If the new awakened culture is really committed to representation to marginalised identities, they will not find an alternative better than Mayawati.
I am yet to meet a savarna feminist who admires Mayawati. I will cite merely two incidents that have reassured my faith that caste trumps gender and other progressive politics.
A few years ago, at an event at Yale University, I was invited to be on a panel discussing parliamentary elections and parties. The conversation was plotted in the colonial-Brahminical discourse of Hindu-Muslim dichotomy. The panel included savarnas and a tribal woman activist. After the event, the woman panelists insisted on having a feminist viewpoint on the Indian elections. They criticised the Modi government for its failure to give fair representation to women.
Some of the people present were the kind who are morning liberals, afternoon progressives, night-time radicals —and full-time casteist chauvinists. Then the topic moved to Dalits. They decried the state of Dalit politics in unison.
I held forth on my views on the political culture around Dalits and the faith in one of its juggernauts, Mayawati.
As soon as they heard the “M” word, they burst forth in famished dissonance. The tribal activist from the Northeast said: “Mayawati is such a bad influence. She is corrupt and inefficient.” The women feminists and liberal male-feminists agreed.
I asked what the proof was for such accusations. No one had a response. The activist conceded she didn’t know much about mainland Indian politics, but had definitive views on Mayawati.
