Surprised by the title? Bound to be, I was myself surprised before the idea really sank in my head. It came as a flash and once I started analyzing it, I thought why not it makes perfect sense and it’s logical. Let’s analyze it critically. Bahujan Samaj Party started as savior of downtrodden people. It mobilized, organized and united the bahujan samaj under one umbrella of blue elephant and eventually became a power to reckon with. But like every idea or product it hit the barrier where each idea and product has to reinvent itself to grow. Mayawati became a powerful leader in UP but not powerful enough to run the state alone, she always needed support. So, what ensues is, often termed as social reengineering, she joined hands with upper caste Brahmins to take absolute majority in UP. It’s ironic that Mayawati eventually became leader of bahu jan samaj rather than bahujan (low caste) samaj, but its perfectly logical. Now how it is logical? If we look back and analyze our evolution we always choose the rational option in a situation [game] (preferably a choice that ends in the NASH equilibrium (assuming it exists)) which was economically beneficial to us. Yeah it can be argued that moral, social, and political bents influenced the choices in short run but in the long run we returned to the mean (i.e. choose economically beneficial options). The eye popping or hard do digest part is some times these choices can be out of characteristic to how world around the decision maker perceives decision maker ( now this explains the surprise at title)
How the rise of Mayawati is beneficial to us? Mayawati’s ambition, like every politician worth his salt, is to become Prime Minister of India. Next road block she faces in pursuit of her ambition is, how with a party who has base in handful of states she can become a prime minister. She has two options: one, start working in the direction of increasing the base of her party; other, become very strong in hindi speaking states and wait for hung parliament. In both options she will have to choose the options which will make her more accommodating and cosmopolitan. Therein lies good news for us; by growing as a politician she offers a real third front to India which is neither too leftist nor too rightist. We need someone at top who acts like baniya, free of historical baggage, free of feudal mindset, and who has worked her/his way up. I can see questions regarding her credentials for the post of PM. I think as long as she is able to build a good team she would do all right. Prime example is Lalu; Lalu is only Indian politician invited by Ivy league Management Schools for management lessons. The real guy behind turnaround of Indian railway is one smart bureaucrat with a bit of Revenue Management. Other example is from my personal experience. I hail form a rural Himalyan village in Kumaon hills. In my village we had a primary school founded in year 1885. We were fighting to make it a high school for 50 years after independence. In two months of her reign as CM Maywati made it a Inter College. My point here is if you are free of baggage decision making is quick and that’s what we need.
