Opinion Fragility of stone

A second explanation — put forward most often by Mayawati’s detractors — is that this is the result of megalomania,pure and simple. Mayawati’s style is to tower above her supporters,not to be one among them. Kanshi Ram was older than many of his followers,and spoke to them as a teacher speaking down to his students,not as a comrade among his companions. Mayawati,although younger,maintains that hierarchy. The BSP is a highly centralised party,with loyalty to its central figure highly prized. And certainly,the monuments themselves,with their high walls and towering statues,invite awe,not camaraderie.

But this explanation is not compelling either. Mayawati is not the first leader in Indian politics to present herself as being above her followers,or to favour an authoritarian style of functioning. Indira Gandhi comes to mind as well. So does Jayalalithaa,or Bal Thackeray for that matter. Indeed,one could argue that authoritarian leadership on a grand scale is the norm in Indian political parties rather than the exception. But authoritarianism,even megalomania,in other figures in other political parties has not resulted in statue building on this scale.

A different — and to my mind a more compelling explanation — is the opposite of the “megalomaniac” thesis. Mayawati may be building statues to herself not because she is convinced of her own grandeur,but because she is preoccupied by her own fragility. These statues are a means to strengthen her position within and outside her party,not monuments to a strength that already exists.

It is hard to spot delusions of grandeur in Mayawati’s career. She has had more than the usual number of challenges,and seems far more conscious of those challenges than of grandeur. The earliest and perhaps most enduring challenge,given the routine social discrimination against Dalits,was simply to establish and maintain a healthy self-esteem. The second challenge came from within her own movement and party. Mayawati’s position as Kanshi Ram’s closest confidante and successor was not initially taken as a given,perhaps not even by him — it had to be established and re-established several times over,amid splits and defections in the BSP,and its parent organisation BAMCEF. A third set of challenges comes from the unstable coalition environment of Uttar Pradesh politics. Although she has been chief minister multiple times,her hold on power was not truly assured until 2007,when she won a majority in the state legislative assembly for the first time.

A fourth set of challenges comes from the unusually personal nature of political attacks on her. Mayawati has certainly not pulled her own punches in going after her opponents. Still,it is hard not to be shocked at the sordid or irrelevant nature of some of what she has had to respond to: at the physical attack at the Lucknow state guest house,at Sanjay Dutt’s tasteless “jhappi-pappi” comments,at Maneka Gandhi’s taking aim at her not being a mother,at the media fuss about her jewellery and purses. Hers is not the story of someone who could easily entertain delusions of grandeur. It is the story of someone who has constantly had to look for ways to overcome vulnerability. It is not surprising that her memoirs are titled A Travelogue of My Struggle-Ridden Life,and not “A Catalogue of my Triumphs”.

For a leader who sees herself as vulnerable,building larger-than-life statues is a way to create strength. It is a bid to claim the towering legitimacy that came easily to Nehru from his association with the nationalist movement and to Sonia Gandhi from her association with the Gandhi dynasty. Unseating the leader of the day is one thing — unseating a leader memorialised in 20 ft of stone as the sister of the oppressed quite another. It is significant also that she has chosen stone statues as her memorial of choice,rather than naming roads or universities or government programmes. Names can be changed,but it is harder to take over land and demolish statues. We know that already from the aftermath of colonialism. Queensway may have become Janpath,and Curzon Road Kasturba Gandhi Marg,but the legacy of colonialism remains intact in the buildings and monuments created by the British. It is from this perspective that the quantities in which these memorials are being built makes sense. A statue or two may be toppled by a new government. The Samajwadi Party has already promised to “bulldoze” them. But 60 statues and the sites that surround them will be hard for any government to demolish,especially when they are associated not just with Mayawati and the BSP,but with the empowerment of Dalits and subordinate caste groups more generally.

The unfortunate paradox is that a preoccupation with the survival of her legacy may also be a means to diminish it. Insecurity is not the basis of humane leadership. It can get in the way. Mayawati may have started from a position of weakness. But she now routinely appears on lists of the most powerful women in the world. She is the chief minister of India’s most populous state at the head of a single-party majority government. She was,and will probably remain in the future,a viable candidate for prime minister of the world’s largest democracy. Why not lead from a position of strength and the generosity of spirit that goes along with it? That would surely produce memorials too — but those might be memorials that honour larger achievements,rather than standing as achievements in themselves.

The writer,an associate professor at New York University,has been studying identity politics in north India for more than a decade. express@expressindia.com