Cases kursi ke

A legal bonanza for Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh as Mayawati smashes not one, not two, but a 137 legal cases against him on charges of doctoring BSP tapes. The legal tu tu main main between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party mirrors the battle of political rallies. If Maya musters a massive 400,000 for her recent pardafash rally, then the Samajwadi didn’t do too badly with its ‘thu thu’ rally earlier this year. If Mayawati launches the ‘dhikkar’ rally, then the Samajwadi Party says it plans to launch its own ‘cycle rally’ later this month. The vast crowds that regularly turn up for the rallies, whether in bitter cold wave conditions or in searing heat, seem to indicate that in India’s largest state where human development indicators are dismal, politics has come to completely dominate civil society. There have been arguments that the reasons for the dominance of politics lies in UP’s mass unemployment or in the fact that the state was the cradle of the freedom movement. But, whatever the reasons, as far as UP is concerned, it’s a case of satte pe satta.

In this surcharged atmosphere of personality-dominated politics, third-time chief minister Mayawati has shown that she is today totally confident about deploying the instruments of state power. This is a power that has been used against the bureaucracy, against political rivals like Raja Bhaiyya and Mulayam Singh and it is a power that is demonstrably intended to impress her constituents. Mayawati may be opposed to the laws of Manu but makes easy use of the laws of the Indian Constitution to pummel her opponents — 137 legal cases is power as divine dharma-astra, power as folk theatre designed to cow down rivals and stun followers by its epic scope and glittering rhetoric. While in her previous tenures as chief minister, she may have been hampered by her dependence on her allies today, the sheer size and receptivity of her vote bank, gives her a ruthlessness that she earlier did not possess.

The fact that the BJP at the Centre is simply standing by and watching, shows how wary it is of antagonising her. And the Congress, hopeful perhaps of gaining from the weakening of Mulayam Singh, is also conspicuously silent. Yet Mayawati’s ruthless politics may turn out to be short-lived. Not only will it drag the state to news depths of political competitiveness, but also reduce politics itself to being a stand-up nautanki.