Gurbani summary 8

Mayawati and Memorial Parks in Lucknow

Mayawati gained a lot of publicity, good as well as bad, because of the parks, statues and memorials she built in Lucknow during her first complete term as the CM of UP from 2007 to 2012. By sanctioning the construction of these landscapes in elite urban spaces, Mayawati was creating a memory of a shared glorious past and was providing visibility to a community that has been oppressed for millennia. How many spaces in India are dedicated to the Dalits in acknowledging their struggle anyway? By putting up statues of Baba Saheb, Ramabai, Buddha and other Dalit political leaders of the past she is trying to generate political consciousness within the community.

The grandiose of these parks, statues, pillars and sculptures dwarf individuals and reinforce the extra-human scale of the buildings and diminish the sense of self, giving more dominance and power to the structures. Adaption of Buddhist architecture also represents the rejection of Hinduism’s exploitative and hierarchical caste system. These landscapes are symbolic of the changing times they mark the socio-political change brought in by the BSP leaders. The statues of medieval saints like Kabir, Ghasida, Ravidas and warriors like Munda are also representative of the Dalits strength and the progress and greatness achieved in the face of extreme adversity and thus become landscapes of empowerment.

These structures did not only serve as a symbol of empowerment for Dalits but also an investment for her party to gain votes. But unfortunately in 2012 Mayawati was voted out of power and criticized building these landscapes of empowerment and favouring Dalit and OBC contractors over others. I completely agree with the author when they say that there are other ways to empower the community. Growing up in Lucknow this is what I have always believed. As much I think you cannot avoid the parks and statues wherever you go in the city and make you think of Mayawati and her party I think a better investment would have been safeguarding the future of the community by opening schools, formulating slum relocation schemes and increasing employment opportunities for all.

It is only the rural Dalits that see these parks as harbingers of economic and social elevation. The urban Dalit population sees through the façade of symbolic representation and yearns for more. Especially the younger Dalit population is frustrated with the little advance the community has made under the BSP and does not view these parks as symbols of hope and pride. I believe that these structures do mean a lot when it comes to the Dalit community claiming the public sphere but I also feel that the space and huge sums of money invested in these projects leaves one feeling frustrated like it was a wasted opportunity. The structures only serve as symbolic capital for the community but fail to do anything substantial in filling the deep gaps in the society.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

week 10- Aishwarya Ramkumar

DALIT MUSIC Arivarsu Kalainesan, fondly called Arivu amongst Tamilians is a popular playback singer who has sung songs for mainstream setups. However, his focus lies on writing music and poems about caste and poverty. He is highly inspired by Ambedkar and Buddha, and his music brings to life many of their ideals. He is a proponent of the Arivoli movement which is a southern left literacy movement and got introduces to these ideas by his parents who discussed these with him. His family used to attend Dalit culture events which celebrated anniversaries of leaders and organized protests. He is currently working on writing lyrics a project called the 'Casteless Collective' and had made raps on Ambedkar by drawing inspiration from various Dalit poems. While many have deemed his raps anti-Indian, others appreciate his ideas and welcome these into mainstream cinema and music. He was written various songs for other pertinent social causes such as the LGBTQIA+ movement, and his rap...
Read more

Nayonika Sen Week 2

Contested Citizenship, Caste, and the Politics of Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’             The CAA-NRC agitations have perhaps reached a tipping point in mainland India. Yet, the contention and agitation has been brewing in Assam for a while now. Until the threat of a nation-wide NRC, it wasn’t even a peripheral topic of discussion. ‘We people’ were largely unfazed by it. However, a brief reading of the recommended articles and a short explanatory video with Ms. Bina Pallical reaffirms my continuous contention with the NRC. Even the ‘Liberals’ comprising mainly of upper-caste educated persons have bought the narrative of it being an exclusively Hindu-Muslim problem. Yet, how is it going to affect the people who have historically never been considered Hindu? The current political narrative is trying to homogenise the ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ identity. The BJP has repeatedly issued statements about how the CAA is pro-Dalit and yet...
Read more

Week 10 - Samyuktha Rao

I'm sharing something interesting that I've come across during my search for dalit music. In the state of telangana, India's largest tribal festival is conducted on an annual basis in the month of February. The festival witnesses largest gathering of dalit communities as the goddess who is worshipped during the festival belongs to the Koya tribe. However, Hinduization of this festival has begun to take place in the last few decades. I'm attaching articles from the wire and feminism in india which talks in detail about how upper castes are controlling the image of the goddess as theirs and their other  other practices of Hinduization that are taking place during the festival. There are multiple songs on the internet (by upper castes) but most of them as talked above, fail to emphasize on the history and story and are centered around celebration of the festival.  https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/feminisminindia.com/2020/03/18/the-medaram-jana-jatara-indias-largest-tri...
Read more