As the heat in Delhi hits forty three degrees, the crowd waits patiently under a massive blue-white cloth-tent. Women sit huddled on one side, men on the other, patrolled by nervous policemen and uniformed cadre of the Bahujan Volunteer Force. Local politicians lurk on the stage’s edge, allowing a clear view of the lone, empty chair in the middle. No one wants to block the chair, even when empty, even by mistake. An hour passes, then two. Suddenly those on stage go rigid, and those in the audience get on their feet. Security guards rush on-stage, slowly parting to reveal a cream silk-wearing diminutive lady waving mechanically at the audience. And then, in rustic Hindi, she speaks of Constitutional provisions and proprieties.

It’s a forum (and audience) as far as can be from the air-conditioned sobriety of the Supreme Court, the central hall of Parliament, or even the discussion room at the India International Centre. Yet, if you closed your eyes and just listened, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise. For BSP chief Mayawati launches into a lengthy exposition on the provisions of the Indian Constitution, quotes clauses, articulates many of her demands (arakshan, or reservations, being the leitmotif) in legal terminology, and tells a lengthy tale on the Congress, Ambedkar and their roles in founding independent India’s most vibrant document. Her audience of 6,000 — mainly Dalits — listened in pin drop silence at Delhi’s Ram Lila grounds on Sunday.

Why does someone who’s made a career sneering at the elite nature of Indian polity, repeatedly rely on the very document from which the Indian state sources its legitimacy?

... contd.