India’s Anti-Obama

Still, a new spate of cases is undermining Mayawati's attempt to run on a law-and-order platform. On April 13, a politician who'd campaigned against the BSP was found hanged from a tree. The police called it suicide, but his family suspects he may have been murdered by the local BSP candidate, and the national Election Commission has sent a team to investigate. And on the night of Dec. 24, 2008, a village engineer in the U.P. town of Auraiya was abducted, tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death. The police charged a BSP state legislator and his goons with the crimes. They have denied the charges, but the victim's family alleges that he was killed for refusing to make required "donations" to a fund collected each year on the occasion of Mayawati's birthday. The chief minister has said there was no directive to collect birthday funds, but this month, a young civil servant committed suicide and left a note saying he'd been pressured to pay off senior officials.

Whether such allegations will derail Mayawati's rise remains unclear. The BSP is hardly the only party linked to serious crime. And BSP insiders claim their party, which now holds 19 seats in Parliament, will win 60 in the general election. Political analysts put the number significantly lower, at 25 to 40. Yet even the lower estimates could be enough to make the BSP the third-largest national party, after the BJP and Congress but ahead of the Communist Party. That could give Mayawati enough leverage to demand key cabinet posts in exchange for joining a coalition.

Whether she can claim the prime minister's office for herself, as supporters hope, is another matter. Few politicians outside the BSP trust her. Sachin Pilot, a Congress M.P. from Rajasthan, says, "I don't think anyone will risk tying up with her in a way that places that much power in her lap. She is known to be very mercurial." Her brand of identity politics won't work on the national level, where leaders "cannot so blatantly and outlandishly appeal to caste," says Arun Jaitley, a BJP member of Parliament and a top strategist. "I see her as a divisive figure. She is not a unifier of Indians."

That does not mean either major party can stop her. Congress and the BJP have been losing support for years, thanks to geriatric leadership and the rise of more dynamic local parties. The coming vote is likely to boost Mayawati's strength, as she builds support outside U.P. and her Dalit base. She kicked off the current campaign last month in the state of Kerala, where she has had little presence in the past. And she has named a significant number of Brahmins as candidates around the country. Even if she does not wind up in national government in this election cycle, she will have built credibility for the next. If she does eventually become India's leader, it will represent a historic victory for one of the world's most oppressed peoples. But those who expect her to govern India as a Gandhi—or even an Obama—will be deeply disappointed.

© 2009