Friday, 14 March 2014

Behenji: A Political Biography of Mayawati - Ajoy Bose

'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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