Indian low-caste leader says statues of herself reflect popular will

Published April 2, 2019
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati waves to her supporters during an election campaign rally. ─ Reuters/File
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati waves to her supporters during an election campaign rally. ─ Reuters/File

A powerful leader of India's low-caste community on Tuesday told a court that setting up dozens of statues of herself reflected the will of the people to honour her and others at the bottom of the rigid Hindu caste hierarchy.

Mayawati, an icon of the Dalits and a four-time chief minister of the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, has been an aggressive campaigner for the rights of the oppressed, vowing to shake the stranglehold of India's upper castes on politics.

As leader of the state, she spent millions of dollars on memorial parks featuring life-sized marble and sandstone statues of elephants, her party symbol, Dalit icons and herself, evoking figures from history who built monuments as their legacies.

Mayawati, who ended her last term in office in 2012 but is bidding to play a key national role in general elections this month, said the statues were built with the support of lawmakers who wanted to respect a low-caste woman leader.

“Certainly I could not go contrary to the wishes of the state legislators,” she said in a signed statement to a court that is weighing a request from her critics for permission to demolish the statues as a waste of public funds.

People attend an election campaign rally of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. ─ Reuters/File
People attend an election campaign rally of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. ─ Reuters/File

Mayawati leads the Bahujan Samaj Party that has forged an alliance with a regional group to pose a challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist party in general elections that start on April 11.

She called the case against her politically motivated and “gross abuse” of the court process, and asked why other parties' expenditure of public funds for similar causes had not prompted questions from her critics.

She cited the example of a $400-million statue of independence hero Vallabhbhai Patel that Modi inaugurated last year and which is nearly twice the height of New York's Statue of Liberty.

When she governed Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati blanketed hundreds of acres of prime real estate in Lucknow, the state capital, and elsewhere in pink marble and sandstone monuments.

The memorials are a major tourist attraction in Lucknow and entry tickets generate huge daily revenue for the state, she added in her statement.

Opinion

One year on

One year on

Governance by the ruling coalition has been underwhelming and marked by growing authoritarianism.

Editorial

Climate funding gap
Updated 17 Feb, 2025

Climate funding gap

Pakistan must boost its institutional capacity to develop bankable climate projects.
UN monitoring report
Updated 17 Feb, 2025

UN monitoring report

Pakistan must press Kabul diplomatically over its tolerance of TTP terrorism.
Tax policy reform
17 Feb, 2025

Tax policy reform

THE cabinet’s decision to create a Tax Policy Office at the finance ministry has raised hopes that tax policy is...
Maintaining balance
Updated 16 Feb, 2025

Maintaining balance

It must take a more proactive approach to establishing Pakistan’s bona fides.
Welcome return
16 Feb, 2025

Welcome return

IT is almost here; the moment Pakistan has long been waiting for — the first International Cricket Council...
Childhood trauma
16 Feb, 2025

Childhood trauma

BEING a child in this society should not be so hard. But recurrent reports of child abuse — from burying girl...