BSP founder Kanshi Ram dead

Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), died late on Sunday night following cerebral stroke arising out of multiple health complications after prolonged illness.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi and Home Minister Shivraj Patil visited his colleague Mayawati's residence to condole the death.

Kanshi Ram's contribution to Dalit politics was unique because the Bahujan Samaj Party is the only political party in India that grew into a party from a trade union-like outfit.

Ram, himself a government servant, found himself at the receiving end of caste abuse at his workplace and hit upon the simple idea in 1971 of banding the sizeable population of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities Employees in a welfare association.

This was turned into the All-India Backward and Minority Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) on December 6, 1978.

From then on, it was a straight slog for Kanshi Ram who travelled to most small towns "" Nagpur, Jabalpur and Bhopal among others "" to contact sympathisers and recruit them to the organisation. He also pushed into Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as well as further into Madhya Pradesh.

The message was close to Ambedkar's, the man Kanshi Ram most admired.

Ram put together a roadshow on Ambedkar's life and views, together with contemporary material on oppression, atrocities and poverty of the Dalits. Between April and June 1980 the show was carted to 34 destinations in nine states of the north, he said once in an interview.

Kanshi Ram spoke persuasively of the unity of interests of the Scheduled Castes, Backward Castes, Tribes and also the Minorities, who were all "victims of Brahminism".

A political outfit formed out of BAMCEF was called the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984. The central proposition of the party was that the self-interest of 10 per cent ruled over the rest of the 90 per cent (the Bahujan Samaj or ordinary people). The ruling parties might be composed of diverse caste interests, but in their outlook they were 'manuwadi'.

During the election campaign for the UP Assembly in 1993, the slogan was: "Tilak, Taraju, Talwar, Maaro Unko Joote Char."

But while this kind of slogan worked it merely highlighted the absence of thought on other challenging areas "" like globalisation and its impact on social relations. His vision was limited to capturing political power which would transform the composition of the bureaucratic elite.

The take-off point for the BSP was the 1985 Bijnore Lok Sabha byelection, the first election fought by Mayawati. Ram Vilas Paswan and Meira Kumar were her opponents. She lost that election, but successes were in store for the BSP.

In the four State Assembly and Parliamentary (Lok Sabha) polls for Uttar Pradesh between 1989 and 1991, the Bahujana Samaj Party's share of the vote varied only marginally between 8.7 and 9.4 per cent but yielded few seats. In 1989, the party won 13 out of 425 State Assembly seats, and in 1991 it won 12. The party won only two Parliamentary seats in 1989, and one in 1991.

But Kanshi Ram's organisation, his assiduous wooing of the Muslims and his hard work paid off when Mayawati became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1995 and allied with the BJP to become CM again in 1997.

By now, Kanshi Ram was adopting a backstage role. By the early years of 2000, his family was involved in a messy dispute with Mayawati over her claims on him. In 2003, he suffered a stroke and complications from diabetes and hypertension.

When he died, every politicians, the prime minister and the President downwards, sang praises of a man whose name used to make the upper castes shudder.