The scene is straight from a Hindi potboiler. Fierce-looking men, guns slung over their shoulders, have taken over Lucknow’s civil hospital. They are guarding the precious lives of Raja Bhaiyya and several other Thakur politicians who have sprung out of jail after the change of guard in Uttar Pradesh. New CM Mulayam Singh Yadav’s first decisive step was to withdraw the pota charges against Raja Bhaiyya. Shunted around seven district jails in the last 10 months, Raghuraj Pratap Singh or Raja Bhaiyya, the infamous king of Kunda, is now comfortably ensconced in the VVIP room of the Civil Hospital’s private ward.
The air-conditioner is on full blast and there’s an overpowering stench of decaying flowers. Boxes of sweets are being passed around among the hangers-on, ranging from henchmen to Thakur legislators. Even UP BJP strongman Rajnath Singh and SP’s Thakur satrap Amar Singh have dropped by. Raja Bhaiyya himself is bursting with "plans" for the future. He soon expects to be a free man. "If Mulayam Singh offers me a ministership, I will not refuse," he says. He also fast-forwards to his triumphant return to Kunda, when he will see his heir apparent, born while he was in jail, for the first time. "The 60 kilometres from Pratapgarh to Kunda will be crowded with revellers. It will be Holi and Diwali together. See it with your own eyes."
So will the Thakurs now wreak vengeance on Sushri Mayawati, a ‘mere’ Dalit woman who dared to take on the mighty men? "Why should we dirty our hands by touching her? I don’t believe in violence. Mayawati will be finished by her own deeds," says Raja Bhaiyya. Meanwhile, there are reports that the district magistrate who had taken on the raja has fled the area and Dalits are again keeping their heads low. "I give you a guarantee that no Dalit will be touched. If fear was the basis of my popularity, then shouldn’t Dawood and Veerappan have been forming governments?" Raja Bhaiyya asks mockingly. There’s a punchline as well: "Hindi film ne Thakur ko khalnayak bana diya hai (Hindi films have made villains out of Thakurs )."
Many Dalits do say real life in parts of Uttar Pradesh is not very different from reel life. Says Chandra Bhan Prasad, prominent activist and columnist: "The times have changed and the Dalit is no longer a silent victim, but the social composition of the new alliance fills them with apprehensions." Indeed, the Mulayam Singh dispensation represents the combination of traditional Thakur power with the land-owning muscle of the Jats and backward castes like the Yadavs, Lodhs and Kurmis. Predicts a senior police officer in Lucknow: "The goons could all be unleashed. One good thing that Mayawati did was to put some of the lumpen elements behind bars."
It was the Yadavs and the Thakurs who exulted at Mayawati’s exit. Many Dalits now fear a backlash. Along with Mayawati, her village, Badalpur, also lost power. The 24-hour electricity provided to Badalpur when she was CM was snapped the day she quit. Upper caste bureaucrats who were at the receiving end during her reign have vowed to expose Mayawati.
Now the big boys have all ganged up against Behenji. Her MLAs are deserting her, the CBI is on her back in the Taj corridor scam, her closest officials have stabbed her in the back, and Mayawati herself has retreated behind the fortress-like walls of her Mall Avenue home in Lucknow.Ganga Prasad, a bsp worker who acts as gate-keeper, asks: "Kya faida hai unse milne ka (what’s the point of meeting her)? All journalists write lies about her in any case."
She now spends hours at home and only emerges out with a posse of security guards. Sources say, after two attacks on her in the past, she tends to be paranoid about personal security. The fact she has even resigned her seat in the assembly is believed to be a manifestation of that fear.
Few politicians, after all, made as many enemies—and so imperiously—as Mayawati has. Rashtriya Kranti Party president Kalyan Singh has this take: "If she is afraid, it is only because her sins have caught up with her. Her politics has only rendered the Dalits vulnerable. The Dalits will have to forge a new social alliance with other castes now." Preoccupied with proving his majority and the demands of so many allies, Mulayam Singh brushes away all talk of politics of revenge: "If Dalits are afraid, they don’t need to be. I am here to save them. I am everyone’s CM unlike Mayawati who represented just one section." Would he like to see Mayawati behind bars? "She is not my concern. Ask the CBI and the courts."
Om Prakash Singh, a prominent backward leader in the BJP, gives a colorful analogy to describe Mayawati’s politics. "If you want to become the dada (goon) of the neighbourhood, the best way is to drag the current dada and bash him up in the public square. That is exactly what she did. She has many enemies but she also has the most loyal vote-bank of all Uttar Pradesh parties." So while Mayawati may be down, she is certainly not out of the political game. If an alliance with the Congress materialises, then she can certainly be expected to steal some of Mulayam’s minority vote to shore up her loyal 21 per cent voteshare.
Mayawati was keen to snap ties with the BJP and go for early elections in UP, it is said, because she believed she could push up her vote to nearly 30 per cent by making inroads among the Most Backward Castes and Muslims. Now that the advantage of incumbency has slipped out of her hands, Mulayam Singh can be expected to consolidate his position in the coming months. But the complex caste kaleidoscope of Uttar Pradesh makes it inevitable that Mayawati will live to fight another day.
By Saba Naqvi Bhaumik and Sutapa Mukerjee in Lucknow
