Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ku Mayawati has donned a new feather in her cap by installing a statue of her own alongside her mentor and founder of the elephant brand, blue coloured Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). One would certainly appreciate the efforts of the late Kanshi Ram, who was subjected too much discrimination while serving a premier Institution of the country as a scientist because of his backward class status. The initiative of Kanshi Ram to quit government service for a greater cause by pooling together the scattered and much exploited Bahujan Samaj to bring them up to the mainstream and fight for their genuine rights so as to redeem them from further exploitation is something comparable to the efforts and determination of the Father of the Nation who too went through such life experience in an apartheid driven South Africa.

The life and struggles of every reformer who strove for greater cause genuinely need to be remembered but that does not mean that giant size statues of theirs should be erected anywhere and everywhere at the cost of the exchequer. Fine, even if some of their statues were erected after their physical departure from here are justifiable, but erecting their statues even while they are much alive sounds not only foolish but also self-promoting. It is not they but the people who cherish their memories should come up after their departure and erect plaques or statues in fond remembrance of them.

When Ms Mayawati scored a thumping victory in the last Uttar Pradesh Assembly election through her cunning caste arithmetic of proportionate representation to all castes, including Brahmins, who were the bet-noire of the BSP, this writer too suggested experimenting that all inclusive electoral philosophy in other states as well. But, after over a year of governance by the BSP in Uttar Pradesh, the ground reality seems to be that the Congress, which was much soft with the Bahujan Samaj Party then to vote out the Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, has now turned bitterly against the Bahujan Samaj Party and even joined issues with the Samajwadi Party to somehow or other dislodge the Bahujan Samaj Party led government. The reason seems to be that Ku. Mayawati is making more enemies for herself as well as her party by casting aspersions without any rhyme or reason. For example, her utterances against Rahul Gandhi, general secretary of the Congress that he takes a bath after touching or visiting the colonies of the lower castes/backward classes only shows her imprudence or it may be a desperation to cobble up her own crumbling backward class base that became anti to her after her decision of all inclusive caste arithmetic that was basically against the very ideology on which the party was originally formed by the late Kanshi Ram.

Ms Mayawati, therefore, needs to sit back and recollect her comedy of errors and the latest one of erecting her own statue along side that of the late Dr BR Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram on 14th April at Lucknow, to mark the 117th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar. It is a natural law that anyone who raises himself/herself up will be brought down and anyone who humbles himself/herself will be brought up.