05-15-2007, 05:27 AM
Don't dismiss the 'Maya' of caste
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âA dispirited Hindu community is grateful that someone is acknowledging they exist and are grateful to be treated as a vote bank.â -- RR
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-- This is a very important observation. We must not forget it, ever. And as pointed out, there has to be an agenda: A Hindu agenda. A definition of what is being promised. And as Uma Bharati recently put it, as long as the Hindutva ideologues focus solely on Ram, it an agenda, incomplete. Ditto, if the focus is solely on roti. People have to rethink, reorient and recalibrate. This has to happen in conceptual, organizational and functional terms. And this is a challenge for, not only BJP, equally for RSS and VHP. For, if BJP were to sincerely recalibrate, its asynchronicity vis-Ã -vis its sister orgs would increase if RSS and VHP did not do the same. This is the most important challenge that the Hindu triad (RSS-VHP-BJP) has to face head on. And act upon it with thought, patience, and tenacity.
-- Nachiketa
13 May 2007
* * *
Excerpts:
==========================================
That Mayawati unabashedly went about publicly wooing the Brahmins instead of the Muslims seemed to unnerve media who were terrified of the new trend in electoral politics ushered in by Mayawati of dismissing the Muslims as a vote bank. The media which propagates the politics of minority-ism could not tolerate therefore the idea of caste over-riding the Muslims in importance.
Mayawati demonstrated that she did not care to palliate the media, did not care for media opinion about her, her campaign or her objectives. She demonstrated that she could do a u turn on convictions and dump 'manuvadi', 'communal', 'secular' from her lexicon, couldnât care less about what the media thought about her convictions or lack of it, demonstrated that all she wanted was to win the election and she went ahead and did it with a winning strategy and the devil take the hindmost about what anybody thought about her. She may have had no lasting convictions, no ideology, no grand vision. But she had the courage to state her objectives -- become the first Dalit, first Dalit woman Prime Minister of India, and if the road to Delhi was thru Lucknow, well she was going to travel it in her way, in her time and in her vehicle. These are the most important lessons that the BJP has to learn. People who dismiss Maya's caste calculations underestimate her intelligence. Mayawati wooed, not the Congress-voting Brahmin who is extinct today but the BJP voting Brahmin. This is the critical difference.
The RSS consolidated the Hindu community and the BJP reaped the benefits of the consolidation by promising to deliver on a Hindu agenda limited though the agenda may have been. Even then the BJP neither envisioned nor promised Hindu state power. The BJP reneged on its promise completely. It failed to deliver on any significant Hindu issue. It succeeded in many other ways but Hindus saw it as only reneging on the Hindu front.
The Hindu community as a whole turned to alternatives. A dispirited Brahmin community, a dispirited Hindu community responded to Mayawati's wooing although they have not realized yet that just as she didnât promise the Muslims anything, she hasnât promised the Hindus, the Brahmins anything either. A dispirited Hindu community is grateful that someone is acknowledging they exist and are grateful to be treated as a vote bank. They do not realize that they have been reduced to accepting the crumbs of politics. Mayawati has not promised anything so she has no compulsions or the moral necessity to deliver. This consolidation is ephemeral. It will come unstuck. And once again the Hindu vote will scatter in all directions. Hindus will vote without an agenda. The BJP has a lot of thinking to do. But this will not happen as long as the same tired faces and voices articulate the BJP's raison d'etre.
--
UP Elections: The persistence of caste
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/14rajeev.htm
========================================
Rajdeep Sardesai with his wife Sagarika Ghose waved his hands passionately and with an intense look tried to convince his viewers that the 'Muslims' were a part of the matrix that voted in the BSP'. That Mayawati unabashedly went about publicly wooing the Brahmins instead of the Muslims seemed to unnerve our 24 hr news channels and our secularists in the print media who were terrified of the new trend in electoral politics ushered in by Mayawati of dismissing the Muslims as a vote bank.
The media would like to perpetuate the myth that the Muslim vote is 'tactical and therefore capable of swinging an election and therefore wooing the Muslims, keeping them in good humor, offering them carrots, is a sin qua non of Indian politics. The English media which propagates the politics of minority-ism could not tolerate therefore the idea of caste over-riding the Muslims in importance. Therefore Rajdeep's angst. It was as heartrending as his sorrow when the President put paid to Lady Macbeth's ambition to rule the natives.
Now, Mayawati did the following --
She demonstrated that she did not care to palliate the media, did not care for media opinion about her, her campaign or her objectives.
She demonstrated that she could do a u turn on convictions and dump 'manuvadi', 'communal', 'secular' from her lexicon, couldnât care less about what the media thought about her convictions or lack of it, demonstrated that all she wanted was to win the election and she went ahead and did it with a winning strategy and the devil take the hindmost about what anybody thought about her.
She may have had no lasting convictions, no ideology, no grand vision. But she had the courage to state her objectives -- become the first Dalit, first Dalit woman Prime Minister of India, and if the road to Delhi was thru Lucknow, well she was going to travel it in her way, in her time and in her vehicle.
These are the most important lessons that the BJP has to learn. Who said you cannot do all this with a vision, with convictions and with firm adherence to ideology. The BJP could not demonstrate either conviction or courage.
It is no use saying she is merely reviving the Congress traditional vote bank. She is not and people who dismiss Maya's caste calculations underestimate her intelligence.
There is no longer a pre-Mandal Brahmin vote. The post-Mandal, post BJP Brahmin in politics and Brahmin voter is a political-minded (not the traditional bureaucratic) Brahmin.
Mayawati wooed, not the Congress-voting Brahmin who is extinct today but the BJP voting Brahmin. This is the critical difference.
The Deccan Chronicle is seeing only half the truth. The truth it doesnât want to utter explicitly is that the RSS consolidated the Hindu community and the BJP reaped the benefits of the consolidation by promising to deliver on a Hindu agenda limited though the agenda may have been. Even then the BJP neither envisioned nor promised Hindu state power.
The BJP reneged on its promise completely. It failed to deliver on any significant Hindu issue. It succeeded in many other ways but Hindus saw it as only reneging on the Hindu front.
The Hindu community as a whole turned to alternatives. The post-Mandal Brahmins across the country, the Brahmins of anti-Brahmin/anti-Hindu Dravidian Tamil Nadu grabbed the idea of a Hindu BJP, a Brahmin Jayalalithha with both hands. Both let the Brahmins and the Hindus down.
A dispirited Brahmin community, a dispirited Hindu community responded to Mayawati's wooing although they have not realized yet that just as she didnât promise the Muslims anything, she hasnât promised the Hindus, the Brahmins anything either.
A dispirited Hindu community is grateful that someone is acknowledging they exist and are grateful to be treated as a vote bank.
They do not realize that they have been reduced to accepting the crumbs of politics. Mayawati has not promised anything so she has no compulsions or the moral necessity to deliver. This consolidation is ephemeral. It will come unstuck. And once again the Hindu vote will scatter in all directions. Hindus will vote without an agenda.
The BJP has a lot of thinking to do. But this will not happen as long as the same tired faces and voices articulate the BJP's raison d'etre.
Maya wants quota for upper caste poor
Agencies (Indian Express, May 13, 2007)
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=86410
Lucknow, May 13: Uttar Pradesh's new Chief Minister Mayawati strongly favoured reservation for economically weaker sections among the upper castes and religious minorities.
At her first press conference after taking over as Chief Minister, she also gave a strong message to her opponents that the BSP government would not brook communal violence and withdraw security of 'criminal elements' and came out in support of reservations for economically backward sections.
In keeping with her new social engineering she effected before the elections, Mayawati said she was for reservation for poor among the upper castes and the religious minorities in the interest of their uplift.
"If the Centre brings an amendment (to the law) providing for reservation for poor among the upper castes and the religious minorities we will welcome it. If not not, then we will take our own measures to help these weaker sections in Uttar Pradesh," she said.
In a clear reference to the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav's government, she announced that all the decisions taken by it since February after the elections were declared have been scrapped and a probe ordered into it.
"All investigations into these decisions will be done without any political vendetta," the BSP supremo said but made it clear that no leniency will be shown against the guilty.
The Industrial Development Council set up by the previous government will be scrapped and a new policy evolved.
* * *
COMMENT:
Subject: Re: Maya wants quota for upper caste poor; will BJP learn a lesson?
Mayawati is systematically thwarting Hindu state power by reducing Hindus to a vote bank by offering them the same sops as secular polity continues to offer 'scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities and women'. This is a trap.
Sops cover up the absence of a larger agenda or as in Mayawati's case, cloathes her towering personal ambition bereft of national commitment. She has consolidated the Hindu vote not to deliver on a Hindu agenda but to reduce Hindus to a vote bank. I think it is retrogressive and dangerous for us.
- - - - - - - -
âA dispirited Hindu community is grateful that someone is acknowledging they exist and are grateful to be treated as a vote bank.â -- RR
- - - - - - - -
-- This is a very important observation. We must not forget it, ever. And as pointed out, there has to be an agenda: A Hindu agenda. A definition of what is being promised. And as Uma Bharati recently put it, as long as the Hindutva ideologues focus solely on Ram, it an agenda, incomplete. Ditto, if the focus is solely on roti. People have to rethink, reorient and recalibrate. This has to happen in conceptual, organizational and functional terms. And this is a challenge for, not only BJP, equally for RSS and VHP. For, if BJP were to sincerely recalibrate, its asynchronicity vis-Ã -vis its sister orgs would increase if RSS and VHP did not do the same. This is the most important challenge that the Hindu triad (RSS-VHP-BJP) has to face head on. And act upon it with thought, patience, and tenacity.
-- Nachiketa
13 May 2007
* * *
Excerpts:
==========================================
That Mayawati unabashedly went about publicly wooing the Brahmins instead of the Muslims seemed to unnerve media who were terrified of the new trend in electoral politics ushered in by Mayawati of dismissing the Muslims as a vote bank. The media which propagates the politics of minority-ism could not tolerate therefore the idea of caste over-riding the Muslims in importance.
Mayawati demonstrated that she did not care to palliate the media, did not care for media opinion about her, her campaign or her objectives. She demonstrated that she could do a u turn on convictions and dump 'manuvadi', 'communal', 'secular' from her lexicon, couldnât care less about what the media thought about her convictions or lack of it, demonstrated that all she wanted was to win the election and she went ahead and did it with a winning strategy and the devil take the hindmost about what anybody thought about her. She may have had no lasting convictions, no ideology, no grand vision. But she had the courage to state her objectives -- become the first Dalit, first Dalit woman Prime Minister of India, and if the road to Delhi was thru Lucknow, well she was going to travel it in her way, in her time and in her vehicle. These are the most important lessons that the BJP has to learn. People who dismiss Maya's caste calculations underestimate her intelligence. Mayawati wooed, not the Congress-voting Brahmin who is extinct today but the BJP voting Brahmin. This is the critical difference.
The RSS consolidated the Hindu community and the BJP reaped the benefits of the consolidation by promising to deliver on a Hindu agenda limited though the agenda may have been. Even then the BJP neither envisioned nor promised Hindu state power. The BJP reneged on its promise completely. It failed to deliver on any significant Hindu issue. It succeeded in many other ways but Hindus saw it as only reneging on the Hindu front.
The Hindu community as a whole turned to alternatives. A dispirited Brahmin community, a dispirited Hindu community responded to Mayawati's wooing although they have not realized yet that just as she didnât promise the Muslims anything, she hasnât promised the Hindus, the Brahmins anything either. A dispirited Hindu community is grateful that someone is acknowledging they exist and are grateful to be treated as a vote bank. They do not realize that they have been reduced to accepting the crumbs of politics. Mayawati has not promised anything so she has no compulsions or the moral necessity to deliver. This consolidation is ephemeral. It will come unstuck. And once again the Hindu vote will scatter in all directions. Hindus will vote without an agenda. The BJP has a lot of thinking to do. But this will not happen as long as the same tired faces and voices articulate the BJP's raison d'etre.
--
UP Elections: The persistence of caste
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/14rajeev.htm
========================================
Rajdeep Sardesai with his wife Sagarika Ghose waved his hands passionately and with an intense look tried to convince his viewers that the 'Muslims' were a part of the matrix that voted in the BSP'. That Mayawati unabashedly went about publicly wooing the Brahmins instead of the Muslims seemed to unnerve our 24 hr news channels and our secularists in the print media who were terrified of the new trend in electoral politics ushered in by Mayawati of dismissing the Muslims as a vote bank.
The media would like to perpetuate the myth that the Muslim vote is 'tactical and therefore capable of swinging an election and therefore wooing the Muslims, keeping them in good humor, offering them carrots, is a sin qua non of Indian politics. The English media which propagates the politics of minority-ism could not tolerate therefore the idea of caste over-riding the Muslims in importance. Therefore Rajdeep's angst. It was as heartrending as his sorrow when the President put paid to Lady Macbeth's ambition to rule the natives.
Now, Mayawati did the following --
She demonstrated that she did not care to palliate the media, did not care for media opinion about her, her campaign or her objectives.
She demonstrated that she could do a u turn on convictions and dump 'manuvadi', 'communal', 'secular' from her lexicon, couldnât care less about what the media thought about her convictions or lack of it, demonstrated that all she wanted was to win the election and she went ahead and did it with a winning strategy and the devil take the hindmost about what anybody thought about her.
She may have had no lasting convictions, no ideology, no grand vision. But she had the courage to state her objectives -- become the first Dalit, first Dalit woman Prime Minister of India, and if the road to Delhi was thru Lucknow, well she was going to travel it in her way, in her time and in her vehicle.
These are the most important lessons that the BJP has to learn. Who said you cannot do all this with a vision, with convictions and with firm adherence to ideology. The BJP could not demonstrate either conviction or courage.
It is no use saying she is merely reviving the Congress traditional vote bank. She is not and people who dismiss Maya's caste calculations underestimate her intelligence.
There is no longer a pre-Mandal Brahmin vote. The post-Mandal, post BJP Brahmin in politics and Brahmin voter is a political-minded (not the traditional bureaucratic) Brahmin.
Mayawati wooed, not the Congress-voting Brahmin who is extinct today but the BJP voting Brahmin. This is the critical difference.
The Deccan Chronicle is seeing only half the truth. The truth it doesnât want to utter explicitly is that the RSS consolidated the Hindu community and the BJP reaped the benefits of the consolidation by promising to deliver on a Hindu agenda limited though the agenda may have been. Even then the BJP neither envisioned nor promised Hindu state power.
The BJP reneged on its promise completely. It failed to deliver on any significant Hindu issue. It succeeded in many other ways but Hindus saw it as only reneging on the Hindu front.
The Hindu community as a whole turned to alternatives. The post-Mandal Brahmins across the country, the Brahmins of anti-Brahmin/anti-Hindu Dravidian Tamil Nadu grabbed the idea of a Hindu BJP, a Brahmin Jayalalithha with both hands. Both let the Brahmins and the Hindus down.
A dispirited Brahmin community, a dispirited Hindu community responded to Mayawati's wooing although they have not realized yet that just as she didnât promise the Muslims anything, she hasnât promised the Hindus, the Brahmins anything either.
A dispirited Hindu community is grateful that someone is acknowledging they exist and are grateful to be treated as a vote bank.
They do not realize that they have been reduced to accepting the crumbs of politics. Mayawati has not promised anything so she has no compulsions or the moral necessity to deliver. This consolidation is ephemeral. It will come unstuck. And once again the Hindu vote will scatter in all directions. Hindus will vote without an agenda.
The BJP has a lot of thinking to do. But this will not happen as long as the same tired faces and voices articulate the BJP's raison d'etre.
Maya wants quota for upper caste poor
Agencies (Indian Express, May 13, 2007)
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=86410
Lucknow, May 13: Uttar Pradesh's new Chief Minister Mayawati strongly favoured reservation for economically weaker sections among the upper castes and religious minorities.
At her first press conference after taking over as Chief Minister, she also gave a strong message to her opponents that the BSP government would not brook communal violence and withdraw security of 'criminal elements' and came out in support of reservations for economically backward sections.
In keeping with her new social engineering she effected before the elections, Mayawati said she was for reservation for poor among the upper castes and the religious minorities in the interest of their uplift.
"If the Centre brings an amendment (to the law) providing for reservation for poor among the upper castes and the religious minorities we will welcome it. If not not, then we will take our own measures to help these weaker sections in Uttar Pradesh," she said.
In a clear reference to the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav's government, she announced that all the decisions taken by it since February after the elections were declared have been scrapped and a probe ordered into it.
"All investigations into these decisions will be done without any political vendetta," the BSP supremo said but made it clear that no leniency will be shown against the guilty.
The Industrial Development Council set up by the previous government will be scrapped and a new policy evolved.
* * *
COMMENT:
Subject: Re: Maya wants quota for upper caste poor; will BJP learn a lesson?
Mayawati is systematically thwarting Hindu state power by reducing Hindus to a vote bank by offering them the same sops as secular polity continues to offer 'scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities and women'. This is a trap.
Sops cover up the absence of a larger agenda or as in Mayawati's case, cloathes her towering personal ambition bereft of national commitment. She has consolidated the Hindu vote not to deliver on a Hindu agenda but to reduce Hindus to a vote bank. I think it is retrogressive and dangerous for us.