Despite parliamentary democracy

The man who oversaw the drafting of the Constitution of India tried his luck again in a by-election in 1954, contesting on a Scheduled Caste Federation ticket from Bhandara, in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region. He lost again to an unknown Congressman, Bahurao Borkar. The defeats were a shock to Ambedkar's followers, but not to the Congress. The foundation for these defeats had been laid on 24 September 1932, the day the Poona Pact had been signed between Mohandas K Gandhi and Ambedkar, which provided for reservation for the Depressed Classes, as the Dalits were then called. The strategy of the Congress was to ensure that the docile Kajrolkars and Borkars made it to elected bodies – and not independent-minded sharp-shooters such as Ambedkar.

It is in such a skewed, rigged political landscape that the emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which today commands a majority in Uttar Pradesh, must be seen. Understood against the backdrop of Ambedkar's own defeats – both personal and with the limited success of the parties he founded, the Independent Labour Party and the Scheduled Caste Federation – the BSP's performance seems nothing short of a miracle. Social scientists and political analysts, with an abiding lack of interest in history, have tended to dub the BSP's successes since the 1990s as a tribute to the resilience and maturity of India's parliamentary democracy system. Behenji, Ajoy Bose's new journalistic political biography of BSP leader Mayawati, reinforces this commonly held view. The truth is slightly more complicated in that the BSP has succeeded despite parliamentary democracy. A short detour into history is necessary by way of explanation.