Dalit assertion in the wake of dalit anger that is on the rise recently is a building narrative whose effects are yet to be studied and assessed. The Karnataka polls could be a reference point on how the dalit vote, particularly strong in the state’s east, consolidates. While they may not be numerically strong enough to be a singular force, they could be the tipping point in the 2019 general election. Dalits are a fraction above 16 per cent of the national electorate, their numbers particularly higher in semi-rural and rural areas. The BJP, the ruling party at the Centre, has had the most baffling encounters with dalit anger even as it tries to use dalits as a votebank by paying obeisance to their icon B.R. Ambedkar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inclusive “development for all” agenda.
A series of recent comments from ruling party leaders may have only served to further fuel the antagonism with dalits, whose upper crust, after years of positive discrimination and avenues to education opening up, is not taking it lying down anymore. BJP leaders from UP may have further inflamed dalits with crass comments about being “bitten by mosquitoes” in their ongoing dalit outreach. Such programmes are opposed by the RSS core as being mere tokenism. Tokenism may ascend to positive symbolism if the outreach is genuine. However, perceptions have been changing ever since the Una flogging incident, the death of dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, the violence over the Bhima-Koregaon commemoration event early this year and the more recent toppling of dalit grooms from their horses in UP baraats. The Supreme Court ruling on the 1989 SC/ST Act hasn’t helped either, and in fact stoked the anger so much that it led to riots that erupted following the March 20 apex court order.
The old dalit identity crisis has given way to an emerging identity awareness. To douse the flames, the PM advised his party members not to give “masala to the media” with their abrasive words, to which little thought seems to be given by the motormouths. A greater push in education and health for the poorest of the poor and more evenhanded government policies may come in the longer term. Meanwhile, a sense of dalit assertion grows with each incident, even as the government rushed to the Supreme Court with a review petition to seek amendments to the order, but that has run into resistance from judges. It appears at the moment that the ruling forces are fast losing the support of dalits, who helped vote them to power in 2014 and in UP in 2017. The rising disenchantment may have more to do with unfulfilled promises but the comments and ridiculous nature of dinners ordered and brought to dalit homes for the outreach aren’t helping much either.
