News headline: "Dalit Members Cleanse Ambedkar Statue After Tributes by BJP Leaders".
Looking at the news headlines hyped by media during last few weeks, it appears that the BJP is struggling hard trying to defend itself as a pro-dalit party. Smaller, niche and regional 'pro-dalit' political parties are giving it a run for its money. Recently its own 5 dalit MPs have written letter to PM accusing Govt of not doing anything for the dalits. And after Supreme Court's decision restricting immediate arrests in casteist cases, whole anger from the dalit protesters was diverted towards BJP as if BJP was the Supreme Court! This whole trend is full of ironies.
From our recent memory, it was BJP and Modi who snubbed a veteran like LK Advani to make Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit, India's president (second dalit president of India). Before that, BJP had inducted Udit Raj in its fold; who had spent his whole life advocating caste-based quota system in India (Irony: Still, BJP is accused of conspiring to remove quota!) Uma Bharti has been a popular dalit face in BJP for long. BJP has long history of association with dalit parties like Ramvilas Paswan, Mayawati etc. The manner in which BJP's own Dalit MPs are allowed to openly speak against the govt, tells how much the party respects them. And the BJP has 40 Dalit MPs! During last general elections of 2014, out of the 66 reserved Dalit Lok Sabha constituencies, BJP had won 40 seats. Almost 15% of BJP’s Lok Sabha strength consists of Dalit MPs. It is ironical that the BJP is still accused by media of being anti-dalit.
On the other hand, Congress does a “fasting with chhole-bhature” and yet the news is subdued in a few days and no media house accuses Congress of being ‘anti-dalit’. And media has been doing nothing to expose those leaders who have long played dalit politics without doing anything for the community.
Getting to the basics also tells a story full of ironies. “Conceptually”, the Congress party before India’s independence was a pro-poor, pro-dalit party; because of the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and other great nationalist leaders who genuinely wanted development of these ignored sections of society. On the other hand, “conceptually”, the Congress party post India’s independence has been an elitist and progressive party; majorly due to influence of Nehru who was always elitist and progressive. Despite that, the party maintained its ‘pro-poor’, ‘pro-dalit’ image, because whenever needed, it just drew imagery and inspiration from the ‘pre-independence era’. It helped that people still considered it “Gandhi’s party” and only after a long-long time people realized what the party had become – a “dynasty of Nehru family”. That is why the BJP and Modi kept chanting “dynasty” “dynasty” in order to make people realize the truth about what the Congress party had become. Once people realized that, they made sure that Congress won less than 50 seats from total 543 seats in Lok Sabha in 2014.
The smaller regional fringe ‘pro-dalit’ parties have proven enough that they do not want complete development and progress of Dalits; because if Dalits become highly educated and rich, they would start behaving like the other Hindus; ignoring their ‘caste appeals’. Hence, all that these smaller regional dalit parties want to do is, first, to keep accusing the government of being anti-dalit, so as to keep getting dalit votes due to ‘anti-incumbancy’; and secondly, keep negotiating and getting better beneficial positions for their own Party Chiefs.
Coming to the BJP. “Conceptually” the BJP looks like best fit party to work for dalits’ advantage. It is so because “conceptually”, the BJP is predominantly two things: a nationalistic party; and a party drawing inspiration from Hindutva. As a nationalistic party, BJP would definitely like those sections at the bottom of pyramid to come to the forefront. Because of lower denominator effect, this has potential to propel our nation to a higher growth path in the least time. (This is also the reason why regional parties from the poorest corners of India are so scared of the BJP; e.g. Nitish Kumar as he was and Mamata Banerjee as she is. To improve India’s GDP quickly, it makes sense for the Center to focus on and turnaround the poorest and most regressive states first. And hence these regional leaders were scared to death of losing their privileged positions if BJP succeeded.) As a pro-Hindutva party as well, it makes sense for BJP to win the hearts and minds of the Dalits because the Dalits have a very high trend of converting to other religions. First the Islamists forced them away, then the Christian missionaries lured them away and now the Buddhists are cajoling them away. As a pro-Hindutva party, it makes sense for the BJP to try best to integrate Dalits with the mainstream nation; break all caste barriers in order to unify Hindus into a single set; and to make all sections strong and powerful. (And this is also the reason BJP will never scrap caste-quota even in its dream!) The BJP won’t succeed in its vision of creating a strong great nation if there are communities still living in the medieval times; if there are caste-based discrimination running deep and wide; and if Dalits are still downtrodden.
Another news headline tells that yesterday, PM Modi helped a tribal woman wear her chappals with his own hands.
Conclusion: It seems so unjustified and unfair that the BJP is accused by media of being anti-dalit while a party like Congress still enjoys ‘pro-dalit’ image. It just tells that our media is not fair. The worst possible repercussion of all this can be that the BJP might lost its sight on its “development agenda” and remain engaged in such unproductive image management exercises. That would be very unfortunate.
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