FTN Blog: Bahuguna Joshi's words were horrifying, but not anti-Dalit

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Thursday was a day when we heard two kinds of words. On the one hand, meaningless words of diplomatic gobbledygook from India and Pakistan about "debracketing" and "cautious optimism". On the other hand, words of ancient violence, words that can turn our society into a warring landscape, primordial words that echo in our innermost subconscious and have created our society's invisible apartheid. "Chamaar" "Achhoot" "Shudra" "Bhangi".

On Face The Nation, we asked did Rita Bahuguna Joshi's words (Joshi herself being a Brahmin) become yet another example, or did they invoke the memory, of that ancient hatred that the Dalit has borne through centuries?

In fact, Congress state president Rita Bahuguna Joshi did not say anything anti-Dalit. In fact she said if the compensation awarded to a raped Dalit woman is only 25,000 then should Mayawati be given 1 crore of she is raped. Undoubtedly, her language was vicious, vulgar and violent but to be fair to Bahuguna Joshi, she did not deliver any caste insult. She did not use any of the socially violent words. She did not, for example use the word "chamaar" as Mahendra Singh Tikait had done, for which he was forced to apologise to Mayawati. Yogendra Yadav said correctly, that Bahuguna Joshi's words were certainly anti-woman, but they were not anti-Dalit. Yogen's words were wise: "IN UP, politicians do not know how to be politically offensive without being personally vulgar."

But the mere word "rape of Mayawati" was enough to conjure up the entire gamut of prejudice, to conjure up our inherited invisible apartheid of caste division, for Mayawati to sense that yes, this was a "Dalit" issue. Bahuguna Joshi was slapped in jail under the SC/ST Act, her house and car burnt by allegedly BSP goons. Mayawati made the bone-chilling statement, if the BSP workers had been out, Congress' workers would be "shivering like rats." Any perceived insult to Mayawati became a perceived insult to all Dalits.

BSP's powerful (although now apparently sidelined) national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra made a rare appearance on our show. He seemed unfazed when we played a 2007 statement of Mayawati making an equally objectionable remark about Muslim women. Kancha Ilaiah, Bahujansamaj scholar said that the spirit behind the words was certainly caste prejudice. Manish Tiwari of the Congress, also sensing a political issue, refused to use the word "apologise", sticking only to "regret."

Has the Bahujan Samaj Party under Mayawati lost its way? 2000 crore of public money spent on statues of herself and Kanshi Ram. Failing to create real development in the state. Giving tickets to alleged mafia "dons" like DP Yadav and Mukhtar Ansari. Once a party of ideology and vision, what or who does the BSP stand for now? Has what could have been the best example of Indian democracy become the worst example of Indian democracy?

Coming a poor third in the general elections, deserted by upper castes, forced to go in for pre-poll alliances with people like Bhajan Lal in Haryana when Mayawati was a strong opponent of pre poll alliances, its clear that the BSP is more vulnerable than ever before. The Congress strong showing in UP with its 22 seats must have come as a shock. Maya magic failed, Rahul magic worked. No wonder the Congress is Mayawati's main enemy and her main target is Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, particularly with crucial assembly elections in 2011. UP's politics is the politics of the akhara-as Congress and BSP fight to the finish, whats a burnt house or two?