India

by Patrick French

  India remains a socially conservative country, and for a young, unmarried woman to have spoken in this way to an eminent older man in public was remarkable. Mayawati had started as she meant to go on: she was in awe of nobody, and not bound by precedent. There were no senior women in politics from a background like hers, but despite her deprived upbringing on the broken fringes of Delhi, she was ready to take on politics and the caste system. Her guide and mentor would be Kanshi Ram, twenty-two years her senior and another political maverick. Former untouchables had remained subordinate since independence. According to Mayawati’s biographer: “Dalit leaders came in two models. One was the wild-eyed radical who spoke of blood on the streets,” the other was the Congress politician who feathered his own nest while “preserving and consolidating the loyal scheduled caste vote bank that had remained in the party’s pocket since independence.”18 Kanshi Ram worked on the simple but visionary premise that if the downtrodden were to organize themselves, they could take power in India democratically. He believed that if barriers of region, religion, language and sub-caste were forgotten, they could band together and become a majority, and drive out the high-caste “Manuwadis,” the followers of the ancient edicts of Manu, who had kept them enslaved for thousands of years.19

  It was a fine theory; the problem was executing it. Drawing on the writings not only of Ambedkar but of earlier thinkers like the Maharashtrian revolutionary Jyotirao Phule (who in turn had been influenced by Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man) and Phule’s teacher wife, Savitribai, Kanshi Ram sought to put his ideas into practice. He was contemptuous of the standard forms of agitation used by left and liberal politicians in India. By 1972 he had an organization with around a thousand members and a cumbersome name: The Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities Employees Welfare Association. When he recruited Mayawati after her fiery speech at the Constitution Club, the movement was spreading from Maharashtra to Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Like African-Americans in the United States, it was only when Dalits organized themselves rather than being helped by external well-wishers that things really began to change. In 2010 the activist Chandra Bhan Prasad started a private school and built a temple dedicated to a new deity, “Dalit Goddess English.” His supposition was that Dalits, being socially and educationally excluded, should learn English so as to advance. The bronze image of “Dalit Goddess English” held a pen in one hand and books in the other, and the mantra chanted at her dedication ceremony was “A-B-C-D.” Prasad believed that only by deifying the English language via the goddess would he be able to persuade low-caste parents to send their children to the new school.20

  The relationship between Kanshi Ram and Mayawati remains one of the mysteries of modern Indian politics. It endured until his death in 2006, and was as intense as any marriage. From the outside it looked evident: an unmarried woman was living in the house of an older man. Many long-time colleagues thought Kanshi Ram was being foolish, damaging his own credibility and allowing himself to be manipulated by an ingenue. Mayawati was furious at any lewd insinuations, saying Kanshi Ram was a sanyasi and she was his daughter or his sister (this sounds more peculiar elsewhere than in India, where unusual personal relationships abound and terms like “daughter” and “sister” can be flexible). At one point Mayawati even said she was his son.

  Whatever the internal dynamic between them, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati’s main interest was in political change. A roadshow called “Ambedkar Mela [festival] on Wheels” was sent across rural north India to educate people, and Mayawati toured villages by bicycle in the burning heat, persuading the poorest they should no longer let others speak on their behalf. Her message was stark. “Can you name me even one Dalit family in this village or in the surrounding region who has prospered because of the various economic welfare schemes like pig herding, rickshaw pulling, leather tanning, etc., initiated by the Congress government over the past forty years?” Generally, the answer was no. In which case, Mayawati demanded, why were 95 percent of Dalit votes going to the Congress party? “We all know that upper caste Manuwadis do not want Dalits to eat well, dress well or do well, so do you think a machine can be built in Delhi or in some other part of the country that can suddenly change the hearts of all these upper caste ministers and leaders so that they will help Dalits to prosper?”21 No, roared the village crowd. Then the solution, she said in answer, was to vote for the BSP, which Kanshi Ram had built “for Oppressed and Exploited Indians.”22

  At any given time, India is full of aspiring parties and leaders. Most do not go far. The BSP reached the Lok Sabha in 1989 in the avatar of the now 33-year-old Mayawati. Her caste destiny was to be a leather worker or a cleaner of floors and toilets, though not of tables or mantelpieces—that would be the job of a maid. When she entered Parliament, other MPs complained she dressed badly, smelled sweaty and wore her hair in an oiled plait. Could something be done about it? Learning on her feet, Mayawati realized she might use Parliament’s formal procedural conventions to her advantage. When twenty-three Chamar women were reported raped by Jat men in Agra, she advanced to the well of the house and accused a minister, who happened to be a Jat, of personal responsibility. He responded with a college humour honed at his alma mater, St. Stephen’s: “Behenji [sister], I have one wife and can barely handle her! What chance of me trying to tangle with two dozen women?”23 Wholly unimpressed, Mayawati kept up a barrage of insults and allegations, even as the speaker tried to calm proceedings. It symbolized an end to the paternalistic politics of the early post-independence era. Like Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and the Congress leader Jagjivan Ram before her, Mayawati came from a family with a military connection, beneficiaries of the British policy of recruiting untouchable soldiers, and her approach was martial.

  When she became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh under Kanshi Ram’s guidance six years later, she ruled in a shockingly unconventional way, appointing Dalits to key positions in the state’s administration and police service, erecting thousands of statues of Dr. Ambedkar at public expense and sacking men who opposed her. Uttar Pradesh was home to many minorities, religions and sub-castes, and its history was the product of cultures coarse and refined; it had important historical sites like Sarnath, Ayodhya and the Taj Mahal, and landscape running from cold hills to hot plains. The state’s population was huge, nearly equal to that of Brazil. Mayawati had no previous administrative experience, and constitutional tradition or propriety was not her concern. If she was challenged on any front, she asserted herself with exceptional force. Raja Bhaiya, a prominent Thakur politician and gangster who kept alligators in a lake in front of his palace to intimidate the locals, was imprisoned under anti-terrorism legislation, and for good measure Mayawati confiscated his family’s properties, sealed his bank accounts and handed over the lake of gators to the forest department. To draw a New World comparison, it would be like a woman who had been born a slave, with all the fear that comes from having no redress, daring to jail a plantation owner.

  A key spur or precipitant to Mayawati’s forceful way of operating appears to have been a debacle just before she became chief minister, when she believes she came close to being assaulted or killed. Realizing her party was about to pull down a coalition state government in Uttar Pradesh, angry activists from the ruling party raided the official guest house where Mayawati and other legislators were staying. While politicians were slapped, beaten and in some cases temporarily kidnapped, she and others retreated to a suite and locked the door. “Drag the Chamar woman out from her hole,” men and women shouted from outside, along with other more offensive remarks.24 Even by the rough standards of north Indian politics, the attack in Lucknow was unprecedented. A battle between rowdies and police—some of whom were helping to protect the suite, while others were conspicuously standing idle—continued into the night until the legislators escaped. Mayawati remains terrified of assassination, and travels in a convoy of up to thirty-five matching vehicles when not touring her kingdom by helicopter.<
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  In Mau in the poor, dusty eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, towards Bihar and the Nepalese border, there has long been intense caste rivalry, as well as communal violence between Hindus and Muslims. The wider region, once the United Provinces, had given birth to many of the leading statesmen of India and Pakistan, and was also home to vicious social antagonisms. To protect themselves, rival communities have over the years formed gangs to defend their interests. In places where the rule of law barely functions, a strong local politician can become a godfather or gang leader, and vice versa—and a politician’s police escort can act as a useful form of additional security.

  One of the most popular godfathers in Uttar Pradesh—UP—was Mukhtar Ansari, a giant of a man from a Muslim feudal family. His grandfather Dr. M. A. Ansari was an associate of Motilal Nehru who had served as president of the Indian National Congress in the 1920s. When Mukhtar Ansari was growing up in the 1970s, the region had been a communist stronghold and he was conscious of the depth of local animosity between different social groups. His brothers were politicians, and in the 1990s Mukhtar gained a reputation as a man who got things done. When he was elected from Mau as a state legislator, he secured more than $20m in extra government funding for his constituency. Rival gangs fought for control over contracts, which ranged from coal mining and scrap disposal to public works like road building and licences to sell liquor. In 2001, Mukhtar’s convoy was ambushed while he was driving between Mau and Lucknow. During a shootout three of his best men were killed, but they managed to seriously injure a rival leader. A few years later, five murderers on motorcycles surrounded a car and shot the occupant, a BJP state legislator and a Bhumihar—an upper-caste Hindu—who was said to have been close to the original attacker. Rioting followed, and several buses, a mosque and part of a railway station were burned down. Mukhtar Ansari was blamed for the killing, although he pleaded his innocence since he was in jail in Ghazipur at the time, awaiting trial for inciting a mob during earlier communal violence. His accusers said that he had directed the operation from his cell using, fittingly, a cell phone.

  Although he had not been convicted of any crime, Mukhtar was a “sheeter,” charged with thirty-four offences, including gangsterism, homicide and firing an AK-47 at a police commissioner. He was reputed to carry a .357 Magnum and six mobile phones with him at all times. The authorities moved him frequently, not wanting him to take over the administration of his prison. In one jail he was said to have been allowed to build a volleyball court, and to have had a bathroom with soap from Harrods. The legal cases against him were grinding their way slowly through the court system.25

  At the 2009 general election, he was recruited by Mayawati to run as a BSP candidate in Benares, one of north India’s most ancient and holy cities, with its cremation ghats lining the banks of the Ganges. Mayawati knew he was likely to bring in Muslim votes, and she portrayed him as a Robin Hood character who could speak for the oppressed. “Mukhtar is a victim, and I consider him innocent,” she told a rally. “A person who fights those who harass the poor people cannot be termed as a criminal just by implicating him in false cases.”26 Mukhtar had a nominal advantage: although his family traced their lineage to Medina and were thought to have been the standard-bearers of the prophet Mohammed, most Ansaris in India were poor weavers who were classified as OBCs. The forebears of these low-caste Muslims would probably have taken the name of the local ruler, perhaps on conversion. Mukhtar’s main opponent in Benares was Murli Manohar Joshi, the author of the BJP manifesto. The other candidates stood little chance of winning, so it would be a straight race between the two of them, the Brahmin cow protector versus the imprisoned Muslim outlaw.

  I received an SMS from someone I knew, Yusuf Ansari, while I was in Delhi watching the general election: “Are you averse to visiting gaol? One of the biggest factors of this election in U.P. is in Kanpur gaol.” The factor was Mukhtar, who turned out to be Yusuf’s cousin. It was a surprising family connection: I knew Yusuf worked in policy planning for the Congress party and had attended an English boarding school and the LSE. Sometimes he dressed in a dark achkan and earring, like an old-fashioned north Indian Muslim gentleman, and at other times he could be seen in a preppy red-and-white-striped shirt and waxed green jacket. I took the early-morning express train from New Delhi. The railway station was a crush of cars, yellow-and-green rickshaws, red-jacketed porters with brass ID plates twisted around their upper arm, people and more people. “Car will receive you with my secretary Mr. Pandey,” Yusuf texted. “Mukhtar has gone for hearing on his bail application so can’t meet.” In the carriage I sat beside a student who tapped away on a laptop through the journey and talked of Mayawati. “Maya’s so rich and clever,” he said, “but she’s got issues.”

  When I reached Kanpur, Mr. Pandey and I were conveyed to Yusuf’s parents’ residence by a driver. His family had previously lived in a nearby haveli, and this house had been built in the 1980s. When the family moved to the city in the 1930s to take advantage of new economic opportunities, they had been accompanied by a couple of hundred family retainers, to whom they had a social responsibility, and whose descendants still lived nearby. The house was constructed over several levels. Hunting trophies and animal skins with shot marks in them were on the walls, and framed imperial invitations, such as one inviting an ancestor to King George V’s ceremonial durbar. I looked at Yusuf’s library: The Akbar Nama of Abu-l-Fazl, P. G. Wodehouse, a biography of Winston Churchill. This house in Kanpur gave an echo of the nawabi world of earlier times.

  In the sitting room, a throng of Congress party officials were discussing vote fractionalization: would Brahmins stick with the BJP or shift to the BSP, who had put up a Brahmin candidate in Kanpur? “This election is going to be decided by women,” said one man, “because they know the price of kerosene and onions.” A sweeper crouched like a spider on the stone floor, circling the room with a large wet cloth. Yusuf had a copper band on his wrist, high-arched eyebrows and an endlessly alert manner—when he was a child, his arm had been badly injured in a hunting accident in Ghazipur. He spent a little time lying prone on a day bed discussing political matters with his secretary, Mr. Pandey, while a family retainer massaged his arms. We could hear an election event out on the street and went down the steps to watch. It was blindingly hot outside. Campaigners were wearing masks featuring the face of their candidate, Shriprakash Jaiswal—the Congress minister who brought his own mineral water and mattress when he went to spend the night with Dalits.

  “We’ll go to some ’57 sites,” said Yusuf. What had happened in 1957? But he was speaking of 1857 and the mutiny against the British in the city then called Cawnpore, which had changed Britain’s political position in the subcontinent. Hindus did not like to wear cap badges made of leather or to serve overseas, and neither Hindu nor Muslim soldiers had wished to handle cartridges greased with the fat of unspecified animals, which had to be bitten open before insertion into a rifle barrel. A rise in nationalist or at least anti-European feeling, fanned by rumours that the foreigners were planning to convert the population to Christianity, caused a chain of military encounters and sieges across the north. In Cawnpore, British soldiers and civilians were massacred as they sought to escape by boat. The revolt ended with Indian defeat, the collapse of the remnants of Mughal rule and savage reprisals by the British.

  The events of 1857 left Britain aware of its weakness and vulnerability in India. Nervous of further rebellion, the number of European soldiers was increased and the remnants of the East India Company were replaced by a more regular structure of government, with Victoria becoming queen and later queen empress of India. Her first viceroy, Charles Canning, was worried by the “rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad” in the land, with members of the European community calling for “war to the knife.” He told the queen that some people said they wanted the execution of 40,000–50,000 mutineers and “a broad line of separation, and of declared distrust drawn between us Englishmen and every subject o
f your Majesty who is not a Christian, and who has a dark skin.” The queen shared Canning’s view that this would be impractical, and plans were made for a proclamation to the people of India. Victoria told her officials in London that the tone of this new charter should be conciliatory, and to:

  bear in mind that it is a female Sovereign who speaks to more than a hundred millions of Eastern peoples, on assuming the direct Government over them, and after a bloody war … Such a document should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence, and religious toleration, and point out … the prosperity following in the train of civilization.27

  This was quite a mental leap to be making so soon after blowing countless sepoys from the mouths of cannons, but it was to become the foundation of subsequent British imperial policy in India.

  We drove through modern Kanpur, past temples and mosques and leather and textile workshops, and chemical and soap and fertilizer manufacturers. The industrial city was huge. We entered the cantonment and came to the river, the Ganges. Trees grew inside tubes of latticed bricks, to make sure animals did not graze on them. On the opposite bank of the river lay fields of silt created by the monsoon, perfect for growing watermelons. As we walked over to “Musker” or Massacre Ghat in the shimmering heat, Yusuf looked at a building and said, “God, all this is new. Everything’s changing.” A Shiva temple had been put up by the site of Musker Ghat, and with it a large portrait of Mayawati. We left quickly; it was a grim place.

  After it grew dark we drove with Yusuf’s father, Idris, to a political rally. “It’s São Paolo out here,” said Yusuf. The headlights illuminated houses without electricity and the shapes of people. “We heard about India being an emerging economy,” said Idris, staring out of the windscreen, “but look at this. These people are just living.” He had a successful leather company, supplying shoe uppers for stitching in Europe and the U.S. He also did pet treats: the leather offcuts were turned into dog chews. We reached a street corner where a stage had been erected and draped in royal blue, the Dalits’ colour. “There’s no administration here,” said Yusuf, “only politics.” The ground was littered with rubbish and potholes. About a thousand people were present at the rally, many of them Muslims, who were being encouraged to shift away from other parties and to back Mayawati. On the stage, politicians were surrounded by banners and flags, and most were dressed in BSP kurta pyjamas. Armed security officers lined the stage, some sporting Bruce Lee T-shirts, and muscular men in blue caps ran through the crowd, pushing and shoving, keeping people in line, rousing cheers for Mayawati. It seemed exceptionally energetic compared with Congress rallies.