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Sep 07, 2026
YagnaSri

From Social Movement to Personal Rule: Mayawati's Misrule and the Passing of Kanshi Ram Part 18

The arc of the Bahujan Samaj Party's history in Uttar Pradesh from Kanshi Ram's austere organisational mission to Mayawati's monument-building and birthday-tribute culture is one of the most instructive stories of political degeneration in post-independence India. It raises fundamental questions about the relationship between social movements and the political parties they generate, the sustainability of identity-based mobilisation as a governing philosophy, and what happens when a movement's charismatic founder transfers power to a successor whose instincts are more personal than institutional. The BSP under Mayawati achieved genuine electoral success, including the historic 2007 majority, but translated that success into governance that ultimately disappointed the very communities whose aspirations it had channelled. Understanding this requires examining both the structural limitations of the BSP's political model and the specific choices that Mayawati made as a governing leader. The Transition: Kanshi Ram's Decline and Mayawati's Ascent Kanshi Ram's health began to deteriorate seriously in the late 1990s, with a series of strokes progressively incapacitating the man who had single-handedly built the BSP from a small community organisation into a major political force. His formal handover of the BSP's national presidency to Mayawati in 2001 was both a political succession and a statement about the party's future direction: Mayawati, his protégée and the party's most effective vote-getter in UP, was his chosen successor. The transition, however, was more complex than a simple succession. Kanshi Ram's authority within the BSP had rested on a combination of personal organisational genius, ideological gravitas rooted in his deep familiarity with Ambedkarite thought, and the moral authority that came from a life of genuine sacrifice: he had never married, never accumulated personal wealth, and had dedicated his entire adult life to the Dalit liberation project. Mayawati possessed formidable political skills, an extraordinary memory for organisational details, a talent for public mobilisation, and ruthless effectiveness in exercising political power. Still, the moral and intellectual foundation of Kanshi Ram's authority was not transferable. What had worked for the founder would need to be replaced by different sources of authority in the successor: electoral success, governmental delivery, and tangible improvements in Dalit material conditions. The 2007 Majority: The Sarvajan Strategy and Its Ambiguities By conventional electoral measures, Mayawati's 2007 UP election victory was a masterpiece. The BSP won 206 seats in the 403-member assembly, an absolute majority, with 30.43 per cent of the vote. The achievement was built on the 'sarvajan' (everyone) strategy: the deliberate addition of Brahmin voters to the BSP's traditional Dalit base, accomplished through the symbolic elevation of Brahmin leaders within the party structure, the projection of Mayawati as a Chief Minister for all communities, and the effective exploitation of upper-caste disillusionment with a fragmented, directionless BJP. The sarvajan strategy was politically sophisticated and electorally effective. But it contained an ideological tension that would ultimately prove unresolvable. The BSP's core identity was rooted in the explicit opposition between the Bahujan majority and the Brahmin-Bania elite; this was not incidental rhetoric but the foundational political logic that had motivated Kanshi Ram's entire project. Incorporating Brahmins into the BSP's coalition required either genuinely transcending this Brahmin-Bahujan cleavage through a politics of class-based or developmental solidarity, or cynically exploiting Brahmin grievances against the BJP for short-term electoral gain without any genuine commitment to representing Brahmin interests. The 2007 victory came through the latter approach, and the Sarvajan coalition's hollowness became apparent in governance. The Governance Record: Monuments, Corruption, and Administrative Failure Mayawati's 2007-2012 tenure as Chief Minister, the longest and most politically secure of her four Chief Ministerships, was also the most consequential test of the BSP's governing capacity. The verdict, assessed honestly, was deeply disappointing. The government's most visible achievement was an ambitious programme to build monuments, statues, and parks honouring Dalit icons B.R. Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram, and Mayawati herself. The Ambedkar Memorial Park in Lucknow, the Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal in Noida, and similar structures across UP consumed thousands of crores of public money in a state where millions of Dalit families lacked access to clean water, paved roads, and functioning schools. Mayawati and the BSP defended the monument-building programme as a necessary assertion of Dalit cultural dignity—arguing that when marble statues of upper-caste historical figures dotted India's public spaces, building Dalit icons in equivalent grandeur was a statement of civilisational equality rather than a misallocation of resources. The argument has philosophical merit as a principle; its application in UP, where the gap between public monument and public service was starkest, was politically and morally indefensible. Courts ultimately ordered the repayment of public funds used for monuments featuring Mayawati's own image from party funds — a judgment that underscored how thoroughly the distinction between the leader's personal glorification and genuine Dalit empowerment had been eroded. Beyond the monument controversy, the 2007-2012 government was characterised by the same administrative pathologies that had afflicted all of UP's governments since the 1980s: systematic corruption in government contracting, politicisation of police and administrative postings, diversion of welfare scheme funds through patronage networks, and the near-total subordination of governance to the logic of community patronage. The Dalit community that the BSP was supposed to champion found its material conditions largely unchanged: employment, land rights, access to justice, and educational opportunity remained as inadequate under BSP governance as under its predecessors. The Birthday Tribute Culture: Institutionalised Extraction Perhaps the most telling indicator of the BSP's transformation under Mayawati was the institutionalisation of the birthday donation system. Party workers and government employees from Scheduled Caste communities were expected to contribute cash donations on Mayawati's birthday, January 15, in amounts calibrated to their seniority and capacity. The donations were collected through a structured organisational mechanism and constituted a significant source of party funds. Kanshi Ram had built the BSP on the principle that cadre workers should contribute to the party from their own resources as an expression of their ideological commitment: the Pay Master system. Birthday donations perverted this principle: instead of voluntary contributions expressing ideological conviction, they became quasi-compulsory levies expressing the leader's personal dominance. The moral foundation of Kanshi Ram's organisational model that BSP workers sacrificed for the movement because the movement served their community's liberation was replaced by a system of tribute that served the leader's personal glorification. The Kanshi Ram Legacy and What Was Lost Kanshi Ram's death in October 2006, just as Mayawati was preparing for the 2007 election that would be his movement's greatest electoral triumph, removed the last institutional check on the BSP's degeneration. As long as he had been alive, even in declining health, his moral authority had been a reference point that Mayawati could not entirely ignore. With his death, the BSP became fully Mayawati's personal political machine rather than the organisational expression of an Ambedkarite social vision. What was lost with Kanshi Ram's death and with the BSP's subsequent degeneration was not merely good governance in UP, but the possibility of genuinely transformative Dalit politics that went beyond electoral mobilisation to institutional change. Kanshi Ram understood that reservations and electoral victories were necessary but insufficient: deeper transformation of UP's social structure required building Dalit-controlled educational, economic, and cultural institutions that could sustain Dalit advancement independently of electoral cycles. This institutional project was never seriously pursued during Mayawati's years in power. The BSP's dramatic collapse in the 2017 elections from 80 seats in 2012 to 19 in 2017 was the electoral consequence of this governance failure. A community that had invested its political hopes in the BSP and found its material conditions largely unchanged concluded that the party had used its aspirations as raw material for its leader's personal advancement. The BJP's sweep of 2017, which included significant support from non-Jatav Dalit communities, demonstrated that Dalit political loyalty was not unconditional: it could be earned and lost depending on the quality of governance and the genuine commitment to community advancement that a party demonstrated. Structural Mishandling: Internal Friction and the Temporary Decline of the BJP in UP Part 17 https://myind.net/Home/viewArticle/structural-mishandling-internal-friction-and-the-temporary-decline-of-the-bjp-in-up-part-17

Sep 07, 2026
Major General Harsha Kakar

Pakistan Bestows Unbridled Power on Field Marshal Asim Munir

On 20th Aug, the Pakistan National Assembly passed two laws concerning its armed forces. These were the Defence Forces of Pakistan Act 2026 and an amendment to the National Command Authority Act 2010. These were cleared by the cabinet earlier that same morning and rushed through parliament without any discussion, amidst an opposition walkout. These were not on the Senate’s agenda for that day. Either the event was stage-managed to perfection, or Asim Munir’s control over the government is complete. If Asim Munir wishes to be the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), it implies control over the three services. Then why is he seeking to wear the dual hat of the army chief? The reason is evident. It is the army which controls all security institutions, rangers, frontier forces, etc., and is the only force which can overthrow the political leadership. Only by being the army chief can he control the state; otherwise, the CDF is akin to the defunct Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJSC). The other services play only a supportive role. Evidently, a dubious intent. He was appointed as CDF for five years till end of 2030 unless he takes an extension for another five, which is likely. This has been the bane of Pakistan. Rarely has a chief vacated his post on time. This means that those in line for army chief, for the next decade, will go home, adding to heartburn and angst amongst his senior generals. Munir, in his current tenure, will remain in place beyond the next elections due in early 2029, thereby rigging them and deciding the PM of his choice, thus ensuring his extension. Disgruntlement amongst the generals, while not in the public domain, will result in Munir handing them plum posts during and post-service, intending to humour them and deter them from seeking an opportunity to either embarrass or remove him. He also cannot question their continued looting of the national treasury. Possibly to assure them the Second Amendment was issued. The Second Amendment makes the post of Commander of the National Strategic Command (CNSC) only for the Army. The scrapped CJSC was a rotational appointment between the three services. The amendment to the CNSC could have made an eligible four-star General, an Army chief, but was denied by Munir’s extension. This decision would anger the Navy and the Air Force, as they have no senior appointment outside their service. Anyone appointed CNSC will be unhappy as the post has no teeth or power and is only a table-pusher. While the CDF chair gives Munir complete power over the armed forces and indirectly over all security agencies, including paramilitary, he lacks authority to remove chiefs of the navy, air force and the CNSC. Thus, if there are disagreements, there is little he can do, except push Shehbaz to do his bidding. Interestingly, during Operation Bunyan Un Marsoos, Pakistan’s retort to Operation Sindoor, the Pak army had no role. Whatever failed action was undertaken, it was by their Air Force; hence, promoting Asim Munir made little sense, except to fulfil one more demand of his. It was Pakistan’s air bases, terrorist HQs and forward posts which took a battering and Munir could do nothing except hide in his bunker, request the US to intervene and play games by spreading fake news. The losses suffered on a daily basis by his forces in battling insurgencies in Pakistan’s western provinces should logically be on his shoulders, but with no authority to question him, he is beyond reproach. To hide their failures, the Pak army either hides its losses from the public domain or blames India and Afghanistan. In response to India holding the IWT in abeyance, Munir, in one of his rare visits to Makkah, threatens India, then rushes to resolve another conflict. In all probability, the real motive for promoting Munir as CDF appears to be to keep Imran jailed as both the Sharif brothers and Asim Munir have an inherent dislike for him, having suffered at his hands. The Sharif family is aware that Munir would never compromise with Imran, after having been humiliated by him and forcibly removed from the DG ISI appointment. Imran has tried reaching out to the Pak army but to no avail. The current remodelling of the Pak forces is claimed to be “multidomain integration, restructuring and optimum jointness of the Armed Forces” and is a possible modification of a joint forces model, but without joint structures, it is just in name, more likely to ensure Munir cannot be touched. The Defence HQ (DHQ), under Munir, will coordinate operations but not integrate the services. Whether DHQ will be above army HQs, which he controls, or will they be merged has to be seen. This will determine what level of coordination takes place. Politically, it makes Munir the most powerful man in the country. All authority, including that of nuclear forces, is under him, though officially it is claimed that he is vice-chairman of the National Command Authority, which oversees nuclear assets, with the PM at the head. His power is evident from the fact that the Pak government includes him in a committee formed to control population growth. By giving him the powers to “retire, release, accept, or reject resignation of, or discharge from service, or retain in service, or relax age, or service limit of retirement”, anyone questioning his authority can be dealt with. It guarantees complete control, while subduing opposition to his appointment. Senior promotions would also be based on his whims and fancies. Moving courts on grievances is no longer possible. What is hurting Pakistan’s senior military members is that everything is now army-centric. What is the impact on India? If Sindoor-type operations are considered, the role of the Pak army was negligible. While the claim is to enhance jointness, without joint structures, no mention of which has been made, it would be more of coordination rather than integration and joint operations. With Munir holding all appointments, any talks with Pakistan’s civilian leadership are meaningless. India anyway does not talk to the Pak army except in official DGMO conversations. Aware that he cannot be removed, Munir now has the power to consider misadventures against India. This gets compounded by new agreements like the Mecca pact as well as Pakistan’s growing proximity to the US. He is simultaneously aware that the Pak army has shortfalls, and any misadventure could place his future at risk. India must continuously monitor Pakistan’s actions.