From Mulayam Yadav to Mayawati: Teachers who turned politicians

Lucknow: It is Teacher’s Day, but there are no celebrations for politicians, who started out as teachers. The most famous teacher turned politician is Mulayam Singh Yadav, former founder president of the Samajwadi Party.

Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, who completed his masters in political science, worked as a lecturer in a college in Karhal in Mainpuri before he was sucked into the vortex of the socialist movement and then politics. Mr Yadav, sources say, has maintained contact with his former students, some of whom still visit him occasionally.

Interestingly, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav has always been a champion of promoting politics among students. “The colleges and universities should be a nursery for politicians and we must encourage students to take part in politics”, he has said on svereal occasion.

Today, however, this teacher-turned-politician has been relegated to the wings in state politics with his son Akhilesh Yadav having taken over the reins of the party. Mr Yadav’s appearances in public functions are becoming rarer by the day and the veteran politician is into semi-retirement.

BSP president Mayawati is another teacher-turned politician in Uttar Pradesh. The four time chief minister started out as a teacher in

Inderpuri JJ Colony in Delhi. She was studying for civil services examination when she met late Kashi ram and the latter persuaded her to join politics instead.

Ms Mayawati, however, does not meet her former students and neither is she inclined to revive her relationship with the past.

The BSP president is averse to ‘goondaism on the campus’ and had banned student union polls in 2008. “She is averse to ‘mobocracy’ that rules the campus and even the BSP does not have a youth wing or a student wing like other parties”, said an aide of the BSP leader.

After two consecutive defeats in the 2014 Lok Sabha and the recent 2017 assembly elections, Ms Mayawati and her party have been reduced to non-players in state politics for the moment, at least.

Another teacher turned politician who has risen to great heights, surpassing many of his peers, is union home minister Rajnath Singh. Mr Singh may have deliberately cut himself off from state politics but he welcomes his former teacher colleagues and students with open arms.

Though out of state politics, BJP politicians continue to maintain a contact with their leader. Mr Singh, who worked as a physics lecturer in Mirzapur before plunging into politics, created a furor with his first decision as education minister in Uttar Pradesh in 1991 when he brought in the Anti-Copying Act in 1992, makes copying a non-bailable offence.