Dalit Politics Needs a New Radical Agenda

 

Dalit Politics Needs a New Radical Agenda

-         S.R. Darapuri, National President, All India Peoples Front

Dr. Ambedkar is considered the father of Dalit politics. He was the first to form the Independent Labour Party in 1936, the Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942, and the Republican Party of India (RPI) in 1956.  A notable aspect of these parties was that, except for the Scheduled Castes Federation, none of them were caste-based. The agenda of all these parties was broad, with the Dalit agenda at its core. It is also true that Dr. Ambedkar never sought votes in the name of caste, except for the Scheduled Castes Federation. After Dr. Ambedkar's death, from 1957 to 1962, the RPI continued to practice agenda-based politics, and its achievements were quite significant. However, later, the Congress lured Dalit leaders away, and the RPI fragmented into several pieces and disintegrated.

After the disintegration of the RPI, Kanshi Ram formed the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in North India and, by allying with the staunchly anti-Dalit party BJP, formed the government three times and once independently. The biggest weakness of this party was its lack of any agenda or principles. Kanshi Ram proudly used caste to counter caste and was opportunistic. The result of this opportunistic and unprincipled alliance with the BJP was that the BJP continuously grew stronger in North India, while the BSP continuously weakened. Currently, the BSP is fighting for its very existence.

The BSP experiment has made it clear that a party that practices caste politics cannot last long. It is only the agenda and principles that prevent a party from disintegrating. It is also an established truth that caste politics only strengthens Hindutva politics, as has happened currently.

Kanshi Ram called political power the master key, the solution to all problems. In contrast, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar believed "political power cannot be the master key to ending all the miseries of the oppressed class. Their liberation lies in achieving a higher social status." Will you still say that political power is the master key? Experience so far has proven this wrong. Uttar Pradesh is the biggest example of this. It is also true that later Babasaheb also called political power the key to the problems of Dalits, but along with that, he also said that political power should be used for the development of society. But in practice, it has mostly been used for personal development instead of social development. Mayawati is the biggest example of this. Therefore, along with political power, there should also be an agenda for social development, which has been completely missing in Bahujan politics.

Therefore, if Dalit politics is to re-establish itself, it must adopt principled politics and a radical Dalit agenda. The outline of that agenda could be as follows:

1. Poverty and Unemployment: According to the NITI Aayog's 2024 report, 42% of SC Dalit families are below the poverty line, while the national average is 20%. According to PLFS 2023-24, the unemployment rate for SCs is 7.8%, while the national rate is 5.8%. 70% of Dalits are engaged in daily wage labour or agricultural labour.

According to the 2011 census, only 4.88% of Dalits are in government jobs and 2.42% in private jobs. In terms of income, 83.6% of Dalits have a monthly income of less than 5000, 11.7% have an income between 5000 and 10,000, and only 4.7% have an income of more than 10,000.

Therefore, poverty alleviation and unemployment should be the main issues of Dalit politics.

 2. Landlessness: According to the 2011 census, only 18.41% of Dalits own unirrigated land, 17.41% own irrigated land, and 6.98% own other types of land. Of these, 60% of Dalits own less than one acre of land. Thus, most Dalits are small and marginal farmers. In drought-affected areas due to climate change, 80% of the affected farmers are Dalit farmers. Therefore, the issue of land allocation (residential and agricultural land leases) for landless Dalits is extremely important and should be a major political demand.

3. Violence and Atrocities: According to the NCRB 2023 report, 54,750 cases of crimes against Dalits were registered, which is 7% more than in 2022. These include 4,800 rapes and 1,200 murders. More than half of these cases are in Uttar Pradesh (25%), Rajasthan (15%), and Bihar (12%). The conviction rate under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is only 32%, due to police bias and intimidation of witnesses. Amnesty International (2024) has documented over 200 such cases in Tamil Nadu alone that went unreported. Currently, a crime is committed against a Dalit every 18 minutes, including 13 murders every day. Therefore, the effective implementation of the SC/ST Act to prevent atrocities against Dalits should be on the agenda of Dalit politics.

4. Untouchability and Discrimination: According to NFHS-5 rural data and the India Human Development Survey 2024, 40% of villages report that 25-30% of Dalits face restrictions on entering temples/water sources. Similarly, in cities, according to a 2023 CSDS study, 70% of landlords in Delhi refuse to rent houses to Dalit tenants. The Supreme Court (2024) upheld the sub-categorization of SC quota but stated that "hierarchical inequality" persists. Dalit women face triple discrimination (caste-gender-poverty).

According to the Safai Karamchari Andolan's 2024 report, 50-70 deaths annually due to sewer cleaning, honor killings, and mob lynchings over inter-caste relationships or cow protection are common. Therefore, the issue of eradicating untouchability and discrimination should also be at the centre of Dalit politics.

5. Educational Backwardness: According to the National Census 2011 and NFHS-5, the literacy rate among Dalits is 66.1% while the national rate is 73%. Additionally, the dropout rate for Dalit children after class 8 is twice as high (AISHE 2023). Only 7% of students in higher education are Dalit (AISHE 2023). According to the Ministry of Social Justice's 2023 audit report, 40% of Dalit students experience delays in receiving scholarships, making it very difficult for them to continue their studies. Meanwhile, fees for medical, engineering, and other professional courses have been increased manifold, making it very difficult for Dalit students to afford them. Recently, a large number of schools at the basic and middle levels are being closed in BJP-ruled states, which will deprive Dalit children of education as they cannot afford expensive private schools. The government is rapidly privatizing education, which is a conspiracy to deprive Dalit and other poor children of education. Therefore, there should be a strong opposition to the privatization of education and a demand for increasing the education budget and providing equal quality education to all.

6. Health Services and Health Inequalities: According to the national NFHS-5 report, 60% of Dalit women suffer from anaemia, compared to 53% nationally. For this reason, according to the Lancet (2023) report, the death rate from COVID among Dalits was 1.5 times higher than the general population. Meanwhile, the government is continuously reducing the budget for health services and indirectly promoting privatization. Although the government has implemented the Ayushman Yojana, it is benefiting private hospitals more than the poor. Therefore, instead of the Ayushman Yojana, the government should strengthen public health services, which would benefit all the poor, including Dalits. Therefore, there should be a demand to stop the privatization of health services, strengthen government health services, and increase the number of hospitals and their budget.

In addition to the above, issues such as fair support prices for agricultural produce, stopping the privatization of public sector undertakings, preventing the centralization of capital, raising resources by imposing appropriate taxes on the super-rich to create employment, stopping corporate exploitation, controlling inflation, rationalizing GST, promoting agriculture and agro-industries and cooperative farming, increasing the minimum wage and providing a living wage to workers, instead of giving free rations to 80 crore people, providing them with employment to increase their income, breaking the nexus between Hindutva and Corporates, ending the persecution of minorities, and strengthening education and health services are all issues that concern the general public as well as the Dalit community. Therefore, all these issues should be at the centre of politics. Dalit politics should also raise these issues.

It is well known that the BJP, instead of addressing these public issues, resorts to raising immaterial and emotional issues of religion/community to distract the attention of the common people so that no one questions or demands answers about its 11 years of failures. Therefore, it is essential that all opposition parties, including Dalit parties, raise the above-mentioned public issues and present alternative economic policies and plans. Only by doing so will it be possible to stop the BJP's politics of the Hindutva-Corporate nexus. It is also noteworthy that soft Hindutva and the politics of caste and religion only strengthen Hindutva politics, which must be defeated at all costs.

 All India Peoples Front (Radical) – (AIPF) has been working for a long time on people-centric, issue-based democratic politics and is striving to give concrete shape to a multi-class alliance. Currently, the AIPF, along with other like-minded organizations, is running an Employment and Social Rights campaign, the main objective of which is to bring the issue of employment to the centre of politics. The AIPF firmly believes that if a proper tax is levied on the country's 350 super-rich, the GST is restructured, and the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act is repealed, it would generate enough funds to provide jobs to all the unemployed in the country, in addition to providing funds for MNREGA, education, and health services.

Dalit v/s Bahujan and the Need for Multi -Class Unity

 

Dalit v/s Bahujan and the Need for Multi -Class Unity

- S.R. Darapuri, National President, All India Peoples Front

 

For quite some time now, the term "Bahujan" has been used in politics instead of "Dalit." According to the proponents of the Bahujan concept, Bahujan includes Dalits and backward classes. According to Kanshi Ram, it also includes Muslims, and their number constitutes 85%. According to his theory, the Bahujans should unite and seize power from the 15% upper castes. While this formula sounds very good and seems to hold great potential, the question is, what is the formula for uniting the Bahujans? Is it the commonality of being Untouchable and Shudra, or something else? The Untouchables and Shudras are divided into countless castes, and they suffer from varying degrees of caste pride. They are just as afflicted by Brahmanism (superiority complex) as they accuse the upper castes of being. There are many intense internal contradictions within them. The Backward Castes consider themselves superior to the Dalits and behave accordingly. Currently, most atrocities against Dalits are committed not by the upper castes but by the prosperous (kulak) Backward Castes. Most Dalits are labourers, and the economic interests of these newly wealthy castes clash with those of the labourers. This is why these castes perpetrate atrocities against Dalits regarding wages and forced labour. In such a situation, on what basis can unity be established between Dalits and Backward Castes? On one hand, there is social distance, and on the other hand, a conflict of economic interests. Therefore, merely being Dalit and backward, or Untouchable and Shudra, cannot be the basis for unity. Even if some unity is formed based on political self-interest, it cannot be permanent, as has been observed in practice.

Now, if we analyse the class structure of Dalits and Backward Castes, it is found that even within the Dalit community, a class division between the prosperous and the poor has emerged. The distinction between the forward, backward, and extremely backward classes within the Backward Castes is very clear. For some time now, only the affluent sections of the Dalit and Backward classes have benefited from economic development and gained a share in political power. In contrast, most Dalits and Backward Classes remain severely marginalized. This division has given rise to the concept of the "most backward" among Dalits and other backward classes. This also makes it clear that the concept of "Bahujan" (the majority) is merely an abstract idea. Similarly, among Muslims, there is a division between Ashraf, Ajlaf, and Arzal, which is manifesting itself as the Pasmanda (most backward) Muslims  movement.

Now the question arises: what can be the real basis for unity within these groups? The above analysis makes it clear that within Dalits, backward classes, and Muslims, there are two distinct classes – the forward and the backward – whose economic and political interests are different, and there are sharp contradictions and conflicts between them. Until now, the dominant section of these groups has been leading the entire caste/class and community in the name of caste and religion, and it is this section that has reaped all the economic and political benefits of development. This has intensified caste/class divisions and conflicts within these groups. Various political parties have been exploiting this caste/class division, but no party has identified their real issues or done anything for their upliftment.

 Recently, the BJP has united them in the name of Hindutva and garnered their votes. If we look closely, this class is socially, economically, and politically backward. The real upliftment of these classes can only be achieved by addressing the issues related to their backwardness and formulating policies to resolve them. Therefore, their true unity can only be built around these issues, not based on caste and religion. From the perspective of economic and political interests, these groups are natural allies because their problems are similar, and their struggle for liberation is also the same.

Under the umbrella of "Bahujan," the issues and interests of the most backward sections get suppressed. Therefore, to establish strong unity among these extremely backward sections, instead of the artificial concept of Bahujan based on caste/religion, issues related to their social, economic, and political backwardness should be raised. Politics based on caste and religion only strengthens Hindutva. With this objective, the All India People's Front (AIPF) has included the following issues under social justice in its agenda: (1) separating the quota for backward Muslims from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), amending Article 341 to include Dalit Muslims and Christians in the Scheduled Castes, and implementing the recommendations of the Sachar Committee and Ranganath Mishra Committee; (2) providing separate reservation quotas for extremely backward Hindu and Muslim castes from within the 27% OBC quota; (3) restoring the reservation system in promotions as soon as possible; (4) filling vacant government posts under the SC/ST quota through a special campaign; (5) providing reservations to Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, and Extremely Backward Classes in the private sector as well; (6) granting tribal status to tribal communities like the Kol community of Uttar Pradesh; (7) strictly implementing the Forest Rights Act and making employment a fundamental right, etc.

 With the aim of giving representation to these sections, the party has reserved 75% of the positions in its constitution for Dalits, Backward Classes, Minorities, and Women. The AIPF is striving to promote issue-based multi-class political unity instead of caste-based Bahujan politics, as Dr. Ambedkar also did by establishing the Republican Party of India (RPI). With this objective, the AIPF is currently running an Employment and Social Rights Campaign which is getting good response.

1. Factors Responsible for the Downfall of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)

 

1.    Factors Responsible for the Downfall of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)

SR Darapuri, National President, All India Peoples Front

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), founded by Kanshi Ram in 1984 as a vehicle for Dalit and marginalized community empowerment, achieved its peak in 2007 by winning an absolute majority in Uttar Pradesh (UP) with a broad "Sarvajan" coalition. However, since 2012, the party has faced a steep decline, evidenced by its vote share dropping from around 30% in 2007 to 9.39% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections (0 seats won), and only 1 seat in the 2022 UP Assembly polls. This erosion stems from a combination of internal, strategic, and external factors. Below, I outline the key reasons, drawing from analyses across political commentary and academic insights.

 1. Leadership Failures and Centralization Under Mayawati

   Mayawati's prolonged dominance has led to a highly centralized, dynastic structure that stifles innovation and accountability. The party shifted from Kanshi Ram's grassroots movement to a "supremo-centered" entity, with decisions like appointing her nephew Akash Anand as successor alienating cadres. Corruption allegations, including links to land mafias and personal wealth accumulation, tarnished her image, while her limited campaigning (often attributed to fears of central agency probes) reduced visibility. Post-election, she blamed external factors like EVMs and Muslim distrust rather than internal reforms, eroding credibility.

 2. Erosion of the Core Dalit Voter Base

   The BSP's traditional Jatav Dalit support (about 10% of UP's population) has fragmented, with even loyal voters splitting between BSP, BJP, and SP-Congress alliances. More critically, non-Jatav Dalits (the majority of UP's 21% SC population) shifted en masse to the BJP since 2014, attracted by its "subaltern Hindutva" and welfare schemes like Ujjwala and PM Awas Yojana. Post-2022 surveys showed less than half of Dalits voting BSP, with a quarter of Jatavs and half of non-Jatavs moving to BJP. This reflects the party's failure to address aspirations of an upwardly mobile Dalit middle class.

3. Loss of Broader Coalitions and Minority/OBC Support

   The 2007 "Sarvajan" strategy briefly united Dalits, Brahmins, Muslims, and OBCs, but backlash from Dalit cadres forced a retreat to core voters, alienating allies. Brahmins defected to BJP, Muslims to SP, and OBC groups like Kurmis, Koeris, and Rajbhars followed suit due to BSP's inability to sustain inclusive messaging. In 2024, minorities and OBCs overwhelmingly backed the SP-Congress INDIA bloc, leaving BSP as a "spoiler" that indirectly aided BJP by splitting anti-BJP votes.

4. Organizational Decay and Leadership Exodus

   The party has suffered a mass exodus of stalwarts, including MPs like Kunwar Danish Ali and Ritesh Pandey, and MLAs defecting to BJP or SP for "greener pastures." Ground-level cadre has withered, with no visible banners or rallies in core Dalit areas during elections, signaling disinterest. This stems from transactional politics—welcoming defectors for funds/tickets without ideological vetting—turning the BSP into an "election machine" rather than a sustained movement.

 5. Ideological Rigidity and Failure to Adapt to Political Shifts

   BSP's subdued criticism of BJP, silence on issues like constitutional erosion, and abstention from opposition campaigns (e.g., "Save the Constitution") allowed rivals to capture Dalit anxieties. It neglected socio-economic reforms like redistribution during its 2007-2012 rule, focusing on symbolism (e.g., Ambedkar statues) over governance. In a bipolar UP polity dominated by BJP-SP, BSP's refusal to form effective alliances (fearing subordination of Dalit interests) isolated it further.

6. Broader External Pressures: BJP's Dominance and Polarization

   The BJP's organizational strength, welfare populism, and Hindu nationalist appeal have fragmented Dalit-Bahujan unity, drawing non-Jatav SCs and OBCs into its fold. Events like the Ram Temple inauguration amplified this, while BSP's anodyne strategy failed to counter it. Additionally, the rise of new Dalit voices (e.g., Bhim Army's Chandrashekhar Azad) has diluted BSP's monopoly on Dalit mobilization.

 While these factors explain the BSP's sharp downturn, some analysts argue it's not "permanent." The party's ~10% consistent vote share reflects a resilient core, and historical recoveries (e.g., post-1990s dip) suggest potential revival if Mayawati fosters second-line leadership and adapts to caste census demands. However, without introspection, irrelevance looms in UP's evolving landscape.

Courtesy: grok.com