Dalit search for new political home

The Dalit identity politics that reigned supreme in UP in the 1990s was built around a Dalit-led political party. It is now giving way to broader demands for social justice and economic advancement, particularly among poorer non-Jatav Dalits. Disaffection with Mayawati, who many feel failed to fulfil their economic aspirations, underlies this Dalit search for a new political home.

Sudha Pai

BSP’s loss, whose gain? | BJP has been drawing large dividends from this disaffection. Its new redistributive politics, combined with promises of development and cultural recognition under the banner of subaltern Hindutva, which enable an upper caste party to mobilise lower classes, has been drawing in a growing number of Dalits.

A number of sub-regional Ambedkarite organisations, like Bhim Army led by a young Dalit, has also emerged as once-dominant BSP, which once consolidated UP’s Dalit movement, has become mired in an existential crisis.

Dalit assertion still remains strong. But it is now fissured along class, ideological and sub-regional lines, divided into Ambedkarite pro-BSP and Hindutvawadi pro-BJP Dalits, each further fragmented.

Azad’s limits | Bhim Army, formed in 2015 in western UP, and Azad Samaj Party, created in 2020 in Saharanpur district, are the most significant of the political fragments that disillusionment with BSP has created across the state.

Both were founded by Chandrashekhar Azad, a Jatav lawyer, human rights activist and Ambedkar devotee. He is a creature of the new Dalit politics in UP. Born in a village to a schoolteacher, he first made headlines in 2016, when he mounted ‘The Great Chamars of Ghadkhauli Welcome You’ board at his village’s entrance; then again, after his attempted murder in 2021.

Azad gained popularity among Jatav youth by fighting atrocities, holding cycle yatras to advance Ambedkar’s ideas and establishing schools for Dalit children. His movement has momentum and he has been named by Timemagazine as one of the world’s 100 emerging leaders. For now, however, his Bhim Army, which is not yet 10, remains confined to western UP.

Then there are Ambedkar Jan Morcha (run by Shravan Kumar Nirala in Poorvanchal) and Bahujan Mukti Party (under Daddu Prasad in Bundelkhand), two smaller BSP-breakaway organisations, led by former BSP leaders. These too have only a local presence.

Courtesy : TOI

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