Seth Godin and Mayavati

Seth Godin may not know it, but the new ruler of one of the biggest political entities in the world is someone who uses his methods of 'lying'.



The Bahujan Samaj Party lead by Mayawati created history yesterday by winning absolute majority in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. She did it by telling an 'authentic story'.



By the way, don't think Godin will be able to claim any credit as it is highly unlikely that she reads his blog or his books.



Should they decide to come around for a second visit, the fact that a single, dalit woman would be able to become the undisputed leader of the biggest state in the country, just sixty years after independence would really make the founding fathers of the Indian republic pretty proud of themselves.



'Be Remarkeable'











Indian politics is, by and large, a story of boring self-important old men. Of course, there have been exceptions, but some of those exceptions were so bad, you sort of wished back the boring old men and their boring consistency.



Mayawati is a glorious exception. She is someone who irritates the elite and worse, for them, she does not give a damn. She does not visit the air conditioned news studios in Delhi. She does not talk in pretentious statesman sounding blabber. She does not have many hot-pants-bleached-hair-manicured-hands chicks following her around for a sound bite.



'Be Consistant'



She has been speaking of the elitist bias of the media in India for a decade at least. She has been speaking of 'manuwad' or the upper-caste-upper-class elitism which still pervades the whole of the Indian society for more time than that. She has been speaking about dignity.



'Be Authentic'



She has not been immune to the temptations of power. The multi-crore birthday celebrations being a good example. But from the outside, it seems she has remained an accessible politician for her constituency. That she did not need to fly to Delhi for late-night TV discussions or to Mumbai for celebrity weddings may have a part to play in that. Whether she is authentic or not, her constituency thinks she is authentic. And unlike the elite in India, that is a constituency which votes in very high numbers.



'Marketing is powerful. Use it wisely.'



Once when a leader of a national party went to her to talk about a pre-poll alliance, she bluntly asked him 'Mere paas vote hai, aapke paas kya hai?' (I have votes, what do you have?)



Her record as a Chief Minister, the last three times she was one, is nothing to write home about. But in her defense, the others have been as bad or even worse than her.



Hopefully this time she uses the mandate wisely.



Mute your TV, listen to the feeble voice that’s just made poll history - Psephologist and social scientist Yogendra Yadav's analysis.



Political tour de force - The Hindu Editorial.



Guardian report



Mayavati's biodata



An untouchable leads an Indian state - 1995 Voltairenet