That great democrat and outstanding British leader, Winston Churchill, once said that democracy was the worst form of government — except for those forms of government that had already been tried out.
His witty and somewhat cynical words come to mind while reflecting on the antics of a lady who has been much in the news lately in India and who is the chief minister of our largest state, Uttar Pradesh.
I am referring to Mayawati. She is what used to be referred to in the British days as an 'untouchable', until Mahatma Gandhi renamed them harijans, which means 'children of God'.
But they later found this appellation of Gandhi's too patronising and decided to give themselves a more militant name. So they are now referred to as Dalits, which in Hindi means 'to grind down'. Initially, they called themselves Dalit Panthers, after the even more militant Black Panthers in the US. But the 'Panthers' bit was later dropped. Many Dalits, like Mayawati, have no surname.
The practice of untouchability was — and remains — a terrible blot on Hinduism. It was a product of the caste system, the untouchables being the lowest in the social order. Bluntly put, they were 'outcastes', shunned by Hindu society, traditionally given the lowest kind of menial work to do, such as scavenging, cleaning latrines or making leather from the hides of cows (which are sacred to Hindus). They were denied entry into temples, and in villages had to have their own well for drawing water. Such was the public revulsion of them that even their shadow falling on a higher-caste person was supposed to pollute. So they had to keep their distance.
The forces of modernisation changed all this to a large extent. In a train or bus, an untouchable perforce often rubbed shoulders with those of caste. Hindu reformers, like Gandhi and Ram Mohan Roy, did their bit in eradicating — by law at least — untouchability.
In his ashram, Gandhi for instance used to house untouchable devotees, whose feet he would personally wash — and make high-caste Hindus do the same. Proselytising religions like Islam and Christianity also took many untouchables into their fold, as the untouchables found they were given greater dignity after becoming Muslims and Christians.
Nevertheless, when India got its independence in 1947, a sizeable proportion of the Indian population were untouchables (officially labelled 'Scheduled castes and tribes'). In the new democratic set-up, they were an important 'vote bank'.
Their most outstanding personality was Babasaheb Ambedkar, one of the main framers of the Indian constitution. Thanks largely to him, a policy of 'reservations' in government jobs was incorporated into the Indian system, the rationale being that since the untouchables had been discriminated against for centuries, there should now be discrimination in their favour to make up for it. This was a little like the policy of affirmative action for African-Americans in the US.
Ambedkar also converted many of his followers, particularly in the state of Maharashtra where he came from, to Buddhism. Most of the untouchables voted for the Congress Party in the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. However, the first Dalit politician to set up a large independent base was Kanshi Ram, who was actually born a Sikh. He was the mentor of Mayawati and died fairly recently.
Mayawati took his movement further, enlarging it to make it more inclusive, bringing in caste-Hindus and even Muslims. Her party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, recorded its biggest success in 2007 by winning the election in UP and coming to power.
But success went to her head. She had greater ambitions and talked about becoming Prime Minister of India. In the general election that concluded last May, she set up candidates, not just in UP but all over the country. Most of them lost their deposits. She was brought down to earth with a big thud. Democracy has a knack of humbling those who become too big for their boots.
However, this did not prevent her from displays of vulgar ostentation, which took the form of building scores of statues of herself and Kanshi Ram. She was also in the habit of decking herself with gold and diamonds and is rumoured to have amassed millions illegally.
A petition was recently filed in the Supreme Court, alleging that she has already spent an astounding 2,000 crores of rupees of taxpayers' money in building these statues and memorials to her glory. The Court has asked the UP government to reply to this charge. The great pity is that in many ways Mayawati symbolises the triumph of Indian democracy. She came up the hard way, from acute poverty and a caste-ridden society that looked down on her with contempt. Being a woman — and that too unmarried — was another major disadvantage.
Yet, despite these severe handicaps, she succeeded by rising to the very top in her state. That says a lot for her guts and determination. She has also benefited millions of her fellow Dalits, not just materially but in giving them pride and dignity as well. Democracy, however, demands more. It requires that the person whom it has helped to get to the top should also govern well and with integrity. Otherwise, it will bring that person down just as quickly. Mayawati, the democratically elected Dalit queen, faces her sternest test.
The writer is the former editor of the Indian Reader's Digest and Indian Express.
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