Dalit Political Movements

Ankur Parashar

Although the Dalit movement in India has roots in the reformative Bhakti Movement as the
Bhakti Movement was anti-caste, anti-elite, pro -women, pro-poor, anti-Sanskrit, and
affirmed that genuine love of God was sufficient to find solutions to social problems. The
movement attracted large numbers of the lower castes and poor, including women
(Srinivas, 1996) but during the last two decades, the assertion of the people from low castes
including the Dalits has assumed unprecedented significance. The Dalit question is one of
the most important questions in today’s political and academic debates in India. Dalit
assertion, Dalit leadership and voting pattern of the Dalits etc., are the elements of these
debates.

Dalit political movement as an independent discourse from the mainstream ( Congress)

political party can be traced to Dr B. R. Ambedkar who created a new political movement in
the form of All India Scheduled Caste Federation, established in 1942. In January 1950,
speaking at a general public meeting in Bombay, organized by the All India Scheduled Castes
Federation, he advised the dalits to cooperate with the Congress and to think of their
country first, before considering their sectarian interests. (Bandyopadhyay, 2000) This
alliance was a victory for the congress party’s integrationist politics, a 'remarkable act of
political generosity', through which the varying strains of Gandhi-congress-untouchable
situation seemed to come together. (Bandyopadhyay, 2000) For Ambedkar too, this was an
opportunity to do something for his community from within the government, and not in
confrontation with the Congress and the offer was god in terms that this didn’t lead to the
merging of Ambedkar’s independent political movement with the congress Party. (Gore,
1993)But this partnership could not sustain for long and the split led to the creation of an
independent party called the Republican Party of India.

Until the recent emergence of the Bahujana Samaj Party, the only post-Independence
example of a party centred on Dalits was the Republican Party of India (RPI). Although the
party was formed few months after his death, The Republican Party was a transformation of
the Scheduled Castes Federation. But this political movement ran into ideological,
organisational and factional problems. The conflict was connected to a split between those
who saw the future of Mahar politics in terms of broader economic and class struggle -
some of these were the older village-based activists - and an emerging leadership less
committed to working with caste Hindus and even other Untouchable communities. After
Ambedkar, and in the context of growing social and economic diversity among the Mahars,
there was no one who could command this general loyalty. Apart from Maharashtra , The
RPI also put down roots in several States where Ambedkar's influence had been relatively
strong - particularly Uttar Pradesh (notably the cities of Agra and Aligarh) and Punjab, but
also Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Extraordinarily, the RPI was electorally more
successful in Uttar Pradesh than in Maharashtra. (Mendelsohn & Vicziany, 1998) But due to
infighting this political movement lost its sheen.

In Maharashtra post the fall of RPI, a more radical Dalit movement emerged in the form of
Dalit Panthers inspired by the American Black Panthers movement. At the time India was
marked by widespread famine, pervasive student activism and a non-party oppositional
politics which later developed into Jayaprakash Narayan's direct confrontation of Indira
Gandhi. But the Dalit Panthers proved unable to connect up with broader leftist
politics. (Mendelsohn & Vicziany, 1998)

Kanshiram and Bahujan Samaj Party

Another Dalit political movement also emerged in Maharashtra during the same time as
Dalit Panthers but it later found its niche in Uttar Pradesh. This movement was unique as
unlike other movements it was inspired by the ideals of Dr Ambedkar and yet not narrowing
down the movement into a neo-Buddhist movement. By the mid-1970S Kanshi Ram had
established a broad if not dense network of contacts throughout Maharashtra and adjacent
regions. This led to a larger mobilization by Kanshi Ram for the organization he
conceptualized as ideas for an organisation to be built by educated employees from the
Scheduled and Backward castes. Such an organisation would work against harassment and
oppression by high-caste officers, and also enable the often inward-looking occupants of
reserved postions to give something back to their own communities. Thus they established
the All India Backward and Minority Employees Federation (BAMCEF) in 1973. BAMCEF's
motto, 'Educate, Organise and Agitate', was adopted from Ambedkar, and its activities were
formally divided into a number of welfare and other objects. This organisation later got
evolved into Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Kanshi Ram was more an organiser and political
strategist than an innovative thinker or charismatic public speaker. While his Ambedkarite
ideology has remained constant and lacking in any innovation, there had been a progressive
sharpening of his rhetoric. (Mendelsohn & Vicziany, 1998) Thus Kanshi Ram didn’t change
anything related to the idea of Dalit movement as propagated by Dr. Ambedkar but he got
some innovations of his own like making a movement more about acquiring political power
than to push for the ideological agenda. Thus BSP is seen as a more successful political
alternative for the Dalits. He didn’t believed in the primacy of social reform. Rather,
expenditure of effort on any object other than the capture of government is seen to be
superfluous. It is administrative power that will bring about desired social change, not vice
versa. So he declined to spell out policies on basic issues such as the liberalisation of the
Indian economy or on land reforms. It was Kanshi Ram's fortune that he built the party at
the historical moment that the long-term Congress decline became a landslide. Kanshi Ram
led his movement for the disadvantaged masses precisely when the Congress Party under
P.V. Narasimha Rao decided to introduce Economic Reforms, requiring the retreat of the
State from welfarism. Much of the opposition to new market-oriented policies has come
from notions of Social Justice put forward by leaders such as Kanshi Ram. (Singh, 2012)

The BSP’s electoral success is seen as a unique phenomenon due to the fact that no other
Indian political party running primarily under the platform of catering to the interests of ex-
untouchables has achieved such success. However, the BSP could not have achieved success
by simple voter majority because Dalits do not comprise a direct voter majority. The BSP has
found success by forming political coalitions with the Samajvadi Party (SP), Congress,
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), all of which have very different political ideologies and agendas
than those of the BSP. (Duncan, 1999)

Its success can be seen from its political victories in UP

Source: (Singh, 2012)

Through this style they had compromised on the ideological level but by acquiring power
they did manage to do many things for the Dalit community which wouldn’t have been
possible otherwise. When the BSP started as a political party in early 1990s its agenda was
based on ‘self respect’. This agenda pushed the BSP into an aggressive public dialogue
against the political parties dominated by the upper castes. Thus, Before 1995, when the
BSP government was in power in UP, the developmental agenda was absent in the party’s
long term political blueprint. The party literature, public addresses of the party leaders and
their interviews with the media did not contain anything or had very little about the party’s
stand on the development of the country in general and UP in particular. (Pai, 2001)

But post 1995 BSP shifted her ideology after the alliance with BJP. The party has started
many welfare programmes and benefits were provided to the Dalits exclusively. The party’s
focus was more on rural development. The party viewed rural development as development
of SC/ST. To achieve this they started schemes like Ambedkar Village Programme (AVP),
Ambedkar Rojgar Yojana etc. (Singh, 2012) As it thought that Dalits may start to move back
to their traditional base ie Congress as the BSP is supporting an upper class political party.
Thus during this time the developmental agenda also came into picture but more as a
necessity to hold on the political base. Post 2002 the shift for the wider social base became
important for the BSP thus a push to include upper caste was done which succeeded in
BSP’s victory in 2007 assembly elections where they won with the uncommon alliance of
Dalits and Brahmins.
Thus BSP as a political experiment was more pragmatic shift in the Dalit political movement
where the emphasis of the movement is to acquire power through flexible ideological
position.

The political power seizure by the BSP has introduced the party in public with a new political
ideology different from the consistent idea of "social engineering" between the deprived
sections of the country. In its recent 'avatar', the BSP is enjoying power with the help of a
community, which is notoriously condemned in history by the ideologues and thinkers of
Dalit movement for its shrewdness, greed of power and criminal valorisation of their social
status. Keeping such a partner in power can compel the BSP to dilute the vital issues of
social justice, law and order and secularism. Secondly, there is a threat that due to its
fixation on power, the BSP will forget the idea of empowering the Dalits. (Wankhede, 2008)

Rightward shift of the Dalit movement

There has been a argument that the Dalit political movement taking a right wing shift by
looking at the higher voting of Dalits towards BJP and the alliances of Dalit mass based
parties with the right wing parties like RPI-Shiv Sena-BJP alliance. Secondly the aspirations of
the Urban Dalits are similar to the middle class aspirations of the urban upper caste. Thus
they are inclined to move towards the right wing political parties who support the market
led developmental model. (GUDAVARTHY, 2014)

Although it may be noted that the number of such people is very low and still Dalit political
movement has not shown a major shift from the Dalit centric parties to national or regional
parties. National parties still rely on the support of such parties as they are unsure of getting
Dalit votes.
Conclusion

The Dalit Political movement has not been merely an exhibition of the agitation of the Dalits
for social change. It has been cemented with well thought out developmental and political
premises. Ambedkar was the chief architect for the foundation of the movement. Dalit
Movement , a social revolution aimed for social change, replacing the age old hierarchical
Indian society , based on the democratic ideals of liberty ,equality and social justice , has
begun much earlier , became intense in the 1970s and began to deem at present. Currently
the movements goal are being diluted as the mainstream Dalit parties are more interested
in capturing power with the help of short term clientele relationship between the politicians
and the people rather than working on the target of achieving social justice.

Thus the Movement for social change will succeed only when all the Dalits unite together to
fight for equality. However they should accept that caste that is deeply rooted in peoples
mind cannot be erased. So here social change would mean to get rid of discriminatory
practices and get rights, necessary for the upliftment of the backward section of society-the
Dalits. The agenda of social democracy is sidelined under the larger consensus on political
democracy.
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