Her people’s princess

I was born into a dalit family in Delhi and grew up with eight siblings in a modest home in a crowded neighbourhood. My father worked as a low-paid clerk, and my mother, an uneducated woman, toiled hard to run the family. We would often spend our holidays in our grandparents’ village in Uttar Pradesh. During these trips I became acutely aware of the oppression that the dalits in India faced. When I was in eighth grade, I began noticing that our relatives’ huts were always in the most neglected and impoverished part of the village. Invariably, the brahmins and upper castes would occupy the best houses and plots of land.

This is so outrageous and unjust, I thought. I knew I was one of them, but in the anonymous city I didn’t face such violent discrimination as these poor, illiterate villagers. My heart ached, and I asked my father if I could do something to help. My father told me that without a proper education, I would not be able to do anything to help our people.

So my own education became my priority; education for the weaker sections remains my priority today. I graduated from Delhi University and took a job as a teacher. I was full of energy and enthusiasm. During the day I would work as a teacher, and in the evening I would study law. Soon I acquired a law degree and started preparing for the entrance examinations for the civil service so I could make things happen for the poorer people.

By this time a respected leader named Kanshi Ram had set up an organisation of Government employees who are dalits or members of religious minorities He knew very well that dalits must be aware of their rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution. I was already going into various localities to educate poor dalits; Kanshi Ram heard me addressing some meetings and perhaps got impressed. My parents had big dreams of my becoming a top government administrator. But Kanshi Ram told them their daughter had leadership qualities and they should let her join politics so that top bureaucrats would one day take orders from her.

That is when I had to make a big decision. In 1984, I plunged full time into politics. Kanshi Ram, leader of the new Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), or Majority Society Party, took me under his tutelage. My parents were apprehensive, because there...

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Her people’s princess

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