It is a joke that even Mayawati and Jayalalithaa want to become PM. It is matter to laugh about. A lot of people in Indian politics want to become PM, but if you look at the trend then Manmohan Singh is well placed to become the PM again.mani shankar aiyar, who started working for rajiv gandhi's congress even before he left the civil services, thinks mayawati is a joke. what does he take seriously, really? apart from serious sycophancy and slavish devotion to the leaders he chooses to follow? i mean seriously.
aiyar is the second person to call mayawati a joke. cho ramaswamy was the first.
Is this upper caste Hindu bias speaking? Chari refused it was. "I do not deny I am a Hindu and by circumstances, I was born into an upper caste family, but that does not make me biased. A person like P A Sangma could become a Speaker of this country's Parliament though he was from backward classes but that was purely due to merit," Chari said.the parivar likes merit. and that's what the other major national political formation, the congress, is also trying to say: that mayawati lacks merit. this common belief might be articulated differently, but what one shouldn't forget is that this is a commonly held belief.
louis dumont formulated the theory that the guiding principle of caste is purity. over time, it'd seem, this has transformed into merit. how does one define merit? merit, just as purity, is defined by the meritorious.
if mayawati is accused of lacking intellectual merit, one shouldn't argue that both indira and rajiv gandhi didn't even hold undergraduate degrees while mayawati holds multiple degrees including a b.a., a degree in education and another in law.
what's her agenda beyond caste? the two national parties have consistently brought into legislatures at both the national and regional levels, representatives who've consistently belonged to a select band of castes from each state. castes which don't make up more than 15-20% of india's population. arms of the state- the bureaucracy, the public sector, the judiciary and also the media- are all run by members of this select band of castes. what was nehru's/indira's/ rajiv gandhi's/vajpayee's/sonia's agenda- it wasn't/isn't caste?
she doesn't have a national outlook? isn't mayawati's entire career about expanding the narrow idea of the indian nation?
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True. What merit did the Gandhi family have other than being born in that family. What merit does Rahul Gandhi or Varun Gandhi or Rahul Mahajan have. Other than they being fair and good looking. That is another deep seated bias of the Indian people. Had Mayavathi been a fair complexioned lady they would have a different story about merit.
ganesh prasad,
yes, colour is another significant 'merit-enhancing' factor, as you point out. thanks for your comment.
I agree with the concern of the article. But I dont think Mayawati has the profile to be India's PM.
She maybe having the merit but that is not enough to be India's leader. Its not the job of India's PM to re-define or "expand" the idea of Indian nation. Thats the job of the cultural, political and social forces of India.
India's PM is the head of a bureacratic machine whose policies and actions are already bound by a well defined consitution. I dont think there is any need to expand the constitution - its fair and inclusive enough.
India's PM should be seen as a person who can run the state without any prejudice and with fairness. Mayawati who has built a career as being the spokesperson of "dalits" does not have the profile.
'Mayawati who has built a career as being the spokesperson of "dalits" does not have the profile.'
kiran,
your profile accepts the brahminical profile set by nehru/indira as the norm.
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