One of the burning ambitions of Mayawati has been to create grand memorial public parks to commemorate the Dalit movement and its leaders like Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, E.V.R. Natka Periyar and of course, Kanshiram and Mayawati herself. It has been her cherished dream for whatever reason.
In June 1995 when Mayawati became the chief minister of UP for the first time she decided to implement her ambitious memorial project as her first important act. In the centre of the capital city of UP, Lucknow a huge area of 28 acres was selected and earmarked for the construction of grand ‘Ambedkar Park’ and the ‘Parivartan Chowk’ in honour of Dalit-backward class leaders namely Jyotiba Phule, Periyar, Shahuji Maharaj, Baba Saheb Ambedkar etc. A fund was quickly alloted and work on the project began in earnest.
To the opponents the project was the proof of the whimsical attitude of Mayawati. UP was one of the poorest states of India that was always cash streapped and the parts of the state were suffering from droughts and crop failures. The development works were at stand still due to the political instability. In such a scenario, the detractors claimed the construction of a grand park was a sheer waste public money.
But Mayawati had her own reasons. The history of India was authored by people of Manuist mindset who never gave the Dalit chapter its due coverage. Whatever little was written about it was markedly biased and unfair. The prejudiced media would never show Dalit movement and its history in true light. On the contrary it was habitually belittling the Dalit and their struggles. That historic injustice Mayawati wanted to correct by creating a grand display of Dalit leaders and through them project the true struggles of Dalits. The endeavour was meant to give Dalits the feeling of importance and generate pride in them by grolifying the success of the Dalit movement. The first thing that Dalits needed was psychological boost to inspire them to keep the flame of Dalit struggle alive. Mayawati felt the grandeur of the park will to some extent compensate for the historic neglect and deliberate omission of struggles of Dalits for human rights.
Mayawati government fell only after 136 days and construction work on the Ambedkar Park stopped. The governor was not interested in the park work.
In March, 1997 Mayawati again returned to power with the support of BJP. She again got the construction work on Ambedkar Park restarted. At feverish pace the memorial works and garden laying exercises progressed as her term as CM was to last only for 6 month under the ‘6-month term turns’ agreement. Mayawati wanted to complete as much construction work as possible during her tenure.
Kalyan Singh took over after six months. He would not hand over power to Mayawati after his 6 month term. He remained in power through manipulative tactics. Ambedkar Park work again fell to neglect. The detractors of Mayawati only had contempt for her park, garden and memorial works. The area began to turn into a wilderness.
In February, 2002 Mayawati was again able to return to power with the support of BJP. The Ambedkar Park area was again revamped, dared of growth and construction work restarted at brisk pace. A large labour force worked on it. Grand statues of B.R. Ambedkar, other Dalit leaders and Mayawati-Kanshiram pair were being chiselled at war footing. The statues were being made of pink stone.
This time Mayawati lasted for about 15 months. Her detractor Mulayam Singh Yadav managed to grab power with the connivance of BJP, Congress and the governor. Mulayam Singh remained in power for the rest of the term of 41-42 months. That was the long period the pet project of Mayawati was subjected to contemptuous neglect and dereliction. No work was done in the park. Cobwebs covered to niches, arches and statues. Wild growth began to claim the huge statues now dust covered. The figures of Mayawati and Kanshiram watched the desolation of the dream park which now looked more like a dumping ground.
Then, in 2007 Mayawati won a clear and full mandate from the electorate. Even before Mayawati assumed office, the officials knew how important the Ambedkar Park was for her. Entire Ambedkar Park was cleaned up and the over growth cut away. The park and statues were reclaimed from the neglect and desolation.
This time Mayawati was in for a full term and she would complete her dream projects of Ambedkar Parks and memorials dedicated to Dalit leaders and their monuments. Another grand Ambedkar Park was coming up at Noida near the bank of Yamuna river. Mayawati would brook no delay or any stoppage in the work.
A large number of labour force and earth moving machines worked day and night at the parks. A huge money was being spent on the memorial parks and statues. This time hundreds of statues of elephants were being made, obviously a large number of stone sculptor were at work chiselling statues. Meanwhile, the state was facing severe cash crunch. The farmers were committing suicide due to crop failures and deficit rains. The state was asking for economic packages from the centre to tide over its financial problems.
Her detractors raised hue and cry over this. They pointed out that she had no money problems for making statues but for every development project she was saying the state coffer was empty. Many pointed out at her fetish for statues critically without understanding their symbolic importance for the Dalits. Several Public Interest litigations were filed in Supreme Court by PIL enthusiasts to seek legal remedy to check Mayawati’s extravagant spending on statues and parks while the state was finding difficult to meet the urgent needs of the state and its people. The court saw some merit in the argument and accepted PIL suit. Some cases against Mayawati were already under consideration with the apex court in respect of property and assets disproportionate to her known sources of income.
Idealistic mask wearing politicians advised the cause of Dalit could be better reserved by providing them educational scholarships than raising statues of Dalit leaders and herself.
A political change also was that for the parks Mayawati was getting hundreds of pink stone statues of the elephant, the election symbol of BSP. They said the public money was being spent on indirectly propagating the election symbol of BSP.
Mayawati countered that the elephant was not only BSP symbol but a sacred divinity of Hindus worshiped as Ganesha, the elephant headed deity. It also was related to Lord Buddha in whose life the elephants played stellar roles from his very inception. Then, the elephants being made for the parks had different posture then the election symbol elephant had. It was true.
The Congressmen accused Mayawati of misusing public funds for creating memorials of its leaders.
Mayawati relaliated by exposing Congress that had over the sixty years set a record of maning roads, airports, houses, buildings, parks, erecting statues, sports complexes, stadia, commercial centres and colonies after its leaders. The country had been turned into museum of the memorials of Gandhi-Nehru family. There were universities and other educational institutions after some Nehru or Gandhi. Every city had roads, squares or parks named after them. Dalit leaders had been totally blanked out. But erecting Dalit memorials BSP or Mayawati was merely balancing up the history. For Dalits Jyotirao Phule, Periyar, Shahuji, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Kanshiram and Mayawati were what Gokhale, Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia were for Congress. It silenced the Congressmen.
Meanwhile, the forest and environment ministry also found a reason to intervene in the park construction project that was going on near Delhi. Ambedkar Park Noida was being developed alongside river Yamuna at a grand scale. It was felt by the department that the tree cover alongside the river was being damaged in the construction of the park. It was also reported that a large number of trees were being cut down for the expansion of the park. The concerned department of the central government wrote a letter to the UP government seeking explanation on the damage to the tree cover. It was alleged that destruction of trees would cause great harm to the river that was already under threat of erosion and pollution. Meanwhile the apex court felt that UP government was unjustified in spending huge sums on the Ambedkar Park and statues while the state was badly in need of funds for other construction projects and non-plan spending. The logic behind the construction of the park and making of hundreds of statues was wastage of public money, the court felt. It ordered immediate suspension of work on the memorial projects.
A few days later, the media reported with visual proofs that inspite of the court order the construction work in the park was going on. The UP government reported no construction was going on but only the maintenance exercise was on. The court felt the construction work was being carried out calandestinely. The apex court issued stern warning to the home secretary of UP to suspend whatever work was going on in the Ambedkar Park and clear the area of workers. Thus, construction work in the park came to a standstill to the dismay of Mayawati.
SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav threatened that if he came to power he would bulldoze all the statues and the illegitimate constructions.
Mayawati at last got fed up with the constant charges of wastage of funds by her on non-productive projects like parks and statues. A simple way out was the statutory route. She could do it as she had majority in the house. The bill was introduced and passed by the assembly making Ambedkar Park and memorials became legal obligation of the state to create. A provision for adequate fund was also made in the statue.
Through an another act Mayawati created a security force especially dedicated to protect the statues. There have been a spate of incidents in which the statues of Dalit leaders were broken or disecreated in other ways. It must be kept in mind that in independent India the statues and memorials of Dalit leaders have been the prime target for desecration by anti-social vandals. Later Mayawati shelved the Act amidst sharp criticism.
The adverse comments of the apex court have certainly done some damage to the image of Mayawati. Her fetish for grand memorials has surely seeded doubts in the minds of educated classes about her level headedness and capacity to deal with the basic problems in an effective way constructively. Only the future will tell how much damage the fetish of Mayawati had done to her prospects of arriving at the national stage.
