Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state (were it to be a country on its own it would be the world’s sixth most-populous, will be governed by a woman, and what’s more a Dalit (formerly Untouchable) woman, Mayawati.
Mayawati looks able to form a majority without the help of any other party in the state’s 403-seat house. She has been chief minister of the state three times, but each was a short stint where her party was a junior partner in a coalition.
Her victory can be traced to her decision two years ago to drop her anti-upper caste vitriol and court other social groups. The fiery speaker built an unlikely partnership between Brahmins, at the top of the Hindu caste hierarchy, and Dalits or untouchables, at the bottom. Mayawati’s strategy saw her party field 86 upper-caste Brahmin candidates, compared with 91 Dalits.
Only about half of the women of Uttar Pradesh can read and write – hopefully she might be able to take some steps towards dealing with that.
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