From what we know about her, Mayawati hardly talks to her own partymen and women. There are no BSP “leaders” apart from Mayawati. BSP MPs stay tightlipped in Parliament for fear of annoying her. Come election time and the BSP won’t release a manifesto.

Talking to the media or issuing a manifesto are not just matters of good form, or a fetish of polite society. They are necessary requirements for the long distance runner in a democratic polity. If Mayawati is to fulfill her historic mandate, she will have to be responsive, and even vulnerable, to democratic pressures and calls for accountability.

It will not be easy. The dalit movement has been nervous about internal democratisation. Historically, it has feared that it cannot afford it, that it would be coopted and swallowed up by a predatory Congress if it lets down its guard. The fear of disappearing into the ‘mainstream’ without trace has made it defer questions of inner democracy to another day.

As Mayawati takes charge in Lucknow, however, she must know that she will be judged by more exacting standards than politicians at the helm of other states. It’s the nature of her mandate. By accident or through design, she has been cast in a historic role. She must now write the script to match.