters. In 2003, the order was withdrawn on paper after a public hue and cry and litigation but in practice continues to be in force.
‘Atrocities are being committed on Dalits but the official crime figures are being kept low. So Dalits are victims of a double cross. Due to non-registration of their cases, they get neither legal relief nor any monetary compensation’
As Darapuri points out, “A lot of atrocities are being committed on Dalits but the official crime figures are being kept low. So Dalits are victims of a double cross. Due to non-registration of their cases, they get neither legal relief nor any monetary compensation which otherwise they would have got.” According to a survey based on newspaper reports, out of 110 Dalit rape cases, the police registered only half. Worse, 85 per cent of the cases involved unmarried Dalit girls.
The lack of development is a direct fallout of corruption. A recent study by Transparency International found UP to be India’s most corrupt state. Both Mayawati and her predecessor, Mulayam Singh Yadav, are being investigated by the CBI for possession of disproportionate assets. Their political and personal corruption has infected the bureaucracy and public life at large. Welfare schemes like NREGS, PDS, ICDS and pension have fallen prey to open corruption and misuse. Education, health and development of infrastructure have been low priority for the Mayawati government. It has been spending a major portion of its annual budget on Non-Plan expenditure. Billions of rupees have been spent on extravagant public shows, parks and installation of statues of Mayawati and Kanshi Ram.
Though her tax records are currently the subject of a criminal investigation, nobody seems particularly incensed. As one Dalit explained: ‘While millions of us lead a life of hardship, at least one of us has good money’
Mayawati has also shown how easy it is to milk the system once you get there. Consisting mostly of political donations, her yearly earnings of 7.7 million pounds is roughly 14,000 times the average Indian’s salary. She now has more than 70 properties, over 50 bank accounts and a campaign fleet of 12 planes and three helicopters. Though her tax records are currently the subject of a criminal investigation, nobody seems particularly incensed. As one Dalit explained: “While millions of us lead a life of hardship, at least one of us has good money.”
Surrounded by lifesize cut-outs of herself, Mayawati stands on a huge Bollywood-themed stage dressed in bright pink and her finest diamonds. Party leaders and top bureaucrats feed her the first slices of a Black Forest Gateau
Her garish abuse of political power is on display every year on her birthday, January 15. The day is called “self respect day” but this year became “Dhikkar Diwas” due to the murder of an engineer by her party MLA in Aurraiya who was trying to extort a donation for her birthday. Usually, on January 15, all of Lucknow, and every important place in UP, is decked in the blue and white of the BSP. Surrounded by lifesize cut-outs of herself, Mayawati stands on a huge Bollywood-themed stage dressed in bright pink and her finest diamonds. Party leaders and top bureaucrats feed her the first slices of a Black Forest Gateau. This year, her 53rd birthday, the cake weighed 53 kg. Bureaucrats, local party leaders and other officials dependent on Mayawati for their jobs give birthday donations of an average of $3,900 each.
Mayawati shrugs off this personality cult as none of her making in a way self-explained by the chapter titled “If People Call me a Super Chief Minister, what can I do?” in the 2,400-page “Blue Book” about herself. Yet, it is the personality cult, along with some successful social projects and a bit of hired muscle power (nine of her party’s candidates are mafia dons facing serious charges of murder and kidnapping) that keeps winning her votes.
In the current campaign, none of these issues figures. The talk is only of Mayawati, and her deeds and misdeeds. With her sights trained on Delhi, she has been seeking votes on the basis of work done by her two-year-old government.
Development’s downward graph
• In the past 18 years, just 610 MW capacity has been added in the power sector. The power crisis has reached such proportions that there is hardly a village in the state that gets power for more than four hours. Industry is hamstrung. Over Rs 1,000 crore is pending as cane dues of farmers on the sugar mills. As a result, the country’s largest suger producer has recorded the lowest production: only 45 lakh tonnes this year.
• In the weavers’ belt, there have been 22 debt-driven suicides in the past two years.
• In eastern UP, over 20,000 children have died due to Japanese encephalitis over the past ten years. However, there is no political questioning of how this could have been prevented. Instead, the Mayawati government stopped paying out compensation for the victims from last year.
• Poverty, especially in Bundelkhand – reeling under the fifth year of drought – is acute. Despite progressive schemes on paper (UP began giving out old age pension well before the Centre thought of it in the 2009-10 Budget), the gains seldom trickle down.
