Assembly Elections’24 Maharashtra: The bad times of electoral Dalit politics

The memories of the oppression of Dalits in Marathwada still haunt Balasaheb Jawale of Beed. Thirty-five…

Shweta Desai

The memories of the oppression of Dalits in Marathwada still haunt Balasaheb Jawale of Beed. Thirty-five-year-old Balasaheb is a PhD and teaches in a local college. He remembers the caste violence he witnessed in his childhood, especially the murder of Buddhist Dalit Dadarao Dongre in 2003, which took place in Sona Khota village.

The police had refused to register a case under SC/ST sections against the upper caste accused in that case. Local officers were also avoiding the issue. In such a situation, the Republican Party of India (Athawale) led the fight for justice for Dongre. Dalits at that time used to look towards the party leader Ramdas Athawale with great hope. Jawale recalls, “Athawale had a high stature in the Ambedkar movement. We saw him as a grassroots leader who connected with the pain and aspirations of Dalits.”

Times have changed in twenty years. Javale’s opinion about Athawale has also changed. He says, “He mortgaged the entire RPI (A) for a ministerial post. He no longer has any identity in politics. Despite knowing this, he is clinging to the chair.” Athawale is a rare creature in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet. He has been a minister of state for social justice thrice. He is considered a star Dalit leader in the NDA. Despite this, all this has happened in recent years without contesting elections. He became a part of the NDA in 2012.

In 2014 and 2019, his party did not get a single seat but Athawale kept getting a Rajya Sabha seat. In Maharashtra, his party has decided not to contest elections for the second consecutive time. On the other hand, Dalit leader Jogendra Kavade’s People’s Republican Party of India is also missing from the scene. They have also extended their support to the BJP-led Mahayuti. Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi is contesting on 208 seats, but it has been accused of helping the BJP. Ambedkar himself is not campaigning due to ill health. That is, the electoral arena of Maharashtra’s politics is vacant for 13 percent Dalits. The blue color of the Ambedkarite movement has faded or has mixed with the BJP saffron.

Social activist and commentator Bandhuraj Lone says on this situation, “During the last ten years, the major Ambedkarite parties have not contested elections. They have been pulled into the BJP’s camp. These leaders have betrayed Ambedkar’s ideas and the Dalit community for power.”

Traditionally, RPI has been representing the Dalit population, which was formed by Bhimrao Ambedkar in 1956. After the seventies, divisions on the basis of Ambedkar’s ideology divided the party into more than seventy pieces. Many leaders shifted to Congress, some to BJP and the rest joined Shiv Sena. Former Chairman of University Grants Commission, Dr. Sukhdev Thorat considers this fierce factionalism within RPI to be the result of ambiguity regarding Ambedkar’s ideology.

He says, “At the ideological level, RPI leaders failed to implement Ambedkar’s socialist vision by combining it with parliamentary democracy. There was no clarity among them on economic policy.” He says that with the deviation from Ambedkar’s political philosophy, symbols replaced ideology. Overall, all politics remained limited to the unveiling of statues or the construction of buildings and museums in the name of Ambedkar.

An example of this is the Namantar movement behind which Ambedkarite parties and groups were engaged for sixteen years, whose overall agenda was to name Marathwada University after Ambedkar. When this did not happen, there were riots and violence against Dalits. Experts say divisions within the RPI and other Ambedkarite groups have eroded their bargaining power for political representation and community benefits. Between 1999 and 2014, the RPI and Prakash Ambedkar’s erstwhile Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh won only one seat in the assembly. In the 2019 elections, not a single Ambedkarite party could win a seat.

According to Lone, this decline in the Ambedkarite movement is the result of a systematic effort by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP to isolate the Scheduled Castes as a vote bank. Traditionally, the SC votebank used to vote for factions of the RPI or secular parties like the Congress and the CPI(M), which would even overturn results in Dalit-dominated Nanded and Solapur districts. The BJP has reduced the strength of this votebank. Lone says the BJP-led Mahayuti government has cut funds for Dalit welfare programmes over the past decade, including scholarships and support for the Pune-based Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Research and Training Institute. New scholarships were introduced for Maratha and OBC caste students to appease these groups in the politics of quota, sidelining Dalit issues.

Before the elections, the BJP targeted Maharashtra’s Buddhist Dalit population with symbolic moves like granting Pali the status of a classical language. While the Congress had earlier roped in some factions of the RPI to prevent consolidation of Dalit votes, the BJP further aggravated this division by dividing the SC voters on religious lines. It fielded Amit Gorkhe, the first MLC from the Matang community, in the recent Legislative Council elections, by portraying dominant SC groups like the Matangs and the Charmakars as pro-Hindu.

“Now the Matangs and the Charmakars are proud of their Hindu identity and have found support in the BJP, while the Buddhist population still stands with the Congress or the Ambedkarite parties,” says Lone. This division has weakened the support base of the Ambedkarite parties. The Dalit political movement is on the decline, though its influence has not completely vanished. This is indicated by the Dalit vote going towards the MVA alliance during the last general elections, the main reason for which was the propaganda that the BJP will end reservation and change the Constitution after the elections.

Election analysts believe that the MVA got 31 seats due to Dalit and Muslim votes. Shyam Gaikwad, convener of the Progressive Republican Front (PRF), a new umbrella organization of more than 100 RPI factions and social groups, says, “Ambedkarite forces have enthusiastically supported India Block and will do the same in the upcoming elections.” He says that the rise of the BJP after 2014 has brought the Ambedkarite elements with the pro-Constitution parties. Gaikwad says, “Without our support, the MVA parties cannot make big gains.”

Jawale does not agree that Dalits will get any benefit by supporting the Congress. He says, “Both the Congress and the BJP are enemies of the Ambedkarite movement. Congress leaders are equally guilty of breaking the RPI.” He accuses all parties of using Dalits as vote bank, ”After Babasaheb, no leader has done any constructive work for us. Whatever benefits we are getting are all due to him.”

Courtesy : Hindi News