Yashpal Gautam : The Bahujan apotheosis and Everyday Practices of Movement.
Yashpal Gautam, with his headgear marked his presence and attracted the attention of BSP rallies in Uttar Pradesh. His headgear is a wooden cardboard with the images of Babasaheb Ambedkar, BSP’s election symbol Elephant, Founder Bahujan Nayak Manyavar Kanshiram and its current Supremo Maywati. The strikingly underlined point of his headgear is that on the image of Mayavati with Parliament of India in the background, the apotheosis of BSP would be clearly indicated — as it is visibly written in bold as ‘Next PM of India’. The teaching of Gautama Buddha ‘Bahujana Hitaya -Bahujana Sukhaya’ i.e. Welfare/Rights to Everyone and Happiness to Everyone was written on the top. His headgear was signed off as Yashpal Gautam, Ambedkar Nagar, Hapur.
Dalit Dastak, the Hindi Magazine, carried the photograph of Yashpal Gautam holding his signature style wooden cardboard advocating for Mayawati for the post of Prime Minister, for its November 2012 edition cover story. Newspapers too carried the same photograph in their coverage of BSP election rallies.
The question that Yashpal is posing to us is — can the Bahujan survive without political assertion and political power? Can Brahmanism be defeated without political power? Would Brahmanism ensure the survival of the Bahujans? (The media campaigns against BSP in 2012 Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh clearly exhibited that Political Power of Bahujans is a threatening factor and nightmare for Brahmanism)
The headgear of Yashpal spoke in volumes more than the speeches of BSP leaders. It is a political message to the Bahujan Samaj that BSP is your party and you have to vote for BSP. He was not at all a seasoned politician or activist or a government employee. He was a working class person who survived his family by selling fruits on the roads of Hapur, in Uttar Pradesh and earlier doing carpentry work. In Yashpal’s headgear, I find a responsible reading of Ambedkar’s Agra speech ( 18th March 1956) in which Ambedkar argued that — some young man to come forward and take the responsibility to defend the interests of helpless and disheartened people. As a helpless working class person Yashpal selling fruits and earlier carpenter work would make sure that he attended most of the rallies of BSP. A helpless person marking his presence in a BSP rally tells us that the work of Kanshiram has reached the working class and labouring mass. His presence itself was a political responsibility that he took up voluntarily, (unlike the paid IT cell and Bhakts of BJP). I am sure that the days he attended the BSP rallies he must be at wage loss or financial crunch. His absence would easily be noticed (and after the rally BSP activists would discuss that ‘in today’s rally Yashpal was absent’). Above all, he was interested in the political power for BSP and the formation of the BSP government at the centre/national level.
What is important for us to observe is that Yashpal Gautam is a politically conscious being who is aware of his politics and which political party to vote and campaign for in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The political consciousness that Yashpal carried forward is the product of the social and political works of Kanshiram. With the rise of BSP at a national level, UPA led by Congress was forced to include SC, ST and OBC’s in university teaching and administration positions; UGC administrative positions; and in the ministry etc. Those SC, ST and OBC’s that became part of the state machinery must learn from Yashpal that comfortable (governmental or Sarkari) life wouldn’t bring political change but political assertions would. The educated and employed SC, ST and OBC’s maintaining distance from political parties like BSP would recede the political force of BSP and strengthen the forces of Brahmanism that operate in the name of BJP and Congress.
The apotheosis of BSP, as argued by Kanshiram, is to have political power at the center and a government headed by BSP. Kanshiram eloquently said that those who speak of the Bahujan (social and political rights) will get to (or have to) take power in Delhi.
On Facebook, in the mornings, Yashpal would post a photograph of himself selling fruits and wishing everyone Jai Bhim (aap ka Bhai) your brother Yashpal Gautam, Hapur. Earlier, in the evenings, he would post his photos doing the work of carpentry making wooden products. Dignity of labour — he spoke loudly with the photos of him selling fruits and doing the carpenter work.
Sometimes, on Facebook, he would post the tweets of Mayawati, Kunwar Danish Ali speaking in Parliament and various activities of BSP. Sometimes, he would post the photographs of Raj Kumar — Political Science faculty at Dayal Singh College DU, BP Ashok — official at Police Department Uttar Pradesh, Vivek Kumar — Sociology Professor at JNU and write a few words describing their work and achievements in politics like Paying Back to Society, administration and academics respectively.
One would be at fault to read his facebook posts as the gliding of Bhakti or hero worship; but, one has to read it as the celebration of the people from Bahujan communities for having made it successful to the modern institutions. Caste is opposed to modern institutions. This is why one gets to see too much of a celebration from the Bahujan community, when someone like Tina Dabi secures first rank in the UPSC exams or someone making it to a university, government job etc. These celebrations/appreciations and applauding is primarily embedded in the aspirations and dreams for many Bahujans hoping to be part of the modern institutions.
Political parties like BSP today survive with the earlier work of its leaders, in addition to the everydayness of the so many unknown dedicated supporters, sympathisers and activists like Yashpal Gautam who with their work posit that the political work of BSP is important and anti-caste movement has to take politics seriously like the way BSP did in late 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s that was carried under the leadership of Kanshiram.
Many in the state of Uttar Pradesh considered Yashpal Gautam as one of the star campaigners of BSP. It must have been a coincidence that BSP was formed in 1984 and Yashpal was born in 1984. Yashpal Gautam (01 January 1984 to 27 April 2021) at 37 years breathed his last yesterday (27 April 2021) due to breathing problems owing to Covid-19. He is survived by his wife Kavita, three daughters and mother. His sudden demise is an irreparable loss to the Bahujan political movement and consciousness.
Every death in the second wave of Covid 19 is a political death as the Narendra Modi led BJP government at the centre could not ensure the basic health facilities like hospitals, oxygen cylinders, and medicine etc to the citizens of India.
I was fortunate enough to meet him twice, once at Parliament street in Delhi on the eve of Babasaheb Dr. BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary in 2018 and in Meerut 2019. Jai Bhim Hul Johar to Yashpal Gautam for being a politically conscientious Being and for being one of the ‘star pracharak (campaigner) of BSP’.
Note: There was a transition in his headgear over the years, what made Yashpal transition his headgear only he would have been able to tell us. It is our loss for not getting to know what made him transition his headgear.
Postscript: I reiterate myself that the working class is not bound to hold on to the thought or ideas of the progressive/revolutionary thinkers/people etc. The Labouring mass is not bound to carry the radicals and revolutionaries on the shoulders or head. The labour /working class life is struck between hand to mouth; therefore they should not be compelled to adore or revere any leader/thinker etc.
Scientist turned Philosopher — Politician Kanshiram has put all his organizational efforts and made school teacher Mayawati as the Chief Minister and a major political leader in India. In the same sense, why couldn’t Mayawati make Yashpal as a political leader at least in Uttar Pradesh. Yashpal would have come to the notice of Maywati many times, in her rallies. So, why did Yashpal remain as a member of the working class and not of the political class? Had Yashpal come to the notice of Kanshiram in his political life, Kanhsiram would have made him a MP/MLA and a serious political leader. Yashpal dying the death of a working class person tells us that Mayawati’s BSP had moved away from Kanshiram’s philosophy. It is not an easy task to live up to the political and philosophical praxis of Kanshiram, but one must not give up the legacy of Kanshiram or sit idle. Ambedkar had openly declared that he was looking for a ‘young man to come forward and take the responsibility’ and Kanshiram had publicly announced his successor. The Bahujan movement can’t look for or depend on successors. The Bahujan apotheosis can neither be awaiting for supremo’s to come nor should it afford to ignore dedicated supporters, sympathisers and activists.
Buddha, Ambedkar and Kanshiram would have disagreed with Yashpal’s headgear and rather advised him either to be the Being or representative. And Ambedkar would have suggested him not to gilde into Bhakti or hero worship and to maintain “limits to gratefulness”. Ambedkar would continue that “Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.” (Ambedkar: November 25, 1949 Speech to the Constituent Assembly). From Ambedkar, we have to learn that there has to be mutual respect between political leaders and their supporters, but reverence to a leader by supporters is political degradation.
Yashpal’s headgear is a statement of his political allegiance and respect for Mayawati — BSP or rather what one can better call as political solidarity — this is for both subjective and objective reasons. The deontic experience is missing in Mayawati, towards her supporters. The solidarity that Yashpal had for Mayawati is known, but what is Mayawati’s solidarity to Yashpal?
