In Defence of Mayawati | BSP is Fully Entitled to Alter Tactics to Stay Relevant

Kanshi Ram often said that power dynamics between alliances were the main variable, not whom the alliance was with.

Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo, Mayawati.

(Photo: PTI)

The general elections for the 18th Lok Sabha have concluded, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has managed to cling on to power with help from its NDA (National Democratic Party) allies. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, considered its bastion, the BJP has lost major ground. Electoral analysis has focused on the spirited campaign from the opposition INDIA bloc as well as the rising appeal of Rahul Gandhi.

There has also been a spotlight on the role of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). While it did not win any seats, it secured a 9.39 percent vote share. This is below the BSP’s usual showing but still impressive considering it fought alone in an election where the entire focus was to make it a bipolar context between the BJP-NDA and ‘everyone else’.

There has been much speculation about how Mayawati’s strategy impacted results, especially in UP. One article claimed the BSP votes helped the BJP. Another has claimed the opposite: that the BSP in fact unintentionally helped the INDIA bloc. While the articles may not agree on who ultimately benefitted, they both represent perspectives widely circulated on social media that insinuate that the BSP electoral strategy was to operate as a ‘B-team’ of the BJP. 

On 5 June, Mayawati, as usual, released her post-poll press statement. In an almost 2-page long document, she mentioned many points. She criticised the long election in such a harsh summer, flagged concerns about the ‘free and fair’ election process, underlined the BSP’s ethos and ideology, and thanked her core voters. She ended with a couple of lines lamenting the lack of support from Muslims and suggesting that in the future, the BSP will give representation to them only after careful consideration. 

These last lines of the statement, along with a tweet, the same day, extending warm wishes to Yogi Adityanath on his birthday, seemed to confirm rumours for many, especially Savarna commentators, that Mayawati was indeed the BJP’s B-team. Here she was blaming Muslims while extending wishes to the UP CM, whose aggressive regime has othered them in unprecedented ways. How else was this to be interpreted? 

Well, for starters, Mayawati has been, for years, extending courtesy birthday greetings and wishes on political success to a wide range of political personalities, from Modi, Mamata Banerjee, and Stalin to even Akhilesh Yadav. So maybe there is not much to read into the birthday wishes tweet. What about other issues? Let us take them one by one and contextualise them.

Why Did the BSP Avoid the INDIA Bloc?

In her 5 June statement, Mayawati once again reiterated that the BSP is not just a political party, It is a movement. It was forged from an extraordinary outreach, never seen before or since, by Kanshi Ram saheb. In the era of brutal caste massacres, overt endemic caste violence, and exclusion, he crisscrossed India, from urban centres to deep rural pockets. The BSP was the culmination of over a decade of groundwork and incredible sacrifices, made away from the public gaze, by tens of thousands of members of BAMCEF, DSSS and affiliated activists, workers, and cadre. At the centre of this political experiment was the idea that winning power via elections was the ultimate aim since "power is the master key" that opened all locks, real and proverbial, that kept the Bahujan Samaj in servitude. Getting that master key by any means (except violence) is the political philosophy of the BSP. 

This must be kept in mind when one looks at the BSP’s alliance strategies historically. It allied repeatedly with the BJP in the 1990s, despite the latter’s Brahmanical core, Ram Mandir movement, and opposition to Mandal Commission reforms. No one in the BSP thought that the BJP was a ‘like-minded’ party. The alliance was one of political convenience and one that was settled on the BSP’s terms.

Kanshi Ram had himself many times pointed out that power dynamics between coalitions/alliances was the main variable, not whom the alliance was with. He insisted there was no point in being in an alliance as a weak partner and often mocked such associations. If the goal is to win power electorally and effect meaningful social change for the Bahujan Samaj, then it would not be achievable as a weak ally. It is better to fight alone and be in opposition, build your base, and grow in strength than to compromise for a few toothless ministerial positions.

In that context, if one looks at the INDIA bloc, the Samajwadi Party actively advocated against the BSP’s inclusion within the bloc. With such hostile vibes, and given the electoral results of the past decade, it was clear that Mayawati was not going to be given a central space. After 40 years of the party that was born from a mass grassroots movement, to see it as a minor player would be a massive erosion of the ethos of its mobilisation. Any small electoral gains in its face would be inadequate compensation. The BSP under Mayawati has consistently refused to be reduced to RLD or LJP status. That dogged determination is what its core voter is still rewarding with a 9.3 percent vote share. It's an ideological vote. A vote for a movement that is bigger than the political party. It is a vote for the social revolution that stretches beyond elections that come and go. 

But if It is Still a Movement, Why is Mayawati Not Fighting More Aggressively?

One of the more pernicious rumours on social media for years now is that she is scared of going to prison under trumped-up charges. I find it hard to believe that a woman who cycled through caste-violent UP in the 1980s to set up a party is scared of spending time in prison. But even if that were the case, the anxiety would not be a personal one, but from the perspective of the overall movement. What happens to it if Mayawati is ‘incapacitated’? We are seeing the real-time implosion of AAP with the arrest of Kejriwal, and that is an elite-Savarna mobilisation with plenty of friends in civil society, politics, and even corporations.

What of a movement that is built from the margins, one of the only true de-colonial democratic grassroots mass movements in Asia that has never seen any love, support or understanding from hegemonic mainstream culture, academia, media, and civil society?

The BSP has always struggled with keeping its promising leaders within the movement. Ultimately, the lure or pressures or contradictions prove too much. From Sone Lal Patel, Om Prakash Rajbhar, and Swami Prasad Maurya, to even the charismatic RS Praveen, the BSP’s promising leaders have broken away periodically to join established political parties or start their own ventures, which negotiate for piecemeal morsels with bigger players. Under these circumstances, the icon and the ‘enigma’ of Mayawati are pertinent to the movement’s sustenance and viability. This may be its biggest strength or according to detractors, its biggest weakness.

Either way, it inevitably means her capacity for ‘bold’ political moves, which invite state censure, is limited. The BSP in its present form must find a way to succeed only silently and independently-electorally. Those are the constraints; take it or leave it.

Besides, the BSP cadre is unlike those of the bigger parties. Till even the early-mid 2000s, ethnographers may go and uncover narratives of how BSP activists were routinely persecuted, bullied, and subjected to brutal violence, including frequent murders. The situation may have changed somewhat now, but by and large, the cadre comes from very vulnerable spaces, and exposing them to litigation and violence is unjustifiable within the movement.

An interesting parallel is that of AIMIM. Although politically very different, social context-wise the care and strategy of their cadre is comparable to the BSP. Asaduddin Owaisi is a fantastic orator but he is very careful with the words he chooses. A content analysis of his speeches will show sharp critiques with a very conscious distance from anything that may be interpreted as a signal to the cadre for violence. An assertive Muslim leader cannot be seen doing that.

Even as the BJP’s leaders routinely give callous statements that may incite their supporters to casual violence, the BSP or the AIMIM, and similar parties have to be very careful about the tone and tenor they take. Their core base is vulnerable. It is, therefore, not surprising that Mayawati cut down her own nephew Akash Anand for using violent vocabulary in his speech. Akash, incredibly charismatic, had energised crowds.

But with the long-term goal of the movement’s health, it seems Mayawati took the tough decision to bench him “till he attained political maturity”- an interesting choice of words on her part. A more grounded Akash would be an amazing asset to the movement. An immediate election loss may be a small price to pay for the larger health of the movement. This is a nuance that Savarna commentators missed, and they immediately accused Mayawati of being a stooge of the BJP for reigning her nephew in.

Furthermore, the Buddhist core of the larger Ambedkarite movement is fundamentally opposed to violence as a philosophical means of exerting control. In the elite Savarna imagination, romanticised notions of revolution rest on images of street paramilitary cohorts stylishly ‘fighting back fascism’. The Ambedkarite model is more long-term and ‘boring’. Revolution is an intergenerational concept, not involving tanks and guns but rather built on developing community consciousness, empowering women, and educating the youth for success.

So Why is Mayawati Blaming Muslims?

‘Blame’ is a strong word. Mayawati’s statement says that despite attempts over the last few elections, the BSP has not been ‘understood’ by Muslims and she will give space in the future only after careful consideration. This article documents how even in 2017, the BSP strategy was to build a Dalit-Muslim coalition. 

The Muslims, especially in UP, are a particularly marginalised community. They have borne the brunt of hate speeches, state violence, lynchings and communal othering for the last few decades. In this light, how the Muslim voters, especially Pasmanda/marginalised sections, vote to protect their best interests is a tactical decision for the community. In a contested political landscape dominated by Savarna ‘Hindu’ parties, the political logic of how a marginalised community vote is theirs to decide. And their grounded community logic has to be respected.

Mayawati has tried for almost a decade to actively reach out to Muslims in UP and has not succeeded in earning their electoral trust. They have instead tactically consolidated behind the SP in the last two elections, backing it to be the party that can take on the BJP. This could be due to the failure of the BSP’s outreach strategies, the perception spread by Savarna media that the BSP is unlikely to ever be the main player due to its continuous projection as a ‘B-team of the BJP’, or owing to its Buddhist core, or something else altogether.

Observers can agree or disagree, but setting up Muslims and SC Ambedkarites against each other in a blame game is deeply unfair. Both speak for marginalised community movements fighting for space in an uneven political landscape, both have the autonomy to chart their best strategic course of action. It would be ideal if these converged, but if it does not, that is also fair and to be accepted.

The BSP, as a grassroots movement, must have its own right to alter strategies to stay relevant. If Mayawati has indicated a course correction after seven to eight years of outreach to Muslims, then it must be seen as just that– a strategic move, not as proof of some deep-seated Islamophobic agenda. 

The anti-BJP commentators would do well to focus on the surrender of the Congress in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and their inability to check the BJP in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi-NCR and Telangana. A little more intensity in these states would have surely kept Modi out of power. Perhaps that is a more relevant question to interrogate rather than this constant focus on Mayawati and the Savarna ‘virtue-signalling’ fantasy of fitting her into the kind of leader they think is ‘radical’.

The Bahujan movement, the BSP and Mayawati do not need validation certificates from Savarna commentators. It exists and always has, despite them.

(Ravikant Kisana is a professor of Cultural Studies and his research looks at the intersections of caste with structures of privilege and popular culture. He is available on Twitter/Instagram as 'Buffalo Intellectual'. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect or represent his institution. Further, The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the author's views.)