Visit https://ebookfinal.

com to download the full version and

explore more ebooks

Behenji The Political Biography of Mayawati Ajoy

Bose

_____ Click the link below to download _____

https://ebookfinal.com/download/behenji-the-political-
biography-of-mayawati-ajoy-bose/

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookfinal.com

Here are some suggested products you might be interested in.
Click the link to download

Women In 1900 Gateway to the Political Economy of the 20th

Century 1st Edition Christine Bose

https://ebookfinal.com/download/women-in-1900-gateway-to-the-
political-economy-of-the-20th-century-1st-edition-christine-bose/

K F Ryleev A Political Biography of the Decembrist Poet

Patrick O'Meara

https://ebookfinal.com/download/k-f-ryleev-a-political-biography-of-
the-decembrist-poet-patrick-omeara/

Modern South Asia History Culture and Political Economy

2nd Edition Sugata Bose

https://ebookfinal.com/download/modern-south-asia-history-culture-and-
political-economy-2nd-edition-sugata-bose/

Kashmir and the Future of South Asia 1st Edition Sugata

Bose

https://ebookfinal.com/download/kashmir-and-the-future-of-south-
asia-1st-edition-sugata-bose/
The Book of Job A Biography Mark Larrimore

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-book-of-job-a-biography-mark-
larrimore/

The Red Millionaire A Political Biography of Willy

Münzenberg Moscow s Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West
1917 1940 First Edition Mcmeekin
https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-red-millionaire-a-political-
biography-of-willy-munzenberg-moscow-s-secret-propaganda-tsar-in-the-
west-1917-1940-first-edition-mcmeekin/

The Book of Common Prayer A Biography Alan Jacobs

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-book-of-common-prayer-a-biography-
alan-jacobs/

Walking with Pilgrims The Kanwar Pilgrimage of Bihar

Jharkhand and the Terai of Nepal 1st Edition Ruma Bose

https://ebookfinal.com/download/walking-with-pilgrims-the-kanwar-
pilgrimage-of-bihar-jharkhand-and-the-terai-of-nepal-1st-edition-ruma-
bose/

Asthma The Biography Biographies of Diseases 1st Edition

Mark Jackson

https://ebookfinal.com/download/asthma-the-biography-biographies-of-
diseases-1st-edition-mark-jackson/
Behenji The Political Biography of Mayawati Ajoy Bose
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Ajoy Bose
ISBN(s): 9788184756500, 818475650X
Edition: Revised ed.
File Details: PDF, 3.03 MB
Year: 2012
Language: english
 AJOY BOSE
Behenji

The Political Biography of

Mayawati

PENGUIN BOOKS
 Contents

About the Author

Preface to the Paperback Edition

Introduction

SECTION ONE

1. Early Years

2. Kanshi Ram

3. Behenji and Saheb

4. The Quest for Political Power

5. A Doomed Alliance

6. Chief Minister Mayawati

7. The Second Coming

8. Third Time Unlucky

9. A Historic Triumph

10. The Prime Ministerial Dream

11. Return to the Dalit Agenda

12. Cycled Out of Power

SECTION TWO

13. Iron Lady Versus Transfer Rani

14. A Party with a Difference

15. Mayawati, Social Engineer

16. The Importance of Dalit Identity

17. A Rags-to-Riches Fairy Tale

18. Postscript
 19. Does Mayawati Have a Future?

Illustrations

Note to the Revised Edition

Notes

Acknowledgements

Copyright Page
 PENGUIN BOOKS

BEHENJI

Ajoy Bose has been regarded, in recent years, as the leading expert
on Mayawati and her Dalit politics. For nearly four decades, he has
been associated with a wide range of media. He is at present a
senior political columnist and television commentator, published in
leading newspapers and magazines in India and abroad and
appearing on major channels.
He began his journalistic career in the early 1970s with Patriot
newspaper and Link magazine, going on to become Delhi
correspondent of Sunday magazine, and in the 1980s started the
Delhi edition of The Sunday Observer, India’s first Sunday
newspaper. In the 1990s he was with the Pioneer newspaper where
he became the Executive Editor. He was also India correspondent of
the Guardian, London from 1978 to 1996 and later the New Delhi
representative for the Khaleej Times, Dubai. He has broadcast
extensively on the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Nederlands.
During the 1998 national elections he co-hosted along with Vinod
Dua and Mark Tully the popular television poll programme Chunauv
Chunauti for Sony television. In 2004, he produced a weekly foreign
affairs television show, Global Challenges, on Doordarshan News.
Ajoy Bose has co-written two books, the highly acclaimed For
Reasons of State: Delhi Under Emergency and Shah Commission
Begins.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

‘Behenji is an attempt to connect the intelligentsia with Mayawati …

a defence of her but far from being a whitewash. It is clear from
Behenji that Mayawati can’t be dismissed as a maverick version of a
typical caste politician’—Mark Tully, India Today
‘Few politicians are as controversial and exciting in India today as
Ms Mayawati. And she now has a new feather in her cap by inspiring
an intrepid journalist to write a critical but supportive political
biography of hers in an Indian version of Boswell recording the
deeds of Dr Johnson. The result is impressive because the story
itself is out of the ordinary, and Ajoy Bose has tempered his
enthusiasm with a dose of realism, if not scepticism’—Nihal Singh,
Tribune

‘Ajoy Bose’s life of the iconic Dalit leader is neither hagiographic nor
sensational. Rather, it examines how Mayawati’s meteoric career
and the course of identity politics in post-colonial India are tied up
with evolving structures of parliamentary democracy, social justice
and economic reform. What Bose does, and does with disarming
sophistication, is analyse Mayawati as a creature of the forces of
history and Indian party-politics’—Telegraph (Kolkata)

‘Hats off to Ajoy Bose for skilfully tracing the trajectory of this woman
from the by lanes of Delhi’s down-market Inderpuri colony to the
grandeur of the sprawling official residence of Uttar Pradesh’s chief
minister, from where she is now getting ready to knock at the portals
of power in New Delhi’—Hindustan Times

‘What makes Behenji worth your time is its judicious mix of political
facts and private whispers’—Mid-Day

‘Ajoy Bose has endeavoured to tell one of the most fascinating

stories of our times. The senior journalist with a clever knack for
political stories explains what makes Mayawati a unique leader in
contemporary Indian politics’—Rediff.com

‘A timely, “unofficial” political biography of this remarkable woman …

not just highly readable but informative as well’—New Indian
Express
‘Unauthorised biographies of living personalities have distinct
advantages over authorised accounts. For one thing, they carry
more credibility. Affectionate without being patronising and
supportive without being adulatory, the book does not seek to make
most of being an unauthorised biography’—The Hindu
 Preface to the Paperback Edition

The Mayawati saga has only grown bigger in the nine months since I
finished writing the first edition of Behenji. The Uttar Pradesh chief
minister has more than vindicated my prediction that she would
dominate the national scene in the near future. Indeed, a series of
events over the past few months has added considerable
momentum to the Mayawati juggernaut. The idea that a Dalit leader
could be India’s next prime minister is no longer considered a
ludicrous proposition. In fact, as the prospects of the major national
parties in the coming general elections look increasingly uncertain, to
say that Mayawati is one of the frontrunners for the top job is to state
the obvious.
It is worthwhile to note some of the key developments that have
taken place between the first and second editions of Behenji. The
most important is the dramatic shift in the political equations between
different parties. The ruling Congress party decided to forget its past
suspicion and animosity towards the Samajwadi Party and forge an
alliance with the latter. This move immediately soured relations
between the Congress and Mayawati as the Samajwadi Party is her
sworn enemy and main rival in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time the
Samajwadi Party chose to turn its back on its old ally, the Left Front,
by supporting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s pet project, the
Indo-US nuclear deal, a deal that was bitterly opposed by the leftists.
These political somersaults resulted in the Left performing an
amazing acrobatic feat of its own—reaching out to Mayawati as an
ally and even suggesting that she could be the Third Front’s prime
ministerial candidate.
This massive boost from the Left—the only political group that had
not entered into a political liaison with her—underscores the stature
Mayawati had acquired in national politics.
 The many controversies that erupted around the no-confidence
motion in Lok Sabha after the Left Front withdrew support from the
UPA government were widely regarded as a new low in Indian
politics. The Congress won the numbers game but was badly stained
by the unscrupulous methods it adopted to buy up MPs from across
the political spectrum. At the same time, the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) could hardly claim a moral victory, considering that so many of
its own MPs sold out. This resulted in the sordid spectacle of BJP
MPs brandishing currency notes inside the House in a last-minute
gamble to derail the trust vote. As for the Left, they came out looking
like poor losers caught in the mesh of their own ideological
contradictions.
Despite the UPA’s victory in the trust vote, it was Mayawati who
emerged as the only real political beneficiary of the appalling drama.
Her political legitimacy as a national leader increased substantially
after Left stalwarts and an assortment of regional leaders directly or
implicitly accepted her as a prime ministerial candidate. Almost
overnight she jumped from a state to a national canvas. Moreover,
her remarkable ability to wean away Samajwadi Party MPs and win
over veteran political leaders including Deve Gowda and Ajit Singh—
and this despite the financial and administrative might of the UPA
regime and its corporate backers—won her grudging admiration from
even those who supported the nuclear deal. In the end she failed to
topple the government but this was attributed to the BJP’s complete
inability to keep its own flock together, rather than any lack of
competence on Mayawati’s part. Fighting almost singlehandedly, she
had given the UPA regime the fright of its life. Despite her party’s till-
then limited geographical reach, it was the Bahujan Samaj Party
(BSP) that took on the role of the real Opposition, not the BJP.
Fortune seems to be favouring the Dalit leader as the aftermath of
the UPA government’s victory on the nuclear deal has seen a sharp
deterioration on the law and order front as well as in the economic
situation in the country. There have been a series of terrorist attacks
in various metros and towns, a wave of communal violence in a
number of states, a resurgence of separatism in Kashmir and now
the grim prospect of an economic slowdown because of global
recession. For the Congress, it cannot be a more inopportune
moment to fight the general elections, but it has no other option. Yet,
the main Opposition, the BJP, does not seem poised to take full
advantage of the Congress’s woes either. The saffron party is still
mired in its communal mindset, exemplified by its defence of the
atrocities perpetrated on helpless Christians in Orissa by one of its
Sangh associates, the Bajrang Dal.
Mayawati, on the other hand, is projecting herself as a leader for
all communities. Among the main reasons the Congress joined
hands with the Samajwadi Party was to consolidate their Muslim
base against the BSP; but this has not played out according to
calculation. The Samajwadi Party’s decision to support the Indo-US
nuclear deal is seen as a sell out by many Muslims for its association
with the hated US President, George Bush, and his Middle East
policies. They are thus likely to appreciate Mayawati’s opposition to
the deal. Moreover, Muslim anger at the manner in which their
community is being targeted—even in Congress-ruled states like
Delhi—by the police and administration in the wake of terrorist
attacks could seriously harm the traditional Muslim base of both the
Congress and the Samajwadi Party; and the BSP is emerging as the
main political beneficiary. A consolidation of Muslim votes behind
Mayawati could, along with her core constituency of Dalits and
poorer backward classes, dramatically improve her electoral
prospects particularly in Uttar Pradesh where she could even pull off
a landslide victory in the forthcoming general elections.
Yet, regardless of the promising future, there is still quite some
distance between Mayawati and her quest for the throne in Delhi.
Even if she does remarkably well in Uttar Pradesh, she has to
bolster her numbers by winning at least some seats in other states,
particularly those surrounding her home turf. There will be some
indication of her support in these states even before the general
elections when assembly polls are held in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh by the end of 2008. Good performances
in these assembly polls will undoubtedly improve Mayawati’s
prospects in the general elections and give momentum to her bid to
achieve new peaks of glory.

November 2008 AJOY BOSE

 Introduction

The Mayawati story has many dimensions. It is an amazing personal

saga of an otherwise nondescript Dalit woman driven by relentless
ambition to become one of India’s most powerful leaders. At the
political level, she has virtually reinvented the games that Indian
politicians have traditionally played in the pursuit of power. This is
exemplified by her constant political and ideological oscillations that
would have been ludicrous had they not delivered such spectacular
results. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Mayawati’s rise also
reflects the vast social upheaval sweeping away age-old
stereotypical caste equations across Indian civil society. This makes
a study of her life and times that much more relevant than that of
other contemporary political firecrackers such as Narendra Modi,
Jayalalithaa and Mamata Bannerjee.
When I first started researching this book nearly four years ago,
shortly after Mayawati’s third regime in Uttar Pradesh collapsed,
many of my friends in politics, bureaucracy and the media felt it
would be a waste of time. Some were convinced that the array of
corruption charges in the wake of the Taj Corridor controversy
against the ousted chief minister would destroy her political career.
Others maintained that with Kanshi Ram’s debilitating stroke in 2003,
the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was in any case sliding downhill and
it was a matter of time before his protégé faded into insignificance.
And then there were those who were appalled that I had chosen to
dignify with a biography ‘such a crude, corrupt and completely
unscrupulous’ politician—a perception of the Dalit firebrand shared
by a very large section of the chattering classes till very recently.
I have therefore noted with some bemusement that many of the
same people are now lauding Mayawati to the skies after the BSP’s
stupendous victory in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls made
her the undisputed empress of India’s largest state. All of a sudden
she has become the most promising politician in the country. Quite a
few go to the extent of predicting she will be the next prime minister.
As for my book, I am now showered with praise for my excellent
choice of subject and the perfect timing of its publication.
Both the past derision and current hype about Mayawati underline
the entirely inadequate understanding about a leader who perhaps
represents the ultimate political paradox in India. As the country’s
most successful Dalit leader, overshadowing even Babasaheb
Ambedkar, she has indeed given unprecedented political profile and
clout to a community crushed under social prejudice stretching back
several millennia. At the same time, her autocratic style of
functioning, cynical liaisons across the political spectrum and
unabashed flaunting of wealth have made Mayawati perhaps the
most controversial political leader in India today. She and her unique
brand of politics remain an enigma not just for the layperson but
even political pundits.
For a journalist, it is tempting to get carried away by the many
controversies and scandals that have surrounded her ever since she
came into the limelight. In the beginning when Kanshi Ram first
introduced to the public domain a chubby young political greenhorn
as his successor, the media grapevine—particularly in the upper-
caste-dominated Hindi vernacular press—buzzed with salacious and
often openly scurrilous tales about their relationship. For a long time
no journalist was ready to accept Mayawati as a serious political
leader even if they conceded Kanshi Ram’s role as a Dalit prophet.
Later, even after she displayed amazing tenacity by repeatedly
snatching back the throne of Lucknow, the media continued to focus
on her diamonds and mansions, projecting the BSP leader as a vain
and capricious upstart who had gatecrashed the world of politics. It is
only after Mayawati surprised journalists across the board by
achieving the seemingly impossible task of getting a legislative
majority in Uttar Pradesh on her own that they have stopped
trivializing her. In fact, today as if to compensate for the past, a
variety of commentators in print publications and on the small screen
tend to paint a larger-than-life picture of the lady.
Perhaps it is this shallow approach by journalists to the fascinating
saga of her life and politics that made Mayawati so wary of the
media from the outset. Indeed, the biggest challenge of writing a
biography of Mayawati is to understand her as a person and not
merely as a leader. While there has been considerable coverage of
her political career and some analysis of her impact on Dalit society,
Mayawati the person is virtually unknown. Except for some stray
anecdotes about her personal whims and fancies, Mayawati’s private
life, both past and present, remains a strictly guarded mystery. More
than any other political leader in the country, she has almost made a
fetish of avoiding journalists. And in the few interviews and the
occasional press conferences, Mayawati has doggedly refused to
expose her private persona.
For instance, next to nothing is known about her childhood, familial
relationships, friends and lovers since we are dependent on the brief
and understandably sanitized glimpses that Mayawati allows us in
her autobiography. The only intense personal relationship she seems
to have had is with her mentor, Kanshi Ram, and this is invariably
projected as a political defining point in her career. The exact
contours of this often tempestuous and clearly obsessive relationship
remain a mystery, although there are enough people who had the
opportunity to observe them at close quarters who suggest that the
close personal bond between the two was multi-dimensional.
Indeed, this book is primarily a political biography and makes no
claim to lay bare the innermost recesses of Mayawati’s mind and
emotions. My various encounters with her through the years have
been that of a journalist and not a confidant. However, one can also
safely assert that no one, not even her closest associates, can lay
claim to know the real Mayawati. Interestingly, she is one of the few
Indian leaders who discourage personal familiarity from her aides,
choosing instead a functional professional relationship. For instance,
at least one of her closest associates is yet to introduce his wife to
her and does not feel that he is required to do so.
If not much is known about Mayawati’s private life, her personality
is at least more accessible, although the varying perceptions of the
politicians and bureaucrats who have worked closely with her can be
confusing. Obviously, these are coloured by their personal equations
with the leader. Those who have turned against her speak of a petty,
insecure and vindictive woman who has neither the political vision
nor the organizational skills to be a mass leader. They see Mayawati
as a creation of Kanshi Ram and an unworthy usurper of his mantle
who has taken advantage of the present political disarray in Uttar
Pradesh and the lack of an alternative leader among the Dalits. If
one were to believe these former colleagues now turned hostile, her
success so far is just a matter of phenomenal good luck and it is only
a matter of time before she fades away into political oblivion.
Those who are with her, of course, have unflinching faith in
Mayawati’s leadership. But apart from the faithful, there are quite a
few—including several bureaucrats in Uttar Pradesh known for their
integrity and competence—who are not ready to join the chorus of
denunciation against Mayawati. They maintain that the Dalit
firebrand in her four stints as chief minister of the state may have
been unconventional but certainly not more corrupt or incompetent
than many of her predecessors. In fact, they point out that
Mayawati’s blunt and direct method of functioning with the state
bureaucracy was in many ways preferable to the more venal
insidious practices of politically more experienced chief ministers.
Yet, Mayawati’s detractors, supporters as well as supposedly
neutral observers do concur on certain common traits in her
personality. She is unanimously regarded as a rough and ready
politician who makes up her strategy as she goes along, rather than
plan too much beforehand. Or, as one veteran Lucknow journalist
put it, ‘She thinks in a straight line, which to her is the shortest
distance to get from point A to point B.’ All agree that the Dalit leader
is fiercely focused and, more importantly, not at all bothered about
political conventions or ideological principles.
The fact that she does not quite belong to the political mainstream
is underlined by Mayawati’s dogged rejection of the debate of
secularism versus communalism, which has dominated Indian
politics over the past two decades. She has hobnobbed with the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) forging coalition governments with
them thrice in succession, even going to the extent of campaigning
for Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi shortly after the Gujarat
riots. On the other hand, Mayawati has been the sharpest critic of
the BJP when she failed to extract her pound of flesh from the latter.
Not surprisingly, the Hindu right wing, the communists as well as the
Congress are all uneasy at not being able to cast her into a political
stereotype and consistently baffled at the many surprises she has
sprung on them. Many would call her refusal to spout ideological
shibboleths of the Right or the Left as crass opportunism. But it is at
least a transparently self-centred approach; more honest, perhaps,
than the equally selfish political agendas that other parties practise
with far more pretensions.
Indeed, a large measure of her remarkable achievement in a
relatively brief period of time has been Mayawati’s ability to think and
behave in an unconventional manner. While this absence of political
scruples has provoked widespread criticism from the media, this has
also given the Dalit leader a clear advantage over many of her
political peers who are less adventurous in their approach to the
rough and tumble of Indian politics. Significantly, her core Dalit
constituency has solidly backed Mayawati in her repeated ideological
flip-flops even when there seems to be no direct connection between
the political games she plays and the larger benefit of the
community. As a matter of fact, the childlike faith that Dalits,
particularly in Uttar Pradesh, have shown in Mayawati has allowed
her the freedom to practise the art of realpolitik more than any other
political leader in the history of independent India.
Academics and experts who have followed Dalit movements
through the decades are unable to adequately explain the
phenomenon of Mayawati’s constantly expanding Dalit support base.
On the face of it, the lot of the untouchable—as it is of vast sections
of marginalized and impoverished masses—remains miserable even
in Uttar Pradesh, despite her becoming chief minister of the state as
many as four times. Although the first three of these terms in office
were rudely cut short, there is not much to suggest that the Dalit
leader, now that she has an assured full term in office, will swiftly
change the socio-economic profile of her community. The roots of
her popularity with the Dalits, therefore, have to be sought at a more
symbolic and emotional level. It is the notion of political
empowerment of the country’s most marginalized group and the
dreams of ascendancy that flow from it, that has fired the Dalit
imagination.
Mayawati’s Dalit supporters are unanimous that what attracts them
to her is not what she is but the hope she holds out for the future.
They see her as a symbol of political power that not so long ago
would have been unimaginable. Having lived off the crumbs from the
table for so many centuries, the very idea of a Dalit woman leader
sitting at the table—perhaps one day even at the head of it—is a
potent brew for the community. The fact that unlike other past
scheduled caste leaders, Mayawati no longer depends on the
patronage of upper-caste leaders and parties, provides a special
appeal that even Ambedkar did not possess. Interestingly, her lack of
foreign university degrees and academic brilliance that illuminated
the career of the intellectually towering creator of the Constitution, is
not a shortcoming but actually an advantage that brings her closer to
ordinary Dalits. This ‘ordinariness’ of such a powerful leader is at
once recognizable and reassuring to the community and living proof
of their own potential. Babasaheb is up there as an iconic statue on
a pedestal, but the very name ‘Behenji’ represents Mayawati’s
almost familial relationship with her core constituency despite the
giant billboards and cutouts of the Dalit leader that have
mushroomed all over the Uttar Pradesh landscape.
The Dalit leader’s recent offer to marginalized upper castes like
brahmins and banias to join her bandwagon has only added to her
mystique. Much as her rival scheduled caste leaders have tried to
portray this somersault as a betrayal of the Dalits, it is seen by the
community not as a dilution of ideology but instead the assertion of
growing Dalit power. The electoral success already garnered by the
BSP from such caste alliances in Uttar Pradesh and the widespread
expectations that this can be replicated in other parts of the country
are only part of the reason why Dalits still repose unwavering trust in
Mayawati despite her wooing the upper castes and the espousal of
‘sarvajan samaj’ instead of ‘bahujan samaj’. Dalits who have
perceived themselves for so long as a victim community take fierce
pride in the fact that their ‘Behenji’ has so effectively manipulated
political levers, that a Dalit-led party is now in a position to offer
protection to the past masters.
A palpable illustration of both the kind of influence that Mayawati
wields in India today and her importance to the Dalit psyche came
six months after she swept back to power in Uttar Pradesh in the
summer of 2007. A Bollywood potboiler, Aaja Nachle, marking the
comeback to the silver screen of yesterday’s heroine Madhuri Dixit,
ran into trouble with the Dalit community immediately after release
over an offensive portion in the title song that went, ‘Bazar mein
machi hai maramar; bole mochi bhi khud ko sunhar (there is so
much chaos in the market that even a cobbler is calling himself a
jeweller)’. The first Dalit leader off the blocks was Udit Raj of the
Justice Party who held a protest demonstration outside a Delhi
cinema hall screening the film. But what made a difference was the
heavy clout of Mayawati who immediately banned the film in Uttar
Pradesh and shot off a letter to the prime minister demanding a
countrywide ban as well. Within twenty four hours the film producer,
Yash Chopra, had issued an abject apology to Mayawati promising
not only to remove the objectionable portion in the title song but also
never to use casteist lyrics again. The fact that Mayawati could take
on Bollywood, the embodiment of Indian mass culture, and win so
decisively on an issue of Dalit pride and sensitivity, would surely not
be lost on the community.
Despite her new rhetoric wooing support from the upper castes,
Mayawati has been careful not to ignore her core constituency and
the symbols that inspire it. This is evident from the frenzied work
being done to expand and enhance the giant Ambedkar Maidan in
Lucknow ever since her return to power. The gleaming stone being
used to build a new boundary wall and other edifices in and around
the most noticeable symbol of Dalit power in India which has
become a pilgrimage spot for the community are a constant and
visible reminder that Mayawati is back in the saddle and with a full
majority. The deification of Kanshi Ram, in whose name thirteen
ambitious projects with a budgetary allocation of 250 billion rupees,
including a hospital, museum, guest house and even a grand garden
have been launched, is not just a personal tribute to her mentor but
very much a public celebration of the vast financial resources that
the Dalit community can now spend in memory of their prophets. For
a people denied any kind of religious symbol for centuries, this kind
of totemism is very powerful and, perhaps, more relevant than
material prosperity.
On the other hand, Mayawati’s spending spree on the Ambedkar
Maidan and other pet schemes has not gone down well with the
upper-caste middle class intelligentsia in Uttar Pradesh who had for
a brief while switched their political loyalties to her when she swept
back to power. Within six months of the new government, lawyers,
journalists, accountants, businessmen and bureaucrats have started
grumbling about the Dalit leader, shaking their heads disapprovingly
at the wasteful expenditure, lack of serious policy making and, of
course, huge corruption that they allege are routine features of
Mayawati’s fourth stint on the throne of Lucknow. They point out that
many of the controversial businessmen associated with Mulayam
Singh Yadav whom Mayawati was supposed to punish have
managed to switch sides without difficulty. The case of liquor baron
Ponty Chaddha is cited as a classic example. He is reported to be
flourishing, even more today than during the previous regime, having
acquired a stranglehold over the vast liquor trade in Uttar Pradesh.
Even Mulayam Singh’s close associate Subroto Roy of the Sahara
Group, whom everybody expected to be down in the dumps after his
political mentor’s downfall, is said to have bought peace with the
new regime after a lengthy meeting with cabinet minister Nasimuddin
Siddique, a key aide of Mayawati.
What the middle class intelligentsia in Lucknow do concede,
however, is that the law and order situation has shown a definite
improvement after Mayawati took over. This, of course, is not saying
much since there was a complete breakdown of law and order
bordering on anarchy during the last few years of Mulayam Singh’s
rule. Yet the security of life and property is something that affects
every class and caste and the new government has certainly earned
some important brownie points in that regard within six months of
coming to power.
It is also impossible not to notice the relaxed air of confidence in
state cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh. In his gleaming
white leather and chrome office at the State Secretariat he asserted,
‘If we can continue for one more year like this, we will take Delhi.’ I
would have been tempted to dismiss this as empty bluster if I had
not recalled that nearly three years ago, when Singh was languishing
in a punishment posting after the downfall of Mayawati’s third
regime, he had predicted a full majority for her in the 2007 assembly
polls.
A dramatic illustration of Mayawati’s own self-confidence today is
the way she has sought to defy the NOIDA jinx—an Uttar Pradesh
political superstition that has kept all serving chief ministers in the
state from visiting the area bordering Delhi during their tenure
because of the widely held belief that they would lose their jobs. The
jinx started two decades ago when in 1988, the then Uttar Pradesh
chief minister, Vir Bahadur Singh, lost his job soon after visiting
NOIDA. The next chief minister, N D Tiwari, was also a casualty
being voted out in 1989, a few months after his first official visit to the
place. In 1995, Mulayam Singh Yadav came to NOIDA as chief
minister and within months Mayawati withdrew support to his
government. She herself fell victim to the jinx in 1997. After her visit
to Noida, the BJP withdrew support to her government. Her
successor Kalyan Singh claimed he did not believe in superstition,
but was removed in 1999 shortly after visiting NOIDA. Thereafter a
visit to NOIDA has been a major bugbear for chief ministers of Uttar
Pradesh. For instance in 2002, Mayawati unveiled the foundation
stones of Noida’s Expressway and Gautam Buddha University from
outside the city. BJP chief ministers Ram Prakash Gupta and
Rajnath Singh always managed to avoid a trip to the area during
their respective tenures. While inaugurating the DND Flyway linking
Delhi to NOIDA, Rajnath Singh went to the extent of cutting the
ribbon from the Delhi end. The scare about visiting NOIDA was so
overwhelming that Mulayam Singh during his last stint in power
doggedly refused to visit Nithari even after a public storm erupted
over the discovery of mass child graves, simply because the area fell
inside the administrative jurisdiction of NOIDA. So Mayawati was
making a very significant statement when she went as chief minister
to attend the wedding ceremony of the niece of her closest political
aide, Satish Mishra, at the NOIDA Expo Centre on 21 November
2007.
Yet, Mayawati’s obvious confidence that she will rule Uttar
Pradesh for the next many years does not mean that she is resting
on her laurels. She is clearly restless for further prizes, particularly
the biggest one of all that lies in the capital, Delhi. Ever since the
Dalit leader captured power in Lucknow, she has repeatedly
declared her ambition of becoming prime minister. This is not just
posturing but a serious quest for political power at the centre as her
aide, Satish Mishra, acknowledges. He has been put in charge of
putting the BSP on the national map and has been touring virtually
non-stop across the country to make preparations for the coming Lok
Sabha polls. Mayawati herself has also been travelling far and wide
choosing to spend the last week of 2007 on a tour of south India
where her party barely exists. There she declared her intention of
replacing both the Congress and the BJP with the BSP as the main
national party of India.
How seriously should we take these assertions? There was an
empirical test of the BSP’s electoral clout outside of Uttar Pradesh at
the end of 2007 when the party contested on its own virtually all the
seats in the state assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Mayawati had claimed during hectic campaigning in these polls that
her party would make a dent in Gujarat and actually hold the key to
power in Himachal Pradesh. The results have belied these claims. In
Gujarat where the BSP got 2.37 per cent of the vote, it failed to get a
single seat while in Himachal Pradesh it managed to win the solitary
constituency of Kangra with seven per cent of the overall vote in the
state.
Yet, the results show a dramatic jump in voting percentage for the
BSP, which was virtually non-existent in these states. Significantly,
the Congress blamed Mayawati and her party for its resounding
defeat in the hands of the BJP in both states. There is little doubt
that in several constituencies in Gujarat and even more so in lower
Himachal Pradesh, the BSP vote harmed the Congress, although in
some areas it dented the BJP as well. The results confirmed the
worst fears of Congress strategists: that the BSP was becoming a
major political undercurrent that was eroding the party’s base in
large parts of the country but in varying degrees from state to state.
As the writing is becoming increasingly legible on the wall, some
panic-stricken Congress leaders lashed out at Mayawati and the
BSP in the aftermath of Congress debacles in Gujarat and Himachal
Pradesh. ‘Mulayam Singh’s government was bad but the Mayawati
regime is worse,’ alleged Uttar Pradesh party chief Rita Bahuguna.
In response to the war of words unleashed by the Congress,
Mayawati fired her own salvo at her first press conference of 2008 in
New Delhi. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre had ignored
her repeated appeals for financial resources to develop backward
areas in the state. She also accused the central government of
deliberately extending corruption cases against her despite the clean
chit given to her by the income tax authorities and investigative
agencies. The Dalit firebrand went to the extent of accusing the
Congress of protecting noted Allahabad Mafioso Atiq Ahmed, who
had threatened to kill her. ‘If I am murdered, it is the Congress who
will be responsible,’ thundered Mayawati at the press conference.
Interestingly, she sought to differentiate between Sonia Gandhi (in
hospital with a respiratory ailment over the end of 2007 and the
beginning of 2008) and the Congress adding that it was not clear
whether the party supremo was responsible or even aware about the
anti-Mayawati campaign. Yet, whatever the personal rapport
between Mayawati and Sonia Gandhi may be, this intrinsically
hostile political equation between the Congress and the BSP cannot
but influence their future relationship.
While the BJP is gloating at the possible advantage to be gained
from the woes of the Congress in the face of the BSP challenge, the
saffron party itself has little chance of national revival as long as
Mayawati holds sway in Uttar Pradesh. BJP leaders privately admit
that there is virtually no chance of resurrecting the party from deep
coma in the state in time for the next Lok Sabha polls. And without
the numbers from India’s largest state, and given the BJP’s
weakness in eastern and southern India, there is no way that it can
hope to come back to power at the centre. So even if she does not
have the numbers to make a serious bid for power after the next
general elections, Mayawati, more than any other contemporary
political leader, is increasingly becoming the defining point of
national politics.
This book is certainly not a hagiography aimed at painting a rosy
picture of Mayawati and her politics. There are enough publicists in
India to look after the image building of political leaders. But it is
difficult not to be impressed at the tumultuous saga of the Dalit
leader who has already redefined the landscape of Indian politics.
The probability of her going on to scale even higher peaks of
success makes the book an even more worthwhile exercise. Yet,
despite her own sterling qualities and a liberal hand from destiny,
Mayawati’s meteoric rise almost out of nowhere is also a great
tribute to the democratic process in this country. 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 (the literal meaning
of Dalit) community known to mankind has risen through the heat
and dust of elections to rule two hundred million people? In fact she
may well reach further afield and guide the destiny of a billion more
in the not too distant future. And all this without cutting anyone’s
throat. To my mind this is not only the crowning achievement of
independent India but also a political marvel that holds lessons
across the world.

7 January 2008 New Delhi

SECTION ONE
 One

Early Years

Mayawati’s early years are, perhaps inevitably, shrouded by the

mythology that has sprung up around her amazing story. Her father
claims that she was named Maya because the day she was born he
had three strokes of good fortune: a promotion at work, a move to a
better department and a tidy sum in accumulated dues. Her mother
recalls that barely a fortnight after Mayawati’s birth a sadhu predicted
that she would become a neta, a great leader.
Her family has many stories calculated to intensify the hype and
enhance the aura about her. When she was just three years old,
runs one of them, she found a valuable cheque her father thought he
had lost. As she grew older, she never forgot to milk the family
buffalo even in the middle of her law exams. Her mother speaks of
her daughter’s incredible culinary skills. Mayawati’s many siblings
wax eloquent about her courage, wisdom and determination,
qualities which were evident even when she was a child.
Not surprisingly, Mayawati, herself, chooses to remember the early
memories that complement her present iconic stature. For instance,
she recounts these four stories about her childhood in her
autobiography:1
As a small child I used to go with my parents to visit my maternal grandparents
who lived in Simrauli village in Hapur district, Uttar Pradesh. One day I was
walking with my parents and grandparents past the local river when out came a
wolf right in front of us. The adults immediately tried to restrain me by saying that
I must stay away from the wolf otherwise it would eat me up. But instead of being
scared, I challenged the wolf and said that I would eat it up instead. Much to the
horror of my grandparents and parents, I chased after the wolf. However, I was
stopped from any further adventure by some peasants from nearby fields who
brought me back to the adults.
 In my early teens, in Fifth or Sixth class, my fourth brother Subhash was born.
Within a few days he came down with a terrible bout of pneumonia. He was in
desperate need of injections and medicines but unfortunately my father was out
of town. The government clinic where we were treated free of charge because of
my father’s government job, was six kilometres away. My mother was too ill and
the rest of us were (still small) children. I knew my brother would die if not taken
to the government clinic on time, so I decided to walk him to the clinic since there
was no money in the house to hire transport. It was a long, scary journey.
Deserted at places, the road cut through a stretch of the Ridge forest. I carried a
water bottle from which I gave sips to my brother whenever he cried. I shifted him
from right to left shoulder and back. Finally, after a two-hour trek I reached the
clinic much to the amazement of the doctors and staff there. They were
flabbergasted at my feat. My brother received the proper injection and medicines
and quickly improved. I then walked back with my brother reaching home after
9.30 in the night. My mother was waiting anxiously and worried sick. She was
thrilled to see us safe and her newly born son looking much better. She gave me
a big tight hug.
A middle aged childless couple lived near our house. The wife was the target
of all kinds of rumours by people in the colony. They spread stories about her
suffering from some dangerous infectious disease. Nobody would speak to her or
visit their house. Several years later she was suddenly reported to be pregnant.
This only led to even more vile gossip about her. Finally, the day came when the
lady was in labour but to her misfortune the husband was away at work. Nobody
in the colony was prepared to help despite her loud cries of pain. I was in First or
Second Year College and happened to be in the house. I wanted to go to her aid
but my mother and other women in the colony insisted that I would be infected by
the disease the lady had. Besides, my mother asserted that there was no need
for me to get involved with pregnancy since I was unmarried myself. But I didn’t
heed them and rushed the lady to hospital where she delivered a healthy son
now happily married with his own children. When the nurse sought to hand over
the newly born infant to the relieved husband who had now arrived at the
hospital, he was so grateful to me that he told her to hand the baby over first to
‘Behenji’ Mayawati without whose help his child would have remained unborn.
We had gone on a large extended family excursion to see Birla Mandir when I
was in class two or three. After the entire day there, the time came to go back
home. Most of us were returning by bus but a relative had also brought his
private car and I was keen to ride in the car. Unfortunately in the confusion of
who was going with whom I got left behind. I realised something was wrong when
I saw the car driving away without me, the group going by bus having left some
time earlier. I chased the car for a distance but how could a small girl catch up
with an automobile! Although I ran a considerable distance trying to catch the car
I managed to get back to Birla Mandir. Without any tears or tantrums, I patiently
waited for my parents to come back for me. They did so after a few hours after
discovering that I was missing. When they found me waiting quietly at the gates
 of Birla Mandir, my parents thanked me for showing such good sense instead of
panicking like a little child.

Cynics may question these feats of courage, compassion and duty

that Mayawati claims to have achieved at so young an age. Yet her
following not only take every childhood story recounted by their
leader as the gospel truth, but each of these stories is already part of
the folklore surrounding ‘Behenji’ and have become shining
illustrations of role model behaviour. It is quite possible Mayawati
herself believes in a heroic childhood and youth, choosing to deny
the insecurities, vulnerable moments and the more mundane
aspects of what was, after all, a very ordinary early life. But the real
point is that these incidents are now like fables and their relevance
lies in their contribution to the wider, unfolding Mayawati story.
Mayawati was born on 15 January 1956 at the Lady Hardinge
Hospital in New Delhi to Prabhu Das Dayal, a lowly clerk in the posts
and telegraphs department of the central government, and a mother,
Ramrati Devi, who was illiterate. Although by the time of her birth,
her family had moved to Delhi because of Prabhu Das’s government
job, both parents hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati’s paternal
family came from Badalpur village then in Ghaziabad district, but
now within the newly created Gautam Buddha Nagar district. Her
mother’s family came from Simrauli village near Hapur, also in
Ghaziabad. Both villages were close to the larger national capital
region bordering the capital, New Delhi.
Despite her parent’s rural background, Mayawati herself grew up
entirely in the Jhuggi Jhopri (JJ) colony of south-west Delhi’s
Inderpuri—one of the proliferating shanty towns that have for
decades housed lower middle class inhabitants across Delhi. The
tiny dwelling, shared by the Dayal parents and their nine children—
Mayawati’s two sisters and six brothers—must have further added to
the cramped squalor of her childhood surroundings. It certainly must
have helped her to cope with life’s challenges as well as
opportunities. These survival skills, sharpened in the inner recesses
of Delhi’s urban jungle, were to serve Mayawati well in her political
career.
Significantly, the person whom she loved and respected most as a
child was not her father, Prabhu Das, with whom she had a troubled
relationship. It was her paternal grandfather Mangal Sen, a former
sepoy of the British army who had seen action in Italy during the
First World War. Mayawati was her grandfather’s favourite, and he
made her feel special and wanted. She also admired his wisdom,
lofty principles and lack of prejudice. ‘He was so principled and
progressive that the entire village respected him for his views and
came to ask for his advice. Often he was the one who resolved
disputes in the village,’ recalls Mayawati in her autobiography.
She recounts with obvious admiration that her grandfather refused
to remarry despite losing his wife when his son, Prabhu Das, was
only six months old. Ignoring the advice of his friends and relatives to
marry again, he single-handedly brought up his son. In sharp
contrast, Mayawati is openly contemptuous of her own father who
was inclined to listen to his relatives and friends when they advised
him to acquire a second wife when his wife, Ramrati, produced three
daughters in succession. They told him that as the only son of his
father it was his duty to have sons who would continue the family
name. Many years later Mayawati recalled the sadness and
humiliation caused to her mother by her father’s desperation for male
progeny.
It was Mangal Sen who put his foot down, forbidding his son from
marrying again. ‘My grandfather said that granddaughters were
perfectly capable of continuing the family heritage. He said that if
girls are given a good education they can be as capable if not better
than sons,’ writes Mayawati.
Eventually, a few years later, her mother produced sons with such
a vengeance that she gave birth to six in a row. Prabhu Das was
overjoyed and boasted about being the father of so many sons. His
bias towards his sons was so evident, Mayawati recalls, that his
daughters were sent to low-performing government schools for a
free education, while the family’s small income was spent on
educating the boys at private schools and on extra tuition when
needed. ‘My father was convinced that his sons were his future and
therefore needed special grooming. Even though I was the best
student in the family, my father did not spend any money on my
education.’
Fate provided Mayawati with her revenge in 1993. Her political
standing increased sharply once the BSP joined hands with the
Samajwadi Party to form the government in Uttar Pradesh. While
Mulayam Singh Yadav became state chief minister, Mayawati, the
BSP’s point person in Uttar Pradesh, closely supervising her party’s
interests in the state, earned the sobriquet ‘super chief minister’.
Prabhu Das was besieged in his ancestral Badalpur village by
friends, relatives and village elders asking for special favours now
that his daughter had become such a VVIP.
When her father came to Lucknow to urge Mayawati to announce
some special schemes for Badalpur she could not help but taunt
him, ‘But I thought it was your sons who were going to carry forward
the family name! Why don’t you ask one of them to construct
colleges, hospitals and roads in your village?’ With obvious
satisfaction she recounts in her autobiography that her father begged
for forgiveness saying that he had now realized that it was his
daughter who was the most important person in his life. Significantly,
as her political stars shone brighter with every passing year,
Mayawati never cut herself off entirely from her father but kept him at
arm’s length, often—much to his discomfiture—withholding easy
access to her presence. Indeed, it was possibly this equivocal
relationship that fired Mayawati’s ambition, driving her to achieve
more and more, as if to prove to Prabhu Das how much better she
was than everyone else.
Mayawati shows far more compassion towards her mother, and
her appreciation for Ramrati’s unswerving dedication and hard work
for the welfare of the family is obvious. She has high praise for her
mother’s ability to rise above her status as an illiterate housewife and
start a dairy in the house to augment the constantly cash-strapped
situation of her large family. ‘My mother is a simple woman but
completely focused on the welfare of her family. It is largely because
of her that all us sisters and brothers are well settled in life.’
The gender discrimination faced by Mayawati in her early years
and the low status of women in her family and in her immediate
society, made her all the more determined to achieve the kind of
success that would lift her above the curse of social prejudice. This
need was also fuelled by overwhelming feelings of humiliation and
vulnerability as a Dalit that she had felt from her childhood, feelings
she describes vividly in her autobiography.2
Even as a small child, there was no escaping the curse of being a Dalit! My
parents would often take me by bus or train to my grandparents in the village. On
the way they would start talking with other passengers who, as soon they heard
the name of the village, enquired further to which specific mohalla—Brahmin, Jat,
Thakur, Gujjar etc we were going. The moment my parents mentioned Chamar
mohalla, passengers belonging to other castes shrank back and stopped talking
to us. At first these people who behaved in such a strange way confused me.
When I asked my mother she explained that people were divided into castes and
sub-castes, and they lived in segregated clusters in the village. She also told me
that our Chamar caste was considered low, unclean, and treated unkindly by
upper castes. From a very early age, I learnt to hate the caste system with all my
might.

An admiration for the great Dalit icon, Baba Bhimrao Ambedkar,

became another impetus to succeed in life and combat the curse of
the caste system. Every year on 14 April, along with her entire
family, she attended functions held across Delhi to mark Ambedkar
Jayanti—the birth anniversary of the Dalit leader and architect of the
Indian Constitution. She heard leaders and scholars from the
community speak on Ambedkar’s life and writings. This celebration
of Ambedkar has become routine practice over the past several
decades in most urban—and increasingly rural—Dalit families; it is
akin to the religious rituals observed by other segments of Indian civil
society. It is one reason why Dalits, perhaps more than any social
group, are intensely aware of their rights under the Constitution and
are also ready, from a very young age, for political mobilization.
Yet, Mayawati’s early exposure to Ambedkar’s call to destroy the
caste system produced a response that went beyond the reaction of
an average Dalit child. Even before she fully grasped Ambedkar’s
politics and social philosophy, the awe and respect accorded to the
Dalit icon mesmerized her. While she was still in middle school,
Mayawati asked her father whether people would praise and respect
her if she, too, fought against social injustice like Ambedkar. It is
interesting to note that even as a teenager she craved public
adulation.
Prabhu Das shrewdly sought to direct his daughter’s desire for
fame for practical benefit, instead of just dismissing it as childish
prattle. ‘Of course you, too, can be like Baba Ambedkar. But first you
have to finish school and college, then pass the Indian
Administrative Service (IAS) exams, become a collector and only
then as a government bigwig will you be able to rise in society and
fight for your community. Only then will you get success and fame,’
he told his daughter. The scheduled caste government clerk was
uttering a mantra familiar to all his peers. They believed that the road
to success was to become government officers through the reserved
caste quota.
It became Mayawati’s mission in life. With single-minded
dedication she decided to pursue the goal of passing the IAS
entrance exams to become a district collector whose hands wielded
the levers of official power. Mayawati was so impatient for this to
come to pass that she asked her father if she could take her high
school exams early. Prabhu Das, ready to take advantage of his
daughter’s enthusiasm, found out that she could actually take a
combined exam for the classes nine, ten and eleven at her
government school. In an incredible spurt of scholastic effort, if not
ability, Mayawati leapfrogged three school years, passing the school-
leaving board exam in 1972.
This enthusiasm to get through school did not necessarily mean
that Mayawati was a scholar. Academic standards at her government
school were notoriously low. Passing the board exam prematurely
should not be mistaken for the feat of a prodigy. Mayawati’s modest
academic abilities are underlined by her graduation from Kalindi
College, ranked fairly low among Delhi University’s colleges, where
she graduated with a third division in the not very academically
rigourous BA (Pass) course.
Interestingly, the few who remember Mayawati in college find it
difficult to recall any early pointers of her subsequent stardom. For
instance, the administrative officer of Kalindi College, J.B. Anand,
who admitted her, remembers a shy, tongue-tied sixteen-year-old,
clutching on to her father when she came for admission. ‘Such a
timid girl! She seldom mixed with others and was reticent; in fact she
was even scared of the teachers. I am at a loss to explain this
complete turnaround. There has been a drastic change in
personality. Din or raat ki farak hai (the difference between day and
night)!’ he declared in an interview after Mayawati triumphantly
swept to power in Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time.3
Her low profile in college and lack of scholastic flair is not
surprising. An overwhelming majority of Dalit students keep their
head well down in colleges where they are made to feel like
interlopers in a club that they do not really belong to. The fact that
large numbers of them still flock to colleges despite the inhospitable
environment is an eloquent testimony to their hunger for the success
they hope to acquire through an academic degree. Dalit students
use their reserved quotas in colleges, competitive exams as well as
government offices with quiet determination, traversing a path that
rarely crosses those taken by other sections of society. College was
hardly the arena for Mayawati to display her innate abilities or skills.
On the other hand, there is little doubt she was far from being a
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in
the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name
associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of
this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its
attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without
charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms
of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or
with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of
this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that
s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
 copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and
discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project
Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except

for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph
1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner
of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party
distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this
agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and
expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO
REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF
WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it,
you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity
that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a
replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted
by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the
Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability,
costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur:
(a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project
Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.
It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and
donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a
secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help,
see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can
be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the
widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small
donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax
exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and
keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in
locations where we have not received written confirmation of
compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of
compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where

we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in
such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project

Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how
to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookfinal.com