'Those Who Tend To Rubbish Indian Democracy And Get
Impatient With Its Indubitable Flaws Should Ponder Whether There Is A Historic
Parallel Anywhere Else Where A Woman Belonging To The Most Crushed Community
Known To Mankind Has Risen Through The Heat And Dust Of Elections To Rule Two
Hundred Million People And May Well Reach Further To Guide The Destiny Of A
Billion More In The Not Too Distant Future.'
Mayawati Has Changed The Face Of Politics In India, Turning
Old Assumptions Upside Down And Restructuring Power Equations Entrenched For
Centuries, If Not Millennia. The Path She Has Blazed Through The Byzantine
Political System Of Uttar Pradesh Has Been A Unique Tour De Force. Not Only Has
She Been The Chief Minister Four Times, But She Has Done So By Overturning The
Established Electoral Traditions Of A State That Virtually Invented Modern
Indian Politics.
With Her In-Your-Face Political Style, Unabashed Display Of
Accumulated Wealth And Mercurial Nature, She Is, Perhaps, The Most Enigmatic
Indian Politician For Decades. How Did Mayawati, A Studious, Diffident Dalit
Schoolteacher, The Summit Of Whose Ambitions Was To Be An Ias Officer, Become
The Iconoclastic, Combative Politician, Universally Known As
&Lsquo;Behenji&Rsquo; Today?
Her Trajectory Is All The More Impressive Not Just Because
Her Modest Background Has No Previous Connection To Politics, She Has Also Had
To Bear The Burden Of Being A Dalit And A Woman. Possibly Her Greatest
Achievement Has Been To Forge, With The Help Of Her Mentor, Kanshi Ram, A
Completely New Context For Dalit Politics. Bypassing Both The Slogans Of
Victimhood, As Well As Those Of Street-Level Activism, She Has Negotiated From
Within The System To Create New Alliances With Lower Backward Castes, Muslims
And Now, Surprisingly, Upper-Caste Brahmins As Well.
Eminent Journalist Ajoy Bose Brings His In-Depth Experience
Of Covering Indian Politics For Over Three Decades To This Pioneering Political
Biography Of Mayawati. He Explores The Background Of Her Meteoric Rise And
Examines The Growing National Clout Of This Unique Woman Who Could, Quite
Possibly, Determine The Shape Of The Next Indian Government, And Even Be The
Country&Rsquo;S Prime Minister One Day.
Former Exicutive editor of the Pioner newspaper, Ajoy Bose
has been associated with a wide range of media at home and abroad, including
print publications, radio networks and television channels. He is at present a
senior columnist, published in leading newspapers and magazines in India and
abroad.
Ajoy bose began his journalistic career in 1973 with the
Patriot newspaper and Link magazine. Later, he became the
Delhi correspondent of Sunday magazine and the resident
editor of the Sunday observer's Delhi edition. He was
the India correspondent for the Guardian, London, from 1978 to 1996 and
later the New Delhi representative for the Khaleej Times, Dubai. In India his
columns and articles have appeared in the Pioneer, the Indian Express , the
Times of India, Outlook newsmagazine and the Bombay Mid-day. He also contributed
regularly to the Khaleej Times, the Guardian, the Sunday Times and Time
magazine. He has broad cast extensively on the BBC, Voice of America and radio
Netherlands. During the 1998 national elections he co-hosted the popular
television poll programme Chunauv Chunauti, for Sony television. In 2004, Along
with Arati Jerath, he produced a weekly foreign affairs television show, Global
Challengers, on Doordarshan News.
Ajoy Bose has written tow books, the highly acclaimed For
Reasons of State: Delhi under Emergency and the Shah Commission.
Cover photograph of the book by Sondeep Shankar
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