The 2024 general elections were fought primarily around the discourse of social justice. The Congress-led opposition alliance (INDIA Alliance) campaigned on the narrative that if the BJP came to power with an absolute majority, it would change the Constitution and end reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC). In contrast, the BJP-led ruling alliance (NDA) sought to corner opposition parties by raising the fear that the INDIA Alliance would give SC, ST, and OBC reservations to Muslims. Prime Minister Modi, while speaking at a rally in Haryana’s Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha constituency, referred to a recent West Bengal High Court verdict that cancelled five lakh OBC certificates.
Dr. Rahul Sonpimple,
He claimed that reservations for OBCs were being given to infiltrators, i.e. Muslims. Issues such as under-representation of SCs, STs, OBCs in government jobs, education, private sector employment, mainstream media, need for caste census, implementation of reservation and protection of Baba Saheb’s Constitution have been central to Ambedkarite Dalit Bahujan discourse and the Scheduled Caste-led political parties and their supporters.
In these elections, these social justice issues became a key part of the opposition’s campaign and were able to successfully challenge the comprehensive campaign of Prime Minister Modi. However, it is even more surprising that parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Behen Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) led by advocate Prakash Ambedkar in Maharashtra, whose politics have traditionally revolved around social justice discourse and issues, were a complete flop in these elections.
They failed to win a single seat and their vote share also fell sharply. The re-emergence of the Congress-led opposition and their better performance than in the previous elections has inspired the so-called progressive or liberal upper caste intellectuals to once again envision a strong anti-BJP-RSS political mobilisation.
However, they are ignoring the threat of the collapse of the independent politics of the most marginalised people in India. In this case, one can argue that the election results are a fair outcome of democratic electoral competition, but the moral question that arises for parliamentary democracy with the collapse of the independent politics of the parties of Dalits and other marginalised sections should not be neglected. The question is, can we celebrate a strong opposition without the presence of independent Dalit politics? And we want to ask, what is moral in our democracy?
However, this does not exempt us from questioning the political vision and leadership decisions of independent Dalit-led parties, which have resulted in the complete collapse of independent Dalit politics in the electoral arena. Particularly, as mentioned above, when we know that the discourse of social justice in electoral politics in India is the result of long-running political activism from the Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) to the Republican Party of India (RPI), from the Dalit Panther to BAMCEF, and from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA).
Why then were Dalit-led parties like the BSP and VBA hesitant to make the discourse of social justice their main agenda during the election campaign? By their hesitation to raise social justice issues, they appear to have created distrust among their core vote bank and supporters.
This resulted in their core vote bank, mainly the large number of Dalits in UP and Maharashtra (who proved to be the biggest game changer in influencing the overall win numbers of the BJP), moving to other opposition parties that successfully placed the discourse of social justice at the centre of their political campaign.
Besides taking the Dalit vote bank for granted, both the VBA and the BSP have no association with grassroots Ambedkarite social movement organisations that work for the welfare of the community with little or no resources and support and most importantly build an ideological base.
We also know that unlike other upper caste political parties that fight elections with the help of media, mafia and money, Dalit-led parties lack resources and rely mainly on community support and voluntary activism by local workers. However, we have also observed that there is poor coordination between community-based organisations and Dalit-led parties.
It is important to note that for the ruling BJP, there exist several socio-cultural Hindutva ideological organisations, including the RSS as the most important social organisation.
The Congress before entering the election created a large chain of progressive social movement organisations under the banner of Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, who actively campaigned for the Congress and its alliance on the ground.
Moreover, this election also sent a strong message that not only charismatic leaders but also issues related to everyday life matter. Unfortunately, even after such a long journey, Dalit politics still revolves around excessive celebration of the charisma of the leader.
There is little space for the need for organisational leadership in contemporary Dalit politics and discourse. The lack of strong local (second tier) leadership also seems to worsen the position of Dalit-led political parties.
As we know, after Babasaheb Ambedkar, Dalit politics has experienced both the rise and fall of leadership in national politics. Kanshiram sahab gave importance to building a cadre-based movement. However, the current Dalit-led parties not only lack internal democratic structure, but also do not give any importance to building cadres at the grassroots level. We (AIISCA), as a social movement organisation, believe that while independent Dalit politics and leadership have weakened in national politics, the Dalit movement at the grassroots level has strengthened and continues through various non-party and non-electoral local organisations and groups, which envision new Dalit politics and leadership.
We believe that the 2024 elections have once again given importance to the discourse of social justice, and proved that elections can be fought and won by keeping social justice issues at the forefront. In this context, there is hope for a new beginning by Dalit political parties.
AIISCA believes that Ambedkarite Dalit parties must prioritise some key critical tasks to regain their natural vote bank:
- Dalit-led parties must stop taking the Dalit vote for granted.
- They must build second-line leadership and grassroots leadership.
- They should make well-coordinated efforts with Dalit social movement organisations.
- They should give importance to internal democratic party structure.
- They should create a cadre-based political movement.
In this context, the All India Independent Scheduled Castes Association (AIISCA) is going to organize a one-day conference in Nagpur on July 21, 2024 to discuss the direction and future of Dalit politics.
Jai Bhim!
Author- Dr. Rahul Sonpimple is the Founder President of All India Independent Scheduled Castes Association
Courtesy: Hindi News
