{"id":218,"date":"2014-01-15T08:19:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T08:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/on-this-day\/15-january-1956-mayawati-bsp-leader-was-born\/"},"modified":"2014-01-15T08:19:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T08:19:00","slug":"15-january-1956-mayawati-bsp-leader-was-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/on-this-day\/15-january-1956-mayawati-bsp-leader-was-born","title":{"rendered":"15 January 1956: Mayawati, BSP leader, was born"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayawati, the head of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and four-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, was born on 15 January 1956 in Delhi in a Dalit family. Besides being among the most important political leaders of Uttar Pradesh, she is a Dalit icon and her clout extends far beyond the boundaries of India\u2019s most populous state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mayawati had a simple childhood, and her father, Prabhu Das, was employed with the post office. She secured her bachelor\u2019s degree in arts from Kalindi Women\u2019s College, and a law degree from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. She also did a B.Ed. from Ghaziabad.<\/p>\n

In September 1977, during a conference on Dalits organised by the Janata Party’s Raj Narain, who had defeated Indira Gandhi in the Lok Sabha polls from Rae Bareilly, repeatedly referred to Dalits as Harijans. This angered the young Mayawati, who was present at the event. As the journalist Bhupesh Bhandari wrote in the\u00a0Business Standard<\/em> in December 2011: \u201cEven in those early days she used to find the term [Harijan], coined by Mahatma Gandhi, condescending and thus hugely offensive. She walked up to the stage and tore into Raj Narain. A couple of months later, on a cold winter night, Kanshi Ram [founder of the BSP] visited her at home. The burly Sikh [his family belonged to a Dalit community but had converted to Sikhism] had quit his government job to fight the cause of the Dalit community. He needed somebody like Mayawati.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kanshi Ram succeeded in convincing Mayawati, who was at the time studying for the IAS exams, to join his movement. He reportedly told her that if she followed him, one day she would be giving orders to IAS officers. It was a prediction that would come true.<\/p>\n

When Kanshi Ram founded the BSP in 1984, he made Mayawati a member of his core team. In 1989 she was elected to Parliament, but electoral success did not come instantly. The journalist and political analyst Paranjoy Guha Thakurta wrote in the\u00a0Outlook<\/em> magazine in May 2008: \u201cFar from benefiting from being anointed Kanshi Ram\u2019s successor very early in her political career, Mayawati has experienced defeat many times. She lost the first three Lok Sabha elections she contested. Yet she had displayed an amazing ability to claw back \u2014 often at the very point when she appeared to have been convincingly vanquished.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1990 Mayawati was a rising star in the BSP. Recalling the time in early 1990s when she first met Mayawati, the senior journalist Vidya Subrahmaniam wrote in The Hindu<\/em> in March 2010: \u201c[Kanshi Ram] introduced me to his understudy, a wisp of a girl with daring in her eyes. By then [. . .] Mayawati was already a veteran of many Lok Sabha elections. Her vote trajectory was a harbinger of things to come \u2014\u00a0 as much for [. . .] Mayawati herself as for her party. Kairana, 1984: Third with 44,445 votes. Bijnor, 1985: Third with 61,504 votes. Hardwar, 1987: Second with 1,25,399 votes. Bijnor, 1989: First with 1,83,189 votes [. . .] Mayawati was as aggressive as her mentor was calm and reflective.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1995 Mayawati became the youngest chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, though only for a short stint as part of a coalition government. She again became chief minister in 1997 and 2002-03, forming a coalition with the BJP. After becoming chief minister for the third time, she told rediff.com in an interview: \u201cMy aim is to have a Bahujan Samaj government at the Centre, which was also the dream of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar . . . [It] may take some time, but I am sure we will make it one day. We walked on to the political turf of Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1983 and it took us 12 years to ride to power in 1995. This is our third stint in power and each time our party\u2019s strength has grown.\u201d<\/p>\n

When her mentor Kanshi Ram, who was suffering from multiple ailments, died in 2006, Mayawati in a statement to the media said: \u201cThe last rites of Kanshi Ramji would be performed according to Buddhist religion and his mortal remains would be consigned to fire at Nigambodh Ghat. But his ashes would not be immersed in Ganga, Yamuna; rather, they would be kept in the party offices as well as the official residence for eternity [. . .] I would carry on and try to achieve the goals that he entrusted me with [. . .]\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 2007 Uttar Pradesh polls, the BSP reached out to a cross-section of voters, including the upper castes. Mayawati led her party to a spectacular victory, winning 206 seats in the 403-seater assembly. The BSP\u2019s main rival, Mulayam Singh Yadav\u2019s Samajwadi Party, could garner only 97 seats.<\/p>\n

Though the BSP lost the 2012 assembly polls, with Mulayam\u2019s son Akhilesh Yadav becoming the chief minister, Mayawati\u2019s importance in Indian politics remained undiminished. As the journalist Sharat Pradhan wrote in the\u00a0Outlook<\/em> in August 2013: [T]he first ever Dalit woman to head any state government, she [Mayawati] earned a place in history books, prompting then PM P.V. Narasimha Rao to describe her rise as \u2018a wonder of democracy\u2019. That shortlived stay on the hot seat also transformed her from a Kanshi Ram understudy to a leader in her own right, with an instinctive grasp of the possibilities of politics. The succeeding two stints in power (with BJP support) cemented that image and by the time she rode to power entirely on her own strength . . . in the . . . UP assembly in 2007, Mayawati had long become a very viable brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also on this day:<\/p>\n

1868 \u2014 Ramgopal Ghosh, social reformer and leader of Young Bengal group, passed away<\/p>\n

1926 \u2014 K.D. Jadhav, independent India\u2019s first individual Olympic medallist, was born<\/p>\n

1948\u00a0\u2014\ufeff The first Indian Army Day<\/a> was celebrated<\/p>\n

1951 \u2014 Pritish Nandy, media and television personality, was born<\/p>\n

1966 \u2014 Bhanu Priya, South Indian actress, was born<\/p>\n

1982 \u2014 Neil Nitin Mukesh, Hindi film actor, was born \u00a0<\/p>\n

2009 \u2014 Tapan Sinha, renowned Indian filmmaker, passed away\u00a0<\/p>\n

2012 \u2014Homai Vyarawalla,India\u2019s first woman photojournalist, passed away \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mayawati, the head of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and four-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, was born on 15 January 1956 in Delhi in a Dalit family. Besides being among the most important political leaders of Uttar Pradesh, she is a Dalit icon and her clout extends far beyond the boundaries of India\u2019s most populous state. 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