Role of KANSIRAM and His Legacy to Mobilise National Liberation Movement and Mayawati returning to Dalit Agenda Once Again
Kanshi Ram's flawed legacy R1B
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| Maya reverts to Dalit agenda | ||||
| 5 Jul 2009, 0927 hrs IST, AGENCIES | ||||
| Apparently indicating return to its core Dalit agenda after the none-too-impressive show in Lok Sabha poll, BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday (July 4) said a Dalit would be the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in the event of her party being voted to power at the Centre. Articulating the party's dalit agenda, she said BSP's policies had not changed but it also aimed at forming an equality-based caste-free society in larger national interest. Mayawati, who successfully experimented with her social engineering formula by including Brahmins to win power in 2007 assembly polls, said BSP has already said if it comes to power at the Centre a Dalit would be made the chief minister of the state whereas senior party leaders like Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Satish C Mishra will be inducted as cabinet ministers. Targetting Congress-led UPA government, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister accused opposition parties of misusing money, media, mafia and judiciary to malign and damage the Bahujan Samaj Party's movement in the country. "Money, media, mafia and judiciary are being misused to hamper the BSP movement as apprehended by the party's founder Kanshiram. But undeterred by the tactics of opposition parties, the party would continue with its campaign to establish an equality-based caste-free society," Mayawati said during a convention of party functionaries. "BSP's founder Kanshiram was of the opinion that opposition parties specially Congress and BJP would misuse money, media, mafia and judiciary to prevent the party from gaining the power and his apprehensions had turned out to be true," Mayawati alleged. The BSP supremo said BSP would organise protest demonstrations across the state on July 22 to protest "anti-common man" policies of the UPA government. Meanwhile, BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra said his life was dedicated to BSP movement and the opposition's tactics cannot make him deviate from Mayawati's mission. |
Why the fetish for statues? SC asks Mayawati government
Email this story Why the fetish for statues? SC asks Mayawati government
Times of India - - Jun 29, 2009 NEW DELHI: In what could trip UP chief minister Mayawati's plans to construct grandiose stone images of herself, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and Dalit icon BR ... Mayawati and the 40 statues Economic Times Mayawati gets statue-tory warning from SC IBNLive.com I am a living goddess, says Mayawati Daily News & Analysis Mid-Day - Express Buzz Memorials, statues serve as an inspiration: Mayawati
Hindu - Jun 26, 2009 Four statues, two each of Kanshi Ram and Ms. Mayawati, were unveiled in the Kanshi Ram Memorial and the Buddha Vihar Shanti Upvan. ... Cong, SP slam Mayawati, want probe on statues' issue Times of India Critics want to pull down Mayawati, her statues IBNLive.com Mayawati defends statue-unveiling spree Hindustan Times Desicritics.org - Economic Times Mayawati to unveil 40 statues, six of them of herself
Times of India - - Jun 23, 2009 NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati is all set to unveil 40 statues — including six of her own — on July 3, along with the Kanshi Ram Memorial ... CM's parks guzzle crores
Times of India - - Jun 27, 2009 Likewise, Kanshiram Smarak will cost Rs 370 crore, while Rama Bai Rally Sthal would come up at a cost of Rs 65 crore. The latest addition, Buddha Vihar Park ... EDITORIAL COMMENT | Maya's Theme
Times of India - Jun 19, 2009 Not content with building monuments to BR Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram, she glorifies her own image in statue-building sprees. No wonder Rahul wanted his ... Of natakbazi and building statues Express Buzz BSP targets Mahatma, aims to rattle Congress IBNLive.com Maya whips her horses to rein in Rahul b'day plans Expressindia.com
Memorials, statues serve as an inspiration: Mayawati
Mayawati to unveil 40 statues, six of them of herself
CM's parks guzzle crores
EDITORIAL COMMENT | Maya's Theme
Govt sees 'reason' in hc's gay judgment
NDTV.com 
The industry is pleased that the minister has not increased freight rates and has made important announcements like linking industrial clusters to markets, introduction of several projects under PPP mode and setting up of land banks for commercial use of railway land
Budget 2009 News
- Pranab may give more tax saving incentives in popular budget
- Rs.3,000-crore package for textiles industry
- Pranab all set take forward UPA's agenda
- Mamata plans grand schemes on a shaky track
- India Inc gives a thumbs-up to Mamata budget
- Mamata needles Left with Singur-Nandigram line, Lalgarh sops
- Mamata to develop 50 world class stations on PPP basis
- Railway Board chief sees tougher days ahead
- Banerjee silent on private players running tourist trains
- Kerala gets 8 new trains, two world class stations
Highlights of Railway Budget 2009
- No increase in passenger fares, slew of sops
- Budget proposals as they were unveiled by Mamata
- Analysis: Little to stem the rot in Rly finances
- Comment: Populist, but not popular enough
- Aircraft-style vacuum toilets on trains
- Janata Khana to have national and regional cuisines
- Rail tickets to be sold at mobile vans, post offices
- 'Duronto' trains for metros, major state capitals
- 50 stations to be developed into world-class
- Railways plans to invest Rs 40,745 cr this fiscal
Budget Exclusive
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Warning to Mayawati: Despite the BSP's poor performance in UP, it still continues to be the No.1 party in the state. Dalit vote is intact. But this much is clear: the shift from Bahujan to Sarvajan, to please the Brahmins, did not help the party. Rather, it scared the Muslims who deserted it in UP and voted for the Congress.
Mayawati must seriously re-examine her Sarvajan serenade. Any amount of pouring milk to the serpent will not stop it from biting you. Brahmins have no permanent party. They only have permanent interests. Did they not desert the Congress and go over to BJP earlier? And then kicked out BJP also? Brahmins will use BSP to protect their interests. Dalits stood by BSP. It is the Brahmins who betrayed her.
http://www.dalitvoice.org/Templates/june2009/editorial.htm
| Dalit's daughter should be made PM: Mayawati | ||
| PTI | ||
| Ramaipur (Kanpur), April 25, 2009
Voicing her prime ministerial ambitions, BSP supremo Mayawati on Saturday said a "Dalit's daughter" should be made the prime minister to ensure the uplift of the backward and minority communities in the country. "Unless the BSP government is in power both at the Centre and the state, the country and Uttar Pradesh will not progress," the UP chief minister said at an election rally in Ramaipur. Mayawati told the gathering that only if they vote to make a "Dalit's daughter" as prime minister, will there be development of the backward classes and minorities. "If you make a Dalit's daughter the Prime Minister, then UP will be famous in the entire world. If the BSP comes to power at the Centre, UP will occupy a special place," she said. PTI
I have been consistingly writing that Ambedkar Ideology is an ALTERANATIVE complete Ideology most relevant to Indian realities based on ECONOMICS as well as the Matreialistic Interpration of History. I see no contradiction in the basic concept in between Marxits and Ambdkaraite Idelogies. Marixsm as well as Maoism want REVOLUTION for Classless Society with withering away the State and Religion! Ambedkarite Ideology emphasises on the ANNIHILATION of Caste and denies the Manusmriti Hegemony and tries its best to kill the Brahaminical system!
What do ypu mean by Change?
Unless the system is not changed no Political change afford to sustain itself.
Kansiram tried his best to mobilise the Aboriginal, Indigenous and Minority Communities for the Liberation of Enslaved majority. But without getting the goal of liberation BSP, the OFFSPRING of BAMCEF, the social movement launched by Kansiram jumped in the ARENA of Caste Hindu Power Politics and contributes to SUSTAIN the Manusmriti Hegemony preemptin Ambedkar as well as Kansiram Ideology which insisted on National Liberation Movement, education, Awakening, empowerment, Social Justice and equality.
Thus, the followers of Ambedkar and Kansiram DEVIATED far away from the basic concept of MULNIVASI movement! Maywati tricks won`t help the BLACK Untouchables to liberate themselves however changes she makes in accordance to Vote Bank Policy respective to the success and failure of casteology and social Engineering.
Role of kansiram has to be revaluated once again if we want to go back to the Legacies of Ambedkar and kansiram!
Just look on United States of America. The Change could see a Black personality Brrack Obama in the White House but he has got a ZIONIST HINDU Team!
Look at Bengal, the marxists ruled Bengal for thirty two years but they could not Change the system and hegemony of Manusmriti system!
Change is Possible but we have to hold on the Change. We need our man at every point to sustain the Change! And it needs Leadership at grassroot level, expertise in every sphere of life and ULTIMATE EMPOWERMENT and Awakening! You may not get Justice or Equality behaving otherwise. charity begins at home! |
With this response BSP's statue politics has played out in full in TN far away from where it is unravelling at break neck speed with parties like SP threatening to demolish those statues.
Pursuing her Dalit agenda, Chief Minister Mayawati invoked party founder Kanshiram and reassured her voters that only a Dalit would succeed her. She also apparently cut to size the "Brahmin face" of the party — Satish Chandra Mishra. She announced that she would herself handle the matters related to the association of upper castes with her party and party general secretary Mishra would concentrate on the legal matters related to the organisation and her government.
Addressing a meeting attended by her party functionaries, including MPs, MLAs and state committee leaders, she reminded them about the earlier days of the BSP and also clarified that she has not showed any special favour to the Brahmin community.
Regarding Mishra, who was present at the meeting, she reportedly said, "He would now give 80 per cent of his time to the legal matters related to the party and remaining for the organisation." She added that Mishra had requested her to assign him the task considering the growing number of cases against the party.
She also reiterated that in the April-May Lok Sabha elections, the entire opposition had "ganged up" against the BSP, leading to a lower-than-expected tally for the party.
UPA failed to use Rs 72,500 crore for Dalits: Study
This has been underlined by voluntary organisation National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) after a study of India's budget documents.
Called the special component plan (SCP), the scheme was a strategy evolved way back in April 1975, envisaging that every central ministry must allocate funds from its annual plan for Dalits according to their population.
SCs today form 16.2 percent of India's 1.1 billion population. Therefore, between 2005 and 2009, the Congress-led government should have set aside Rs.129,000 crore for Dalits. But as much as Rs.72,500 crore was not earmarked, the NCDHR has pointed out.
"The figures of allocation are a mute witness to the history of denial of exclusion. It is not only for the last five years; this trend is observed for the last 28 years since the inception of the special component plan in 1979-80," states the NCDHR.
It points to the allocations in the interim budget of the UPA government in February.
"Out of 75 ministries and their departments, only 16 have allocated funds under the SCP. Out of these, nine ministries have allocated token amounts below five percent. Labour and employment, science & technology, bio-technology, panchayati raj and textiles are some of the examples," says the study.
But the NCDHR concedes that human resource development, social justice and empowerment, rural development, women and child development and health ministries did make allocations according to the Dalit population.
The SCP came into being in 1979-80 and only Rs.433 crore had been spent on SCs and Scheduled Tribes (STs) together in the 30 years before that.
According to the Planning Commission guidelines, these funds cannot be diverted for any other purpose.
The ruling Congress and its UPA allies that spoke of the common man in the run up to elections allocated Rs.15,280 crore for SCs in its interim budget in February while it should have set aside Rs.34,413 crore for this fiscal, says NCDHR.
"This is even lower than last year's allocation," points out the study.
"While the total increase in the plan outlay is 15.74 percent, it is unacceptable that at this critical time of financial crisis, the amount for the socially and economically vulnerable sections is drastically reduced. The amount denied is 55 percent this year!"
As envisaged by the Planning Commission of India, the major objectives of the SCP are:
* Substantial reduction in poverty;
* Creation of productive assets in favour of SCs to sustain the growth likely to accrue through development efforts;
* Human resource development of the SCs by providing adequate educational and health service; and
* Provision of physical and financial security against all types of exploitation and oppression.
DGP Vishwaranjan told PTI that two vehicles carrying around 25,000 detonators meant for blasts in the mines of National Mineral Development Corporation at Kirandul village, left from the Nagpur region yesterday for the village in Dantewada district,but only one reached the destination today.
He said that police has launched a search operation to locate the missing vehicle.
This triggered an explosion in the neighbouring Rajasthan Explosives Private Limited as well. "The explosions were so severe that both the factories were reduced to rubble under which 30 people were feared dead," they said. Relief and rescue operations are on in the Industrial Area and officials say the death toll may mount.
Maneka writes to PM, says she is concerned over Varun's safety
New Delhi: With the arrest of six sharpshooters of Chota Shakeel gang allegedly planning to kill the lawyer of Varun Gandhi, BJP MP Maneka Gandhi on Sunday shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying she was concerned about her son's safety.
"It is with the deepest concern for my son's life and safety that I write to you today," she said in her letter in the wake of the arrest of the gang members.
29-year-old Mr. Varun, in a separate statement, said while he was not personally intimidated by such cowardly threats, strong precautions must be taken to defeat the desperate designs of extremist elements.
"The Home Ministry should respond with the urgency and responsibility that behoves those entrusted with the safety of a whole nation," he said, claiming that it was a plot against his life by dangerous underworld criminals.
Delhi Police claimed on Saturday that the gang had come to the capital to allegedly kill the lawyer of Mr. Varun, whose case challenging the UP government's slapping of National Security Act against him for provocative speech was contested by a battery of lawyers, including Mukul Rohtangi and Sidharth Luthra.
In her letter to the Prime Minister, Ms. Maneka, Mr. Varun's mother and BJP MP, said that they should be kept informed of such issues so that "we can protect ourselves".
Source: PTI
CPI(M) to discuss Kerala issue next week
New Delhi: The CPI(M) on day decided to convene a two-day meeting of the Central Committee next week to consider the proposals of the Polit Bureau regarding party affairs in Kerala.
"The Polit Bureau has discussed the organisational issue related to party's Kerala unit. The Polit Bureau decided to convene a meeting of the Central Committee on July 11 and 12 to consider the proposals of the Polit Bureau regarding the party affairs in Kerala," senior party leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters.
The Polit Bureau on Saturday met here to find an end to the "disunity" in its Kerala unit and the open turf war between top leaders.
The two-day meeting was attended by CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, S. Ramachandran Pillai, Biman Bose, V.S. Achuthanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan among others.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was not attending the meeting.
The extraordinary two-day meeting comes in the backdrop of intense factional fight in its Kerala unit where Chief Minister Achuthanandan and party state Secretary Vijayan are on a war path.
Source: PTI
Ambani brothers may come together for prayer meet
Mumbai: Their fight, despite a family settlement of June 2005, may have reached the Supreme Court but Ambani brothers Mukesh and Anil are expected to come together once again-this time for a prayer meeting on their father Dhirubhai's death anniversary.
The country's richest siblings may join their mother Kokilaben at the family residence 'Sea Wind' on Dhirubhai's seventh death anniversary on Monday, family sources said.
Their mother Kokilaben who had negotiated a settlement between the brothers after they began fighting bitterly inside and outside courts just two years after Dhirubhai passed away in 2002.
Kokilaben, along with her two daughters and sons, is expected to lead the prayers.
The brothers would be coming together just days ahead of the mentioning of petitions of Anil and Mukesh's group firms by the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court judgement on a gas supply dispute.
Interestingly, the Bombay High Court while asking Mukesh led Reliance Industries to supply gas to Anil's group firm RNRL at a price much lower than that fixed by the government had asked the brothers to go back to their mother in case they failed to reach an agreement on the terms.
Source: PTI
Isro looking at 25 per cent revenue growth
Kolkata: The Indian Space Research Organistaion (Isro) is looking at 25 per cent growth in revenues this fiscal over Rs 1,000 crore attained last year, betting big on satellite launches and carrying space crafts of other countries.
Speaking on the sidelines of MP Birla Award 2009, G Madhavan Nair, chairman of Isro said, "Last year we achieved a total revenue of Rs 1,000 crore, this year. We expect a 25 per cent increase in revenues this fiscal."
Isro is also in dialogues with the US government for launching their satellites and is betting big on spacecrafts launches from other countries after the successful launch of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
"We are already in talks with the US for launching their satellites. Hope it will materialise soon," he said.
Isro earned Rs 1,000 crore in 2008-09, almost 15-20 per cent came from carrying spacecrafts from other countries and satellite launched on behalf of other countries.
"Our revenue would go up by 10 per cent if there is a new launch. We have not only matured in the technology of building satellites but have also established ourselves as a good service provider for other countries for building satellites and launching them," he added.
The reported delay in launch of an European Space launcher would help ISRO getting more customers from Europe.
"An European launcher has been delayed. This is one of the reason why people are looking at PSLV now" Nair said.
On Chandrayan II, the second moon mission by India slated in 2013, Mr Nair said there were concerns related to landing of the rover and subsequent impact management.
"Our first lunar mission has given us an substantial understanding about entering the moon's orbit. But ensuring the safe landing of the rover on the surface of the moon is an obstacle, currently.We are exploring other alternatives," he said.
There were also plans of launching a geo-stationary satellite within two to three years to cater to the Indian Meteorological Department's weather-change monitoring system, he pointed out.
Nair did not give any timeframe for the launch of India's first man mission to moon.
The first Mars mission by India was likely to be finalized in a year, but the project could suffer a setback because of the paucity of qualified manpower, he pointed out.
"The Mars mission could be delayed as there aren't enough scientific ideas coming through"Nair said.
Nair was presented the M P Birla Award 2009 for achievements in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, space science and allied disciplines.
Source: Business Standard
Mamata counters CPI(M) stand on EVM
Kolkata (PTI) Sharply reacting to the CPI-M's concern over functioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs), Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Sunday alleged that the Leftist party now wanted to revert to ballot papers as it might have found it difficult to "manipulate" the machines which were updated by the Election Commission.
"Now that the CPI(M) is comprehensively defeated in successive elections, it wants to revert to voting through ballot papers after probably finding it difficult to manipulate the machines which are kept under the custody of the Election Commission," Ms. Banerjee said.
The Railway Minister told reporters before leaving for Delhi that the machines had been modernised by the Election Commission which said it had been made tamper-proof. "Because of this, possibly the CPI(M) is finding it difficult to manipulate the machines in their favour."
Ms. Banerjee said she had spoken of voting through ballot papers a long time back, but at that time nobody attached much importance to it.
She was reacting to CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury's observation in New Delhi on Sunday that the questions being raised over the functioning of EVMs should be considered "very seriously", especially as many countries have reverted back to ballot papers.
Kanshi Ram
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kanshi Ram (Hindi: कांशी राम) (March 15, 1934 – October 9, 2006) was an Indian politician of Dalit Ravidasia Sikh background. He founded the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a political party with the stated goal of serving the traditionally lower castes of Indian society (that historically also included untouchables). He shared the BSP's leadership with Mayawati. Their leadership brought the party to power in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh in 1995, at which point Mayawati became the state's Chief Minister.
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| KANSHI RAM (1934-2006) 292 x 300 - 20k - jpg www.hindu.com [ More from www.hindu.com ] | dka'khjke ugha gSaA ij mudk dkjaok ... 150 x 200 - 10k - jpg bahujanindia.com | Manyawar Sahib Kanshi Ram Ji's 761 x 547 - 70k - jpg www.ambedkartimes.com | Fund collection: Kanshi Ram defends ... 150 x 175 - 5k - jpg in.rediff.com [ More from im.rediff.com ] | ... founder Kanshi Ram passed away, ... 400 x 330 - 42k - jpg in.rediff.com |
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| ... Kanshi Ram, makes a rare public ... 320 x 350 - 26k - jpg www.hindu.com | Kanshi Ram may have died because of ... 448 x 578 - 35k www.dailyexcelsior.com | Anjali : Kanshi Ram 200 x 178 - 10k - jpg www.kalachuvadu.com | ... of the party founder Kanshi Ram. 129 x 150 - 22k - jpg www.topnews.in | Booklet: Samajik Parivartan Ke ... 800 x 1199 - 304k - jpg www.dalitresourcecentre.com |
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| Kanshi Ram The issue is not that he ... 102 x 150 - 5k - jpg www.rediff.com [ More from www.rediff.com ] | ... when Kanshi Ram founded the BSP ... 189 x 250 - 15k - jpg www.indianetzone.com | << Kanshiram's tryst with Dalit ... 248 x 178 - 11k - jpg www.buddhistchannel.tv | BSP founder Kanshi Ram passes away 200 x 261 - 13k - jpg pratyush.instablogs.com | Manawar Shri Kanshi Ram Ji 202 x 258 - 7k - jpg bspindia.org [ More from bspindia.org ] |
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| LEADING CHANGE: Kanshi Ram and ... 351 x 351 - 17k - jpg www.hindu.com | Kanshi Ram's body was cremated at ... 180 x 180 - 40k - jpg www.whereincity.com | ... her bigger than Kanshi Ram. 100 x 112 - 7k - jpg visheshagrawal.blogspot.com | Kanshi Ram 275 x 226 - 113k - jpg www.tribuneindia.com | Vivek Kumar analyses Kanshi Ram's ... 494 x 648 - 29k - jpg www.ambedkar.org |
Untouchable politics and politicians since 1956
Kanshi Ram: from BAMCEF to the Bahujana Samaj Party
Kanshi Ram was born in 1934 as a Raedasi Sikh, a community of Punjabi Chamars converted to Sikhism. The family had 4 or 5 acres of land, some of it inherited and the rest acquired through government allocation after Independence), a small landed background is characteristic of many Scheduled Caste legislators but remains a comparative rarity for Dalits in general. Kanshi Ram's father was himself 'slightly' literate, and he managed to educate all his four daughters and three sons. Kanshi Ram, the eldest, is the only graduate. He was given a reserved position in the Survey of India after completing his BSc degree, and in 1958 he transferred to the Department of Defence Production as a scientific assistant in a munitions factory in Poona. Kanshi Ram had encountered no Untouchability as a child, and overt discrimination was not a phenomenon within the educated circles of his adult life. But his outlook underwent a sudden change in 1965 when he became caught up in a struggle initiated by other Scheduled Caste employees to prevent the abolition of a holiday commemorating Dr Anibedkar's birthday.'4 During this conflict Kanshi Ram encountered a depth of high-caste prejudice and hostility towards Dalits that was a revelation to him. His almost instant radicalisation was completed soon after by a reading of Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste: he read the book three times in one night, going entirely without sleep.
Kanshi Ram's introduction to the political ideas of Ambedkar - he has never been attracted to Buddhism - was through his Mahar Buddhist colleague and friend at the munitions factory, D. K. Khaparde. Together the two of them began formulating ideas for an organisation to be built by educated employees from the Scheduled and Backward castes. Such an organisation would work against harassment and oppression by high-caste officers, and also enable the often inward-looking occupants of reserved postions to give something back to their own communities. So Kanshi Ram and Khaparde began to contact likely recruits in Poona. At about this time Kanshi Ram abandoned any thought of marriage, largely because it did not fit into a life he now wanted to dedicate to public con-cerns. He had also quite lost interest in his career, though he continued in the job until about 1971. He finally left after a severe conflict over the non-appointment of an apparently qualified Scheduled Caste young woman. During this conflict he had gone so far as to strike a senior official, and he did not even bother attending most of the ensuing disciplinary pro-ceedings. He had already made up his mind to become a full-time activist, and the movement was by then strong enough to meet his modest needs.
In 1971 Kanshi Ram and his colleagues established the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities Employees Welfare Association, which was duly registered under the Poona Charity Commissioner. Their primary object was: To subject our problems to close scrutiny and find out quick and equitable solu-tions to the problems of injustice and harassment of our employees in general and the educated employees in particular.
Despite the Association's inclusive reach, its aggressively Ambedkarite stance ensured that most of its members were Mahar Buddhists. Within a year of its establishment there were more than one thousand members and it was able to open an office in Poona: many of the members were from the Defence and Post and Telegraph Departments, and their first annual conference was addressed by the then Defence Minister, Jagjivan Ram. Kanshi Ram's next organisational step was to create the basis of a national association of Scheduled Caste government servants. As early as 1973 he and his colleagues established the All India Backward and Minority Employees Federation (BAMCEF), and a functioning office was established in Delhi in 1976. BAMCEF was relaunched with greater fanfare on 6 December 1978, the anniversary of Ambedkar's death, with claims of two thousand delegates joining a procession to the Boat Club Lawns in New Delhi (BAMCEF Bulletin April 1979). Although the stated objects of the new organisation were essentially the same as those of the earlier body, the rhetoric had grown bolder. It was not merely the oppressors who came in the line of fire, but also many of the reserved office holders too:
As all the avenues of advance are closed to them in the field of agriculture, trade, commerce and industry almost all the educated persons from these [oppressed] communities are trapped in Govt. services. About 2 million educated oppressed Indians have already joined various types of sobs during the last 26 years. Civil Service Conduct rules put some restrictions on them. But their inherent timidity, cowardice, selfishness and lack of desire for Social Service to their own creed have made them exceptionally useless to the general mass of the oppressed Indians.The only ray of hope is that almost everywhere in the country there are some edu-cated employees who feel deeply agitated about the miserable existence of their brethren. (BAMCEF Bulletin 2 1974)
By the mid-1970S Kanshi Ram had established a broad if not dense network of contacts throughout Maharashtra and adjacent regions. During his frequent train trips from Poona to Delhi, he adopted the habit of getting down at major stations along the way - Nagpur, Jabalpur and Bhopal, among others - to contact likely sympathisers and to try to recruit them to the organisation (Kanshi Ram Interview: 1996). Once he had moved to Delhi he pushed into Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as well as further into Madhya Pradesh. Parallel to his work among edu-cated employees Kanshi Ram was also contacting a wider audience with simple presentations of Ambedkar's teachings. Thus in 1980 he put together a roadshow called 'Ambedkar Mela on Wheels'. This was an oral and pictorial account of Ambedkar's life and views, together with con-temporary material on oppression, atrocities and poverty. Between April and June 1980 the show was carted to thirty-four destinations in nine
States of the north. Jang Bahadur Patel, a Kurmi (Backward Caste) and President of the Uttar Pradesh Branch of the Bahujana Samaj Party until late 1995, recalls meeting Kanshi Ram for the first time when he brought his roadshow to Lucknow (Interview: 25 November 1995). Kanshi Ram talked persuasively about how Ambedkar had struggled for all the down-trodden classes, and how the Scheduled Castes, Tribes and also the Backwards and Minorities were all victims of Brahminism. Because of their weight of numbers, these people had the potential to convert them-selves from 'beggars to rulers'. It was all a matter of organisation. Patel immediately joined BAMCEF, though he was in a distinct minority as a non-Untouchable: Untouchables constituted about 90 per cent of the membership, with the other io per cent being split between tribals and Backward Caste people.
BAMCEF's motto, 'Educate, Organise and Agitate', was adopted from Ambedkar, and its activities were formally divided into a number of welfare and proselytising objects. But increasingly Kanshi Ram's agita-tional activities were leading him into politics. By the late 70S he was no longer content with being the leader of reserved office holders, a class for whom he had less than complete respect. Kanshi Ram's first attempt to create a radical political vehicle capable of mobilising the larger body of Dalits was the Dalit SoshitSamaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) formed in 1981. This was conceived as a political organisation parallel to BAMCEF: it shared the same President in Kanshi Ram, the same office, and many of the same members. DS4 was a quasi- rather than fully fledged political party, partly because government servants were forbidden to take part in electoral politics. But DS4 made little concrete progress, and late in 1984 Kanshi Ram took the plunge and formed the Bahujana Samaj Party (a variant on the name of Phule's nineteenth-century organisation). Inevitably, this caused major strains in BAMCEF ranks. Their agitational activities had placed many of his colleagues from the Poona and early Delhi periods in a delicate position as government servants and, in any case, the political loyalty of many of them was to the several strands of the Republican Party. There were also strains arising from Kanshi Ram's will to total domination of all three organisations. And the need for money was rising with the push into politics: one of the Maharashtra workers recalls delivering Kanshi Ram a purse of forty thousand rupees collected from Maharashtra in 1984. These several strains grew more severe over the next two years, and early in 1986 a major split took place. Kanshi Ram announced at that time that he was no longer willing to work for any organisation other than the Bahujana Samaj Party. His transition from social worker to politician was complete.
Kanshi Ram is more an organiser and political strategist than an innov-ative thinker or charismatic public speaker. While his Ambedkarite ideol-ogy has remained constant and lacking in any innovation, there has been a progressive sharpening of his rhetoric. The early issues of BAMCEF's monthly magazine, The Oppressed Indian, were full of his didactic exposi-tions of Ambedkar's views on Indian society. These have now given way to simpler formulations, repeated in numerous newspaper accounts and both public and private speech. The central proposition is that Indian society is characterised by the self-interested rule of io per cent over the other 90 per cent (the bahujan samaj or common people). Although the ruling io per cent is composed of several castes, they derive their legiti-macy and ruling ideology from Brahminism. All the institutions of society reflect this ruling ideology and distortion, including the press. These institutions can therefore be termed Manuwadi (after the great Brahmin-inspired text) or Brahminwadi. In the marketplace of elections, such simplicity has been further reduced to crudeness and epithet. A slogan coined after the formation of DS4 was, 'Brahmin, Bania, Thakur Chor, Baki Sab Hem DS-Four'. Loosely translated, this rhyme states that Brahmins, Banias and Rajputs are thieves, while the rest of society are their victims. The epithets reached their height during the election cam-paign for the UP Assembly in 1993, the most notorious being: 'Tilak, Taraju, Talwar. Maaro Unko Joote Char'. This slogan, with its insistent rhythm in Hindi, advocates that Brahmins, Banias and Rajputs, each identified by a slighting term, be beaten four times with a shoe - a tradi-tionally demeaning form of punishment because of the ritual impurity of leather. While Kanshi Ram and Mayawati denied authorship of such slogans, they served as a simple and dramatically offensive marker of the party's ideological position.
Kanshi Ram's strategy and his larger understanding of social change are now considerably evolved. He no longer believes in the primacy of social reform. Rather, expenditure of effort on any object other than the capture of government is seen to be superfluous. It is administrative power that will bring about desired social change, not vice versa. So he declines to spell out policies on basic issues such as the liberalisation of the Indian economy or on land reforms. His view is that such issues are irrelevant to the project of gaining power, and that the appropriate poli-cies will fall into place once power is attained. His picture of India is of a kind of holy war on the part of the bahujan samaj against their Brahminwadi oppressors. In the context of this war debates about policy are almost frivolities. This is a stance of pure fundamentalism, but it also frees him to engage in the most ruthless pragmatism in the name of capturing power.
Consistent with this stance, Kanshi Ram has become increasingly critical of the institution of reservation in government employment. Reservation is a 'crutch' - useful for a cripple, but a positive handicap for someone who wants to run on his own two feet (Kanshi Ram interview:1996). He now throws off the line that once the bahujan samaj get to power throughout India, it will be they who can condescend to the Brahmins by giving them reservation proportional to their own meagre population. There is more than a little bravado in this, but there is no doubt that Kanshi Ram is now hostile to the system of institutional preference that was the indispensable basis of his own personal and polit-ical career. It seems that he believes that reservation has now done enough for the Scheduled Castes. He notes that of some 500 Indian Admin-istrative Service (LAS) Officers in Uttar Pradesh, 137 are from the Scheduled Castes. By comparison, there are only seven lAS officers from the Backward Castes, six of them Yadavs (Hindustan Times, 6 April 1994). His point is not that there are now too many Scheduled Caste officers -their number conforms strictly to the legal quota - but too few from the Backward Castes. He apparently assumes that the capture of political power will automatically transform the composition of the bureaucratic elite.
The Bahujana Samaj Party first made headway in Punjab, Kanshi Ram's home State, but his primary political task was to wean the Chamars of Uttar Pradesh from Congress. It was Kanshi Ram's fortune that he built the party at the historical moment that the long-term Congress decline became a landslide. The formal entry of his party into Uttar Pradesh was in a by-election in 1985 for the Lok Sabha seat of Bijinor, in which its candidate was Mayawati. She is a Jatav (or Chamar), the daughter of a minor government official in Delhi, and had completed a BA and LLB from the University of Delhi. Mayawati had made contact with Kanshi Ram in 1977 while she was a student, and had gradually been drawn into his organisation. Her opponents in Bijinor included Ram Vilas Paswan - the two have had poor relations since this contest - and Meira Kumar, Jagjivan Ram's daughter, representing Congress. Rajiv Gandhi was at the height of his popularity at the time, and Meira Kumar won the seat easily. But by 1989 the Bahujana Samaj Party had put in five years of solid organising work in UP and also in the neighbouring regions of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, and parts of Haryana. And mean-while the Congress Party had slumped in popularity. Kanshi Ram had prepared the ground carefully. He had selected organisers and candidates from a variety of social backgrounds. One of his organisers was Dr Mahsood Ahmed, a temporary lecturer in history at Aligarh Muslim University. Mahsood had become disillusioned with Congress when Indira Gandhi made her infamous tilt towards the Hindus in the early 1980s (Mahsood interview: 27 November 1995). He joined BAMCEF and then switched to DS4 in 1983 as a full-time organiser and fund raiser. Mahsood was later put in charge of the whole of eastern Uttar Pradesh for the Bahujana Samaj Party.
The years of organisation bore fruit in 1989 and 1991. In the four State Assembly and Parliamentary (Lok Sabha) polls for Uttar Pradesh between 1989 and 1991 the Bahujana Samaj Party's share of the vote varied only marginally between 8.7 and 9.4 per cent. But this impressive vote produced a disappointing number of seats - in 1989 the party won thirteen out of 425 State Assembly seats, and in 1991 it won twelve. The party won only two Parliamentary seats in 1989, and one in 1991; Kanshi Ram himself subsequently won a by-election from UP in 1992. Both the strength and the weakness of the party is that its primary 'vote bank', the Chamars, are relatively evenly spread across the State. This spread gives the Bahujana Samaj a chance in a large number of seats, but also make it logically impossible to win even a single seat without strong support from other communities. Although it has attracted a measure of Muslim, Backward Caste and other Scheduled Caste support, it has encountered considerable resistance in these target communities. We need to look more closely at this problem.
First, there is the question of why the majority of Jatavs of western UP deviated from their kinfolk in the eastern part of the State, and continued to vote Congress in 1989 and 1991. The answer to this question is not entirely clear. Some have blamed the result on the poor organising capac-ities of Mayawati - she was in charge of this region - but the deeper reason may be the Jatavs' historical association with B. P. Maurya. In a move of some desperation, Congress resurrected the 70-year-old Maurya as one of four national Vice-Presidents in the run-up to the 1996 elections. But by then Mayawati had become an electorally popular figure in eastern UP. As to the Scheduled Castes other than the Chamars/Jatavs, only Pasis appear to have voted for Kanshi Ram's party in large numbers. The Valmikis (formerly known as Bhangis) voted solidly for the BJP in the 1993 Assembly elections, and the sole Valmiki in the Lok Sabha elected in 1991 represented the BJP (though in 1980 he had been elected for the Janata Party). Mangal Ram Premi MP - his biography is sketched in chapter 8- accounts for the Valmiki support of the BJP by simply advert-ing to the community's dislike of the Chamars (Interview: 4 November 1995). The Chamars are more numerous, better educated and more successful in acquiring reserved positions than the Valmikis, and this tends to produce resentment. Many of the Dhobis too have recently voted for the BJP. In short, Kanshi Ram's party has not solved the problem of how to mobilise all or even most of the Scheduled Castes. The problem that dogged Ambedkar has thus repeated itself in Uttar Pradesh, though Kanshi Ram's Chamars are both more numerous and numerically more dominant among the Untouchables than were Ambedkar's Mahars in the western part of the country.
Among Backward Castes, Kanshi Ram's strongest support has come from the Kurmis. In Bihar, this is an upwardly mobile peasant commu-nity responsible for several of the worst atrocities against Dalits. But in Uttar Pradesh the Kurmis are comparatively low on the scale of prosper-ity. Moreover, they have had a history of anti-Brahmin radicalism - Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur remains a source of inspiration to some of them. And a sprinkling of them had been members of the Republican Party. The Kurmis could see advantage in being associated with a party that was not dominated by the more numerous Yadavs (whose firm affiliation is with Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party). As to the large number of other Backward Castes in UP, over the last several years there has been an intense three-way tussle between the BJP, the Bahujana Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party to capture their support. All three have had some success, but perhaps the larger part of this vote is a floating one that will flow with the main political current of the time. The last community to consider is the Muslims. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Masjid the Muslims have been politically leaderless. They have shunned Congress for what they see to have been its culpable failure to prevent the demolition of the mosque, and have given considerable support to Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party and some support to Kanshi Ram. Thus in the municipal elections of Uttar Pradesh in November 1995 and in the national and UP elections of 1996 it seems that UP Muslims were prepared to vote for whichever party was locally the strongest anti-BJP force. In short, the politics of post-Congress Uttar Pradesh are currently cast largely in terms of community vote banks. Political strategy is a matter of positioning one's party so as to retain one s core vote bank and also attract others at the margins. At least as much as any other player, Kanshi Ram has adapted to this game with calculating skill.
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http://www.ambedkar.org/books/tu5.htm
Kanshi Ram
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kanshi Ram (Hindi: कांशी राम) (March 15, 1934 – October 9, 2006) was an Indian politician of Dalit Ravidasia Sikh background. He founded the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a political party with the stated goal of serving the traditionally lower castes of Indian society (that historically also included untouchables). He shared the BSP's leadership with Mayawati. Their leadership brought the party to power in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh in 1995, at which point Mayawati became the state's Chief Minister.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Early Life and Politics
Kanshi Ram was born to Bishan Kaur and Hari Singh at Khawapur village in Ropar district of Punjab. After completing his Bachelor's degree in Science (B.Sc) from the Government College at Ropar affiliated to The Panjab University he joined the offices of Defense Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), in Khadki, through a reserved quota for Scheduled Caste. Kanshi Ram was born in a caste which is included in the GOI SC list.
During his tenure in the Defense Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) in 1965 he joined the agitation started by Scheduled Caste Employees of Government of India to prevent the abolition of a holiday commemorating Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's birthday.
In 1978 he formed the, BAMCEF-Backward(SC/ST & OBC) and Minority Community Employees Federation. The BAMCEF was purely non political,Non Religious & Non Agitional organisation. Later on he formed another Social organisation known as DS4.He started his attempt of unifying the Dalit vote bank in 1981 and by 1984 he founded the Bahujan Samaj Party.
He represented the 11th Lok Sabha from Hoshiarpur Constituency , Kanshiram was also elected as member of lok sabha from ETAWAH (UP) . In 2001 he publicly announced Kumari Mayawati as his successor.
[edit] Last Days
From around 2004 or so, Kanshi Ram stopped appearing publicly as he was suffering from various health problems. He convalesced at the home of Mayawati.
On October 9, 2006, he died of a severe heart attack in New Delhi. Ram, who suffered from multiple ailments such as stroke, diabetes and hypertension, was virtually bed-ridden for more than two years.
[edit] Author
As an author Kanshiram wrote two books
- "An Era of the Stooges" (Chamcha Age)[2]
- "New Hope"
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Memorials will earn money from tourists: Mayawati (Lead)
July 1st, 2009 - 9:48 pm ICT by IANS
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Lucknow, July 1 (IANS) Seeking to justify use of nearly Rs.3,200 crore (Rs.3.2 billion) of public funds for building grandiose memorials and statues of Dalit icons, including of herself, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Wednesday said the money earned from tourists visiting the spots will be used for development.
"Since the monuments built to commemorate our ideologues would eventually come up as attractive tourist spots and would naturally make a lot of earnings through entry fee, I have decided to use all the gate money towards development of villages named after Babasaheb Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram," Mayawati told reporters.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief has ordered nearly three dozen statues to be built and installed in different parts of the city. The statues include that of Dalit icons like Ambedkar, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and seven of the chief minister herself.
There are five memorials also in various stages of constructions in the city and nearly 60 redstone elephant statues - the BSP party symbol.
Interestingly, the chief minister has decided to do away with the entry fee for the first six months.
"While visitors will be allowed free entry in each of these memorials for the first six months, the entry fee would come into place subsequently and that money would be utilised only for development of Ambedkar 'grams' (villages) and Kanshi Ram grams," she said.
The move was seen as a response to widespread criticism on misuse of public funds by Mayawati in building expensive memorials and statues in the state capital.
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The illusion of images
S. ANAND
| Mayawati's latest obsession with statues may cost the exchequer a lot, but her idolatory does not threaten the social fabric, feels |
Unveiling idols: Celebrating Ambedkar.
The statues Mayawati erects and the massive birthday cakes she cuts do not usually bother me. The same media that heaps scorn on Mayawati habitually and predictably, enthusiastically celebrates and participates in Rahul Gandhi's paternalistic a nd offensive gesture of getting the Congress cadre to feed Dalits on his birthday, and gleefully reports the gestural politics of his occasionally spending a night in Dalit homes. I am, in many ways, unrepentantly proud of Mayawati. Here's a Dalit woman who bears no patriarchal initial or surname; a woman who perhaps shall leave no progeny behind. A self-made icon who is not Maa in a mother-goddess fixated nation, but Behen (sister). A voice of the disinherited who has turned the legacy of inherited brutalities into an instrument of political power.
Mayawati is not adequately appreciated for scrapping an order by Uttar Pradesh's university and college principals to ban young women on campuses from sporting jeans—smacking of gender bias and moral policing. But in the news, again, is her obsession with statues of Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram, and now, of herself. Mayawati's statues may cost the exchequer a lot, but unlike the secret installation of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya, her idolatry does not threaten the social fabric. The erection of statues is not, anyway, Mayawati's unique idea. Statues,and the symbolism inherent in them, have for long been a way of claiming and reclaiming public space.
The spread of Buddhism ensured that life-size and giant images of the Buddha sprouted across South Asia and the Far East. The first temples (stupas) in the subcontinents were for the Buddha, Tara and other Buddhist deities. Emperor Asoka's edicts and pillars of the third century BCE, at a time when there was little Brahmi literacy in India, have survived to tell us the tale of the spread of dhamma. After Buddhism was brutally stamped out of the country of its origin, what we recognize today as 'Hindu temples' began to spring from the eighth century onwards, their spread spurred by the bhakti movement and the worship of beloved deities.
In modern times, the British erected statues of civil servants and soldiers and named roads and buildings after them;post-independence the Congress pantheon's imprimatur was stamped on roads, buildings, housing colonies and parks. Government schemes have been launched in the name of Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. Once regional parties became powerful, local icons came to be celebrated. These were hardly ever subjected to the kind of scrutiny and criticism reserved for Mayawati.
Reclaiming spaceSymbols and memorials play a crucial role in deepening and broadening the scope of democracy. Despite his admonition, Ambedkar's birthday was celebrated and his statues were erected in his own lifetime. The Ambedkar birth centenary in 1990 saw his statues crop up in almost every Dalit inhabitation in India. Poor Dalits pooling hard-earned money erected these; in rural and urban ghettoes the statue became a site of Dalits claiming hitherto-denied civic space, resulting sometimes in social strife.
But an inflated and overused symbol ceases to have meaning. Symbolism can only take the Bahujan Samaj Party and Mayawati thus far; she will have to deliver on material questions. As Nicolas Jaoul, a French scholar who has done a micro-history of Ambedkar statues in Uttar Pradesh says, "Ambedkarite symbolic politics have reached a saturation point… While symbolic politics have played a significant part in democratisation, today this seems a convenient motive for the Dalit middle class leadership to sweep issues of class under the carpet and to talk exclusively of issues of dignity."
Recording dismayMayawati could turn to Ambedkar and introspect.
Ambedkar's 1916 letter
On 28 March 1916, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, then a M.A. student at Columbia University, published his first public letter in the Bombay Chronicle. Following the death, in 1915, of Pherozeshah Merwanjee Mehta, one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, and of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, another Congress leader and founder of Servants of India Society,Ambedkarnotes: "The memorial for Mr Gokhale is to take the form of establishing branches of Servants of India Society at various places, while that of Sir P.M. Mehta is to stand in the form of a statue before the Bombay Municipal Office."
While appreciating the memorial for Gokhale, Ambedkar records his dismay over a statue for Mehta being "very trivial and unbecoming." He is "at pains to understand why this memorial cannot be in a form" that will be "of permanent use to posterity". He suggests that the memorial should be a public library named after Mehta. Drawing from his experience at "one the biggest universities in the U.S.,"Ambedkar laments how we have not yet "realized the value of the library as an institution in the growth and advancement of society."
Later, Ambedkar acted on these principles when he had the opportunities. Driven by the belief that education was the greatest weapon Dalits could have, he founded People's Education Society in 1944;three branches of Siddharth College beginning 1946; and Milind Mahavidyalayain 1950. Ambedkar's choice of Buddhist names for the educational institutes he founded came from his understanding that universities in ancient India — Takkasila, Nalanda, Vikramasila, Somapura, Odantapuri, Jagaddala, Vallabi — were all Buddhist.Hinduism never set up universities, only ashramsand gurukuls where only a few Brahmin and Kshatriya men were imparted training.
No excusesBut Mayawati should not offer excuses today for the literacy rate among Dalit women in UP being 30.5 per cent. The total number of Dalit graduates in UP is a pathetic 3 per cent. Ambedkar would shudder at this. The UGC says India needs 1,500 more universities. Mayawati could focus on the education of Dalits, create universities of excellence and name them after Ambedkar, Phule and other forgotten subaltern icons. Statues for herself — "very trivial and unbecoming" — only feed her obscene delusions of grandeur and betray a fear of mortality.
In his concluding speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25 1949, Ambedkar noted: "In India, 'Bhakti' or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other part of the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship."
Mayawati could yet heed Ambedkar.
Anand is the publisher of Navayana. He recently completed a documentary film, "Bhagwan Das: In Pursuit of Ambedkar".
TOP ARTICLE | Monumental Mistake4 Jul 2009, 0000 hrs IST, Amrit Dhillon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Standing beside the dirty Gomti river in Lucknow, looking at the structures Mayawati has built on its banks in her quest for immortality, is enough It is the way she has squandered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With acres of land and billions of rupees at her disposal, this was Mayawati's chance to go down in history as the woman who gave birth to a piece of architecture rivalling anything that has come up in the past 60 years. It was a chance to be bold and daring, to create something beautiful and unique. A chance to hold a nationwide competition of architects and order them to let their imaginations soar. The competition would have animated Lucknow residents. A lively debate would have ensued on what they desired for themselves and future generations. What did they want in the city? A stadium, a museum, a university, a hospital, a park or a monument? For Indian architects, bored with designing shopping malls and farmhouses for the rich, Mayawati's memorials would have been a dream project, a stab at prosperity by creating something as spectacular as the Bird's Nest in Beijing, the Guggenheim Museum, the Sydney Opera House, the Louvre Pyramid or the Pompidou Centre. Most Indian cities are still symbolised by pre-independence buildings -- Kolkata by Victoria Memorial, New Delhi by Rashtrapati Bhawan and Mumbai by Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Gateway of India. The reason is not lack of talent but of opportunity and near-total absence of any aesthetic sense among the political class, coupled with lack of a desire to create objects of enduring beauty that can become the new icons of India. Mayawati has bungled by giving Lucknow a collection of gigantic bronze statues, colossal domed structures housing Lincoln Memorial-style statues, and immense stone plazas and walkways stretching as far as the eye can see. Lifeless and insipid, they fail to move the spectator because they speak of nothing but their creator's lust for grandeur. So many trees have been felled and mountains of stone brought in from Rajasthan that residents in the surrounding neighbourhoods say the temperature has risen a couple of degrees. Instead of a beautiful building that would have put Lucknow on the world map, Mayawati has bequeathed the city a memorial with as much charm as her handbag. Grandiose and massive, pink sandstone structures offer a mishmash of styles -- East European Stalinist gigantism, Pyongyang's ponderousness, columns of Imperial Rome, mausoleums of European kings -- all suffused with the pretentiousness of a provincial housewife trying to emulate the majestic sweep of a pharaoh. What will families do at these memorials once they have seen the 60 stone elephants, the statues and domed, temple-like structures? The vast expanse of stone, unrelieved by greenery, water or grass, will repel visitors. If India Gate has endured as a popular landmark, it's because families congregate in the evenings to enjoy the lawns, water bodies and trees. Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi at Rajghat is simplicity itself and, with its lawns, refreshing. But Mayawati, it appears, is only interested in exuding power. Delhi's graceful Lotus Temple would find no favour with her; her intention is not to draw people but to awe and intimidate. She had a choice: erect something original or create a landmark cohering with Lucknow's rich architectural heritage. She failed on both fronts. Moreover, as the 'Dalit Queen' whose heart bleeds for UP's downtrodden, the conditions in which her memorials are being built are shameful. Admittedly, they are no worse than the conditions at construction sites across India where labourers build the mansions of the rich while living in squalor and filth. But Mayawati claims to be different. The very least she could have done was to create a new model and show the country the decent way to treat construction workers. Why have her labourers been sleeping under tarpaulin sheets and makeshift tents with no clean drinking water, doctor or ambulance at hand, and relieving themselves in the open? Why did she not issue instructions for massive temporary awnings to protect workers from the sun as they slaved for her greater glory, along with a creche, a canteen turning out three meals a day, tankers of cool drinking water and Portacabin toilets for privacy and dignity? Instead, she has displayed the same contempt towards these workers as their earlier high caste oppressors, forgetting that both the devil and God lie in the details. Mayawati has built a memorial honouring Dalits and Dalit leaders through the degradation of Dalit workers. She is unlikely to grasp the irony, just as she failed to understand her own limitations and the poverty of her imagination when she started conceiving her imperial city.
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| Kanshi Ram: Champion of the poor | |||||||||
Few political analysts would disagree that his unique brand of social engineering and organisational skills succeeded in uniting India's low caste Dalit community into a formidable political force in several states. In the process he built a new constituency for himself and his Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Even his political enemies - including those who suffered from the emergence of the BSP - acknowledge that politics in substantial parts of northern India can never been the same again. Dalits desert That is especially the case in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
The misfortunes of India's governing Congress party in UP can largely be traced back to the Kanshi Ram phenomenon. Until the mid-1980s, low caste Dalits formed the mainstay of the Congress party's electoral base in UP, which sends the largest number of MPs to the national parliament.
This solid support allowed the party to rule India almost uninterrupted until 1989, when the BSP of Kanshi Ram prompted many Dalits to desert the Congress party. Of course there are other reasons for the Congress party's debacle in UP, but the loss of Dalit support has been a crucial factor. The party was not just relegated to the fourth place in UP, but its strength in the national parliament was also eroded . Entrenched prejudice
Born in Punjab in 1934, Kanshi Ram was the eldest of eight siblings. His upbringing was modest: he studied up to graduation, and there was nothing in his early years to suggest that there was a silent political and social revolutionary lurking within. It was only after he took up a government job in the western Indian state of Maharashtra that he began to be influenced by the writings and political philosophy of BR Ambedkar, a social reformer and architect of free India's constitution. Mr Ambedkar voiced the concerns of India's low caste community - particularly Dalits - in the run up to the country's independence. In the mid-1960s, Kanshi Ram began to organise Dalit government employees to fight against what he saw as the deeply entrenched prejudice of higher caste people. It was around this time that he decided that he would not marry but dedicate his life to the cause of Dalit improvement.
By the mid-1980s, he decided to take the plunge into active politics. The result was the formation of the BSP (the Common Man's Party) in 1984. As a politician, he soon began to attract national attention even though he was not renowned for his oratorical skills or for his personal charisma. He excelled however as a master strategist and organiser, and used these strengths to carve out a niche for Dalits. This was done using an often combative and aggressive strategy, with virulent attacks on other political parties which he claimed only represented the interests of higher caste Hindus. A dictator The BSP coined slogans such as "tilak, taraju aur talwar, maaro unko joote char", which meant that that the three upper castes of Hindu society (Brahmins, warriors and traders) should all be beaten four times with a shoe. While Kanshi Ram became a hate figure in the eyes of many upper caste Hindus, his style succeeded in unifying the Dalits under the BSP banner in several states. The experiment worked particularly well in UP, where the party managed to have its own chief minister on three occasions.
Elections are due again in the state next year and many analysts see the BSP as the principal challenger to the regional party which is currently ruling the state. While Kanshi Ram may have helped Dalits to win political and democratic recognition, he often ran his party like a dictator. His decisions were sometimes arbitrary and he seldom tolerated dissent. His critics also accuse him of making Indian politics even more mired in caste equations than it was before his arrival on the political scene. But there is little doubt that he changed the character of Indian politics, and his place in history is unlikely to be forgotten.
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Even his political enemies... acknowledge that politics in substantial parts of northern India can never been the same again. 
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Manyawar Shir Kanshi Ram Ji: 
Founder of Bahujan Samaj Party"I will never get married, I will never acquire any property, I will never visit my home, I will devote and dedicate the rest of my life to achieve the goals of Phule -Ambedkar movement"
These pledges remind the work of Manyawar Kanshi Ram Sahib who is remembered in the history of India as a True leader of Bahujan Samaj . The journey of Manyawar Kanshi Ram Saheb and his movement of socio-cultural revolution and economic emancipation of Bahujan Samaj started way back in 1964. Kanshi Ram, the eldest son of Mr. Hari Singh, resident of Khawas Pur village of Punjab 's Roper district, was born on 15 th March, 1934 , in a Sikh family belonging to the Ramdassia Community. He completed B.Sc. and joined as an assistant Scientist in DRDO in Kirki Pune Maharashtra in 1957 where he was exposed to the bad breath of Hindu social order i.e. atrocious caste system. In the ordinance factory, where Kanshi Ram was working, the management cancelled the holidays of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti and Buddha Jayanti and instead granted Tilak Jayanti holiday and an additional holiday during Diwali festival. As a reaction to this, not the Ambedkarites from Maharashtra but a Scheduled Caste Mr. Dina Bhana, from Rajasthan, protested against the cancellation of these two holidays. Dina Bhana's protest resulted in his suspension. By this atrocious act, agitated Kanshi Ram fought the legal battle for Dina Bhana.
As a result, not only was Dina Bhana reinstated but the holidays were also restored. The unjust and casteist act on the part of management resulted in a new awakening in Kanshi Ram, as he did not properly realize the casteist divisions in his youth in Punjab . Thereafter Kanshi Ram studied the literature of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the biggest destroyer of Brahmanism after Buddha, Jyotiba Phule and Periyar. Kanshi Ram Ji read "Annihilation of Castes" three times in one night which created not only an impact on Kanshi Ram, but shaped his thinking and future course of actions. Beside Dr. Ambedkar's writings, Mr. Kanshi Ram found the path of further movement in Dr. Ambedkar's plan for political action. Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji quit the job in 1964 and decided that he will never marry and devote his life for social transformation.
On 24 th September 1944 , at Madras , Dr. Babasaheb declared the political goal of his struggle. Dr Ambedkar said, "Understand our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is to become the rulers of this country. Write this goal on the walls of your houses so that you will never forget. Our struggle is not for the few jobs and concessions but we have a larger goal to achieve. That goal is to become the rulers of the land." On 4 th October, 1945 , in the Working Committee meeting of All India Scheduled Castes Federation again he elaborately stressed on the political power and said , "Politics should be the life-blood of the Scheduled Castes." Since politics of Congress party, the mouthpiece of the dominant castes was detrimental to the very existence and interests of backward class people, Babasaheb tried to form a broad - base movement of all the victims of Brahmanism.
On 18 th March, 1956 in a public meeting at Ram Leela ground, Agra , he said that the highly qualified people belonging to SCs have betrayed us. They are occupying the key posts in government and doing nothing for their poor, oppressed brothers and sisters.
It was a great loss for the movement when Dr. Babasaheb unexpectedly died on 6 th December, 1956 .
After the death of DR Ambedkar, the Republican Party of India (R P I) as visualized by Dr. Ambedkar was formed on 3 rd October, 1957 . But from 1958 the party began to split up under various leaders. The biggest set-back to the party was that, it became a party of Maharashtra and the Mahars (later converted to Buddhism after 1956) and the other sub-castes remained the supporters of Congress and others. The clash of personalities and personal political ambitions took the caravan in a reverse direction rather taking ahead.
Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji noticed the dynamism of Dr Ambedkar's movement. He started working with Republican Party of India. After near about eight years of working with Republican Party of India, he became disillusioned with its functioning. His dream of Ambedkarite movement was completely shattered when Dadasaheb Gaikwad joined the hands with Mohan Dhariya from Congress for a petty one Lok-Sabha reserved seat and few lakh rupees. He observed that supporters of RPI were celebrating the pact of RPI and Congress where RPI got just one seat and rest of seats were given to Congress. This event was the beginning of his dissociation from Republican Party.
Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji decided that he will develop a society which will work to spread the thoughts of Dr Ambedkar and other social reformers and will never sell themselves for a small gain. He independently started organizing the employees of Scheduled castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes mainly from Pune, Bombay , Nasik , Nagpur and Delhi .
He traveled all over the India along with his few activists to know why Caravan of Dr Ambedkar was brought back rather than taking ahead. During these days he never bothered about his health, food, transport and worked tirelessly to awaken the educated employees. Organization of employees of Backward Class and Religious Minorities, after doing a necessary preparatory work within a period of five years decided to float an organisation in 1973. As a result of it, and as per the vision of Dr. Ambedkar, Kanshi Ramji's started his first organization on 6 th December 1978 in Delhi , called as BAMCEF. Subsequently, he formed Buddhist Research Center (BRC), DS-4 and BSP.
Kanshi Ramji decided to take the Caravan of Dr Ambedkar ahead and he considers it as his responsibility to fulfill the same. Then he started working among educated employees and awakens them to work for the upliftment of the downtrodden. In this process he was successful to a large extent in awakening, realizing and transforming the expectations of Dr Ambedkar from educated class. After the necessary ground work and positive response from some employees in Poona , Nagpur , Delhi and other places Kanshi Ramji decided to launch an organization for pay-back to society. Thus, the idea of BAMCEF was conceived on 6 th December, 1973 . After ceaseless field work throughout the country for near about five years the birth of BAMCEF took place on the lawn of Boat Club in New Delhi , on 6 th December 1978 . During this time, he conducted several cadre camps, meetings, seminars in different parts of the country to awaken the employees. The basic aim of BAMCEF was to develop genuine and capable leadership among the oppressed. Basically it has been the organization aimed to build up the non-political roots for the success of Dr. Ambedkar's political vision and action. BAMCEF's typical feature was that it was an organization of the employees, by the employees but not for the welfare of the employees. The first concept given by Kanshi Ram Ji was "people who should succeed politically must have strong non-political roots"
He witnessed the failure of Ambedkarite movement in Maharashtra ,
Kanshi Ramji had realized that the people whose non-political roots were not strong were bound to fail politically. They can have their political party, but they cannot succeed politically. Therefore, in order to strengthen the non-political roots of backward class people, he began BAMCEF experiment and spent 10-11 years in organizing the educated employees of SC/ST/OBCs and Minorities, who were benefited by the policy of reservation. BAMCEF created a new missionary political conscience among the backward caste educated employees and also established a national network for further Kanshi Ram's movement.
Kanshi Ram Ji did not project himself a leader but worked silently as organizer and hence he did not mind to invite Ram Vilas Paswan, Karpoori Thakur to address 3 rd National Convention of BAMCEF which was held at Chandigarh on 14 th -18 th October 1983 .
After spending 20 yrs of his young age Kanshi Ramji realized that merely organizing employees would not be enough to fulfill the dreams of Dr Ambedkar. Unless they get power and cannot become rulers. Therefore he created another concept, i.e . 'Power will be the product of struggle'. He realized that Employees cannot do struggle hence he stared DS-4 Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti. According to him, "not that our people were not struggling. They were struggling, but not for themselves. They were not struggling for their own cause. They were and are struggling for somebody else as stooges. Because we are passing through the Chamcha Age, the era of stooges, and as stooges we are struggling."
Books
Kanshi Ram in his historical book, "THE CHAMCHA AGE", (an Era of the Stooges) published on 24 th September, 1982 , on the occasion of 50 th anniversary of the Poona -Pact, has vividly exclusively dealt with the disadvantages of the Chamcha Age.
A) Caste and Community-wise Chamchas.
1 ) The scheduled Castes - Reluctant Chamchas.
2) The Scheduled Tribes - Initiated Chamchas
3) The Other Backward Castes - aspiring Chamchas
4) The Minorities - Helpless Chamchas.
B) Party - Wise Chamchas.
C) Ignorant Chamchas.
D) Enlightened Chamchas or Ambedkarite Chamchas
E) Chamchas of the Chamchas.
F) Chamchas Abroad.
It will be apt to say that, Kanshi Ram has been the only leader who has understood the damage caused by the Poona Pact and applied the necessary measures as it was expected by Dr. Babasaheb. His only book deals with the Chamcha Age phenomenon in detail. 
Kanshi Ram has been very crystal clear in understanding the Poona Pact and therefore he said, "Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted to take the downtrodden people from Dark Age to bright age. But Gandhi intervened in this process of change. Hence we entered into a different age then onwards, which I have named as the age of Chamchas-the Chamcha Age-the era of stooges".
Thus, from the day of launching D -S4, an agitational and awakening wing of BAMCEF, till the formation of Bahujan Samaj Party, on 14 th April, 1984 , Kanshi Ram conducted several experiments of social action countrywide successfully. The programmes created sufficient awareness in the Bahujan Samaj about their socio - political, economic and cultural status. Hence, D-S4 proved as a milestone preparation for the long battle of political action, social transformation and economic emancipation.
Up to 1976, Kanshi Ram, being in Pune - the center of Maharashtra witnessed the down-fall of Ambedkarite movement. In his scientific analysis of the Chamcha Age, he has focused on the fall of Ambedkarism from the first general election i.e. 1951 till 1980. By 1971 alliance between R P I and Congress, his all hopes of Ambedkarite movement dashed into dustbin. Therefore, following the advice of Dr. Ambedkar i.e. 'political power is the key to all social progress,' he felt absolutely essential for the members of all oppressed and exploited communities to prepare themselves for agitational and political action.
Most of the politicians, Researchers failed to understand the vision of Kanshi Ram Ji and hence could not understand the Role of BSP in Indian Democracy. Today in India there are 7 national political parties which are lead by so called upper caste Hindus. They control all the affairs of their parties to establish the rule of Hindu upper castes and exploit the 85% Bahujan Samaj.
Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji refined the rules of Indian politics. He developed a concept that the unstable government at center is beneficial for Bahujan Samaj as you can derive maximum advantages to deprived sections. Therefore he used say frequently," I want Mazboor (weak) government at centre and not Majboot (strong) till we reach to the Centre". Kanshi Ram Ji articulated positively the Bahujan ideology from Buddha to Ambedkar. Kanshi Ram Ji always acknowledged the contribution of Ex-Mahars now Buddhists for supporting Dr Ambedkar in his war against Manuvadi system. He said," I have learnt two things from them one how to learn the movement I leant from Dr Ambedkar and second how not to run the movement from his followers in Maharashtra ."
Manyawar consistently led his movement for almost 38 yrs from 1965-2003 till his illness. Bahan Mayawati has taken up the unfulfilled dream of Manyawar Kanshi Ram Ji and proved to be the successor of Kanshi Ram ji's sociopolitical struggle when she became CM of UP 4 th time with an absolute majority in may 2007.
Posted on October 30, 2008
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Mayawati (Hindi: मायावती) (born January 15, 1956) is an Indian politician and the current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. ...
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KUMARI MAYAWATI. BIO DATA. DATE OF BIRTH & PLACE. January 15, 1956, Delhi. FATHER. Mr. Prabhu Das. MOTHER. Mrs. Ram Rati. EDUCATION. B.A., B.Ed., LL. ...
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London (PTI) India-born Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen's most ambitious new book, 'The Idea of Justice', an attempt to understand what a more just world might be like by citing contrasting instances from Kerala and Bihar, is all set to be published.
A substantial section of 'The Idea of Justice' which will be published by the end of this month, is taken up with refuting the conclusions of increasingly influential left-of-centre economists who, while non-institutionalists, have what Dr. Sen sees as a limited view of human needs.
Dr. Sen who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 for his contribution to welfare economics, told the Guardian "the problem with happiness as sole measure is that you may think yourself happy, but in fact be stymied."
"You may indeed adjust to your deprivation, as some slaves might have been happier on the plantation than free in the difficult outside world."
In his book, Dr. Sen instances the contrast between the Indian states of Kerala and Bihar. In Kerala morbidity is lower but concerns about morbidity are higher. Ideas and education that help to reduce morbidity in Kerala make the population more aware of it, so ignorance is bliss of a kind.
And the notion of income inequality being per se almost the sole measure of justice is problematic too. "These statistics have all kinds of impurities. If you're asked how happy are you, the answer is exactly informative as to what you would say if somebody asked you how happy you are."
It doesn't tell anyone whether you're really happy or not. People can get very discontented when they're very successful. And the sad thing is that people actually do adjust if they're very deprived.
"I spent 15 years working on famine and it's amazing how happy famine victims are when they ultimately get a meal.
But that doesn't mean people are generally more deprived than a famine victim have in a first meal," Dr. Sen was quoted as saying by the Guardian.
Dr. Sen's revolutionary idea is that of capability, the capacity that people have for living and choosing how to live a good life. A good idea of justice concerns enhancing capability.
"Take deprived women in a very gender-unequal society. They have less right to go to school and less interest in their well-being," Dr. Sen added.
One of the early works I did was connected with the Bombay Hospital, where the hospital statistics suggested that the girls were much more ill than the boys, because they were brought into the hospital only when they were more ill than the boys were and that was because there was much more concern with the boys' health, Dr. Sen said.
Q&A | 'Mayawati seems to be forgetting her roots'3 Jul 2009, 0000 hrs IST | |||||||
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| Sheoraj Singh 'Bechain' , 49, is a leading Dalit writer and commentator. Currently a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, After its stunning victory in the 2007 UP assembly election, people expected BSP to perform much better in the Lok Sabha polls. What went wrong? Mayawati seems to be forgetting her roots. BSP's Brahmin leaders do not listen to the problems of Dalits without Brahmin intermediaries. Any tree that forgets its roots will eventually collapse, even though it may look green on the surface. In her efforts to win over other castes, Mayawati has started ignoring her own. She has few, if any, Dalit advisers. So she is not aware of what is happening at the ground level. Recently many principals of colleges and vice-chancellors of universities were appointed in Uttar Pradesh but there were no Dalits. The primary education system is going in the hands of the private education mafia. Mayawati is not setting up government schools. This is why Dalits in Uttar Pradesh seem to be coming around to the view that it is better to go with the Congress because they stand a better chance to gain from it. It is sad that she has got trapped in all this because she had the potential to change so many lives for the better. Your autobiography, Mera Bachpan Mere Kandhon Par, has just been published. You had a very traumatic childhood. Was it difficult putting it down in words and reliving the experience again? I wrote it because i knew that if i didn't, the memories would keep hurting me. But having written them down, i find it difficult to read it. My father died when i was only five years old, my family had been landless and illiterate from generations. My stepfather burnt my books. My sister and i were mortgaged to work in a brick kiln unit for less than Rs 100. I worked as a shoeshine boy, a waiter, an agricultural labourer. I cleared dead carcass in the village, sold newspapers and lemons - all before i finished my teenage years. To sell those lemons, i coined a couplet through which i tried to attract customers. In retrospect, i consider that couplet as my first poem. Now a collection of my poems is on the syllabus for post-graduate studies at Lucknow University. How did you start writing? As a child, i had a natural inclination for rhyme. I used to work as a mason boy when a teacher heard me reciting a poem about a man in the village who had sold off his wife's ornament. This teacher, Prem Pal Singh Yadav, asked me where i had learnt the poem. I said, i just made it up. He said, do you know this is a rhyme. I said, no. From that day everyone in the village knew i could write poems. The gentleman then offered to employ me at his home. In return, he would give me food and shelter. He also allowed me to join school. That incident changed my life. |
Memorials are beacon of inspiration for Dalits: MayawatiTimes of India - Jul 1, 2009 LUCKNOW: "Those who live in glass houses must not cast stones at others' homes," chief minister Mayawati, taking pot-shots at her detractors on Wednesday, ... Mayawati and the 40 statues Economic Times Mayawati spending crores over statues shameful: Chidambaram Hindustan Times Q&A | 'Mayawati seems to be forgetting her roots'Times of India - Jul 2, 2009 Mayawati seems to be forgetting her roots. BSP's Brahmin leaders do not listen to the problems of Dalits without Brahmin intermediaries. ... Cong, SP slam Mayawati, want probe on statues' issueTimes of India - Jun 26, 2009 26 Jun 2009, 1620 hrs IST, PTI LUCKNOW: Opposition parties on Friday slammed Mayawati for unveiling statues and parks of Dalit leaders ahead of schedule, ... Mayawati defends statue-unveiling spree Hindustan Times Critics want to pull down Mayawati, her statues IBNLive.com Maya slams rly budget, says UP neglectedTimes of India - Jul 3, 2009 LUCKNOW: Chief minister Mayawati while expressing surprise over the `negligence of a large state like UP' in the Railway Budget-2009 presented in Parliament ... Budget hardly inclusive: BSP Indian Express Regional bias: Time to look beyond The Day After HC reserves judgement on contempt petition against MayawatiIndopia - Jul 3, 2009 The Allahabad High Court today reserved its judgment on a contempt petition filed against UP Chief Minister Mayawati for her remarks at a rally ahead of Lok ... HC reserves verdict on criminal contempt petition against CM Times of India Mayawati blames BJP, CongressHindu - - Jun 30, 2009 LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Tuesday blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies, as well as the Congress for the Babri Masjid ... Cong again attacks Mayawati on Mahatma remarksTimes of India - Jun 17, 2009 NEW DELHI: Congress on Wednesday continued its attack on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati for her attack on Mahatma Gandhi. ... Mayawati plays spoilsport on Rahul Gandhi's birthday Daily News & Analysis SP dharna against 'misdeeds' of MayaTimes of India - Jul 3, 2009 Addressing the gathering, former Union minister Rampujan Patel pointed out that chief minister Mayawati had become a puppet in the hands of capitalists and ... Akhilesh to hold meet of district, city units today Indian Express SP men condole death of greenery Times of India Mayawati announces SC/ST quota in work contractsTimes of India - Jun 25, 2009 LUCKNOW: In an attempt to further consolidate Dalit and tribal votebank, chief minister Mayawati on Thursday announced a quota for SCs/STs in all ... Mayawati courts Dalits with more inducements Daily News & Analysis Maya announces quota in contracts Indian Express |
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