It is not that difficult to bring a Dalit and Brahmin together anymore, the big fight will now be in the middle and lower castes.
Mayawati's novel political equation has heralded a new chapter in Indian politics which is here to stay. Other parts of the country very well need it - but it seems unlikely another existing leader will be able to replicate it.
Maya's equations are not just about bringing the opposites on the same platform, it is a long-term deep rooted theory, that has ideologies derived by ironing out social differences. And now that she has done it, we realize that the traditional differences of caste, economic disparity, were not so deep after all.
The generation has changed, and this generation has short memories. It is not that difficult to bring a Dalit and Brahmin together anymore, the big fight will now be in the middle and lower castes.
Do other parts of the country need it - yes. Will they get it? One doesn't know for sure as incumbent leaders of mainline political parties seem unlikely to adapt. Mayawati is the master of this new brand of auxiliary politics. One of the primary reasons being the fact that she is herself a Dalit and wears a halo of justice around her.
She can do it in the long run too, but other leaders, say for example Narendra Modi in approaching Assembly elections in Gujarat cant. Regional adaptation of BSP's equations seem superficial, ending up as assemblage politics -temporary in nature and without any major binding force - read ideology.
A case in point being the Patels' coming together in Surat against the Narendra Modi government. If this alliance is being seen as a new brand of politics emerging in state, than I should clarify at the outset it is not. This alliance is without any bondage and shallow, and its survival is essentially under doubt. This has emerged out of power politics - a new generation of politics which recognizes power itself as an ideology rather than justice politics.
The Patels' alliance can be aptly described as the 'bazaar model' of politics. It is the ideal exampled of assemblage politics - driven only by logic of numbers, temporary in range and absence of any ideological binding.
This is tactical rather than strategic and it will make stranger bed fellows than we would have believed politics capable of. This is alliance is less traumatic, an unsentimental arrangement, almost like a contract.
Patels in Gujarat are displaced, uneasy and angry. Unable to resolve their internal disparities, they have now come out to address external problems - personifying them as Narendra Modi. The aim right now is to kill Modi, any bullet will do.
(The writer is a social anthropologist.)
As told to Jumana Shah
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