Maya tames Tikait: A victory for Dalit power?

STAR CAST(E): CNN-IBN panel debates the caste cauldron and the Maya-Tikait face-off.

            

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Maya for upwardly-mobile?

There is also a prevalent a feeling that Mayawati has not had a “transformative” vision for Dalits of UP. Only eight per cent SCs have become white-collar workers.

There is an intellectual deficit within the BSP. Many feel that the Chief Minister is focussed on the upwardly-mobile middle-class among the SC community; she has actually not had any material transformation but is just seeking to whip up the Dalit community by emotions and slogans and victimhood.

Prasad did not think that Mayawati could be considered in such a reductive light.

“If Mayawati could make Tikait apologise, this is a huge message of social transformation. People have now improved their lot a lot. It is a huge, socially crucial moment,” he said.

Pai added that there is more than one way of looking at this social transformation.

“One is that Dalits getting some sort of material benefit. But I think what Dalits have understood and gained from Mayawati is what they describe as self-respect and for them that is important,” she noted.

“Today, a Dalit can walk through a village, in some cases sit together with a Jat and talk to him. The kind of new social equations which are emerging are also part of the social transformation,” Pai observed.

The one word – when a word like ‘chamaar’ is used and you can threaten someone with arrest, it’s a fundamental act of empowerment.

Emotional angle?

While empowerment for Dalits is fine, if they are threatened with derogatory words, they ought to still move the court rather than take emotional stances.

Tiwari maintained that as for the upper-castes, the legal superstructure existed for Dalits as well, and they ought to take recourse to the same.

Unless the law is followed, one would keep getting trapped in casteist abuse and counter-abuse.

“The founding fathers of the Constitution abolished untouchability,” Tiwari reminded.

Maya’s maya

In the transformation that Mayawati has achieved, there is a lot she hasn’t done; material transformation may not have happened, but she still has done quite a bit in terms of social transformation.

Pai agreed with the assessment.

“Dalits can really look at Jats and other middle-castes in the eye because of her, because of the mobilisation and the identity assertion which has taken place in UP,” she corroborated.

“If there was a rule of law established by the Constitution, it’s only – really speaking – from the late 80s and during the 90s that such acts have actually been put into practice and have really been used,” she said.

Pai reminded everyone of one of the first things that Kalyan Singh had done on coming to power – instructing officers that the so-called Dalit Act should not be used so much.

“It was really used during Mayawati’s time. In fact, it’s supposed to have been overused. And it did empower the Dalits and give them a certain kind of self-confidence,” she stated.

It is precisely that self-confidence that has stemmed from the feeling that there is an umbrella over the Dalit community, namely, Mayawati.