Courting trouble

Government and governance are both about more than winning elections. But this is something that leaders who ride on popular or cult support often fail to realise.

Ever since she became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, with an enormous mandate and a huge burden of expectations, Mayawati seems to have demonstrated more hubris than common sense.

The Supreme Court has warned the UP government that it is “playing with fire” when it learnt from media reports that statue-building had not stopped in spite of the orders it had issued.

The court said that it had no faith in the assurances given by the UP government as it had a record of not keeping its promises and even cited the demolition of the Babri Masjid as an example.

The statue-building spree of the Mayawati government is intriguing as is her arrogance that leads her to believe she can defy the Supreme Court. The statues are symbols of Dalit pride, much needed for a community which has been at the receiving end for thousands of years.

But it is also a moot point whether statues are all that Dalits in UP or across India need. The people of Uttar Pradesh are about the worst off in all of India.

They lag behind on all factors of health, education, social welfare, employment and so on. A few symbols of pride are fine, but this government appeared to be doing little else.

That is of course why petitions on the need for the statues and monuments have been filed. But there is another, perhaps larger issue at hand here.

By defying the Supreme Court stay order on further statue construction, the UP government has positioned itself as higher than the apex court as a sort of law unto itself.

If statue work continued after it had given an affidavit to the apex court that all work would stop, then that shows an immense lack of respect for both the court and its own word.

A system can only run successfully if its processes are followed and a nation can be successful only if its institutions are respected. You cannot pretend to follow the Supreme Court by paying lip service and then making up the law as you go along. This strikes at the very core of a Constitutional system.

By its actions, the UP government headed by Mayawati has shown itself to be at fault on two counts — ignoring the people and ignoring the keeper of Indian law.