Mayawati featured on Newsweek: CNN-IBN reacts

Recently, Newsweek magazine featured a profile of Mayawati as part of a special report on women.

As we discussed before, Mayawati poses severe problems for Congress and by extension to those in the media and intellectual circle who are engaged in spreading the party's folklore.

As expected, CNN-IBN grudgingly covered the news. After breaking the story of the Newsweek coverage, the story runs through redundant details and then concludes with the following:

Her votebank is growing. So are the numbers of her critics. She is accused of betraying the bahujan ideology in the pursuit of power. People say she is sold out Ambedkar for the sake of ambition. It would be an irony indeed if the arrival of Mayawati the future prime minister, signaled the end of the Ambedkarite dream of social change.

Okay, quiz time. Who accused Mayawati of betraying the bahujan ideology? Any references? Is it just an opinion of the CNN-IBN editorial team? Which people say she sold out Ambedkar? Dalits? Upper-caste people? OBCs?

What exactly is the Ambedkarite dream of social change and why is Mayawati not working towards it? We need to know in objective terms, not through ghost stories.

Dr. Ambedkar wanted Dalit empowerment. He believed that unless Dalits attained political power, their lot would never improve. As a result, he refused to run on a Congress ticket, choosing to contest India's first election from a constituency in Bombay on his own platform. What did Congress do then? They put up a Dalit milkman against Dr. Ambedkar. Needless to say very unsavory rumors were spread. It was claimed that Dr. Ambedkar, being educated and rich himself couldn't possibly take care of Dalits. Yeah, only rich upper-caste members of Congress can take care of Dalits.

Dr. Ambedkar lost the election. Mawayati has avoided the trap so far.