Dalit assertiveness finds a BJP platform

The way the party is co-opting the Dalits shows it is trying to re-position itself

There is no one prism through which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) views Dalits, a community it has wooed from the ’90s, after cottoning on to the electoral potential and loyalty to a party they choose. It’s a BC-AD kind of situation, in which the benchmark for judging the BJP’s worth for a Dalit varies individually, depending on the length of the person’s association and, importantly, if he is of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) vintage or a born-again. This is perhaps why the nomination of Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit from a penurious home, invited varying responses in the BJP, from exultation to circumspection.
 
For Bizay Sonkar Shastri, 58, a Khatik and a BJP spokesperson, the choice is a “good” tactic to “infuse moral strength” in Dalits. A diehard swayamsevak, whose three-volume work on certain Dalit sub-castes has located their issues in the context of Hindutva, Shastri said: “Dalit leaders have come into their own, the philosophy of the other castes towards Dalits has changed but the bureaucracy remains unchanged. That’s why our governments derive only 60 or 70 per cent instead of 100 per cent benefits from Dalit-targeted policies and schemes. Therefore, Kovind’s choice is significant. The President might not have overarching powers but when (Bahujan Samaj Party president) Mayawati became the (Uttar Pradesh) chief minister, Dalits said she won’t share her house with us but she gives us social dignity. We feel the same about Kovind.”
 
Shastri’s from the RSS school of thought that never subscribed to the entrenchment of caste in India’s social and economic milieu. The Sangh’s caste denial caused its critics to allege that it expediently subsumed the old cleavages through an overarching definition of Hinduism.
 
Much as Shastri emphasised that “in our RSS shakhas (units), nobody knows the caste of the person standing beside him”, even he now throws in contemporary phraseology like ‘vote banks’. “The Dalits were never BJP’s vote banks, we did not cultivate them. Those from the Valmiki and Khatik sub-castes came to us because the Muslims hated them for certain reasons but the rest stayed away. That is changing,” he says.   
 
The BJP’s recent Dalit converts reject the RSS’s nothing-like-caste theory. Udit Raj, a former civil servant who is presently the party’s Lok Sabha member for North West Delhi and helms the Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, said: “Caste operates everywhere. That’s why there’s reservation, there are atrocities against Dalits in Saharanpur and Una, and they remain under-represented in the judiciary, the higher echelons of bureaucracy and corporate houses.” His office chamber has a figurine of a former RSS chief M S Golwalkar, with the portraits of Bhimrao Ambedkar and the Buddha. He’s upfront on why the BJP courted Dalits. “No political party exists for charity. It needs the support of every section to capture power.”
 
Raj joined the BJP before the 2014 election. He explained he chose it because in 2001, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government passed the 88th constitutional amendment, amending Article 16 (4 A) for allowing states to create laws that facilitated reservations in promotion of government employees. He liked to think the push came from him.
 
For Raj, ideology is the last factor on a Dalit’s mind when he gravitates towards the BJP. “Ideology, what is that? The world over, governments only believe in running a welfare state and that’s what PM Narendra Modi has done,” he said. Adding that Modi’s “real test” on pro-Dalit “commitment” awaits him on two issues — legislating quotas in the private sector and passing a central law to allow for reservation in job promotions.
 
Arjun Ram Meghwal, the junior finance and corporate affairs minister, was a bureaucrat in Rajasthan who joined the BJP in 2009, after stints in Sangh affiliates Sewa Bharti and Bharatiya Vikas Parishad. Unlike Raj, he did not junk ideology. “If anyone can demolish casteism, it is the RSS because it equally venerates Dalit icons Ambedkar, Sant Ravidas and Jyotiba Phule, as well as spiritual and thought leaders like Swami Vivekananda, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Dayanand Saraswati,” he said.
 
Meghwal cited three inflection points that conditioned his attitude towards the RSS-BJP. The first when K S Sudarshan, a former Sangh chief, famously remarked, “If untouchability is not a crime, there’s no crime in the world”. “Sudarshan signified a change in the RSS’ perspective by recognising the existence of Dalits as a distinct entity,” said Meghwal, tacitly acknowledging he was not wholly comfortable with the Sangh’s traditional ideology. The second was Modi’s speech at a national conference of SC/ST entrepreneurs, convened by the Dalit Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, on December 29, 2015. The PM stated, “Financial inclusion is at the core of our focus. We want to create job-creators and not job-seekers (among Dalits).”
 
Meghwal said, “This thought birthed our path-breaking schemes for Dalits like Mudra, Stand-Up India and special moves for entrepreneurs like venture capital schemes and dedicated feeder loans.” The third was former prime minister Vajpayee’s “recognition” of Ambedkarism as the country’s “sole ideology” when the BJP cemented a power-sharing covenant in Uttar Pradesh with the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1995.
 
P L Punia, Congress leader and former chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, refuses to be taken in by the BJP’s pro-Dalit avowal. “It practises the politics of tokenism. What is this Bhim App that Modi launched (on Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary) but a Paytm clone that means nothing to the Dalits,” he said.
 
To a younger Dalit like Vinod Sonkar, an MP from UP and head of the BJP’s SC front, the Bhim Apps and initiatives like Jan-Dhan hold a “key to Dalit economic empowerment and social equality”. “The Congress used Dalits for 70 years like vote banks. We believe in their empowerment,” he contends.

What BJP govts have done for Dalits
 
As the Centre focuses on Dalit welfare and empowerment, the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have done little on their own. Most of them are implementing the central schemes announced on the 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar. Notably, one on providing free coaching to scheduled castes and other backward class students, to facilitate their entry in competitive exams and train them for jobs in the public and private sectors.
 
A run-through shows that barring Maharashtra that has a 10.2 per cent Dalit population (2011 census) and to a lesser degree Madhya Pradesh (5.6 per cent Dalits, the other BJP governments haven’t done much. Maharashtra alone has unveiled a slew of substantive policies and schemes. The newer governments in Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Uttarakhand need to be judged after some time. Some highlights:

 
1. Maharashtra

May 2015: *Two acres of land to below poverty line Dalits; improving quality of residential ‘ashram’ schools in villages where Dalit population is more than 50 per cent; bringing 973 ‘ashram’ schools under Right to Education Act; shifting 1,000 aided hostels from rented to owned premises; increasing the beneficiaries of foreign education scholarships from 50 to 75 annually and enhancing annual income cap of eligible parents from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh
 
August 2015: Rs 125 crore for projects and programmes for Dalits and backward castes for 2015-16, a year the government dedicated as ‘social justice and equality' year to mark B R Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary
 
February 2016: Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation to allot 20 per cent plots to SC and ST entrepreneurs in MSME sector from those available
 
August 2016: 125 Dalit settlements across Maharashtra selected for improving infrastructure
 
March 2017: Of total development plan of Rs 77,184 crore, Rs 13,985 (18 per cent) allotted for sub-plans for SC/STs, Rs 7,231 crore for Dalits and Rs 6,754 crore for tribals. Under PM Awas Yojana (Rural), out of a total of 188,000 houses, half for Dalits and tribals
 
2. Madhya Pradesh
 
January 2016: Government to underwrite expenses on higher studies of Dalit students
 
February 2016: Free education for Dalit students in government colleges
 
January 2017: Mukhyamantri Vidushi Yojana for Dalit students, entailing coaching classes for national competitive exams and coaching facilities for Dalit sportspersons
 
March 2017: Rs 50,000 crore on SC welfare in next three years; lessons based on Sant Ravidas to be taught in schools.
 
April 2017: "Purohityan or diploma course to take up priesthood open to Dalits
 
3. Rajasthan
 
April 2016: A string of schemes were announced on the 125th birth anniversary of Ambedkar.

• Ambedkar Sambal Scheme for economic and social empowerment of Dalits
• Ambedkar skill training centre
• Ambedkar start-up scheme
• Ambedkar fellowship scheme for six “extraordinary” Dalit students;
• Ambedkar Electronic Information Library Network for students
• Ambedkar International Scholarship scheme for five ‘outstanding’ Dalit research scholars, involving financial aid of Rs 25 lakh to pursue Ph.D in foreign universities
• BR Ambedkar Research Chair at Kota University
• Ambedkar Centre of Excellence at Jaipur

 
4. Haryana
 
October 2015: Shortly after the attacks on Dalits in Faridabad, the chief minister announced setting up of a Maharishi Valmiki Sanskrit University in Kaithal district, increasing fellowship grants under Ambedkar Medhavi Students scheme and insurance for employees of nagar palikas and nagar nigams
 
5. Chhattisgarh
 
May 2008: Free flying training to nine Dalit/tribal and OBC boys at a cost of Rs 1.32 crore annually
 
6. Gujarat
 
December 2015: 22 per cent quota for SC/STs in contractual government and semi-government appointments, 7 per cent for Dalits and 15 per cent for tribals

• Complex in Devni Mori (Aravalli district) where Buddha’s remains were reportedly found to be developed as a research centre to propagate teachings of Buddha and Ambedkar
• Complex in Vadodara considered as Ambedkar’s ‘sankalp bhoomi’ (place of resolution)
• Aim to maximise number of SC beneficiaries in housing and health schemes

 
7. Assam
 
Budget 2016-17: Total number of schemes for SCs reduced from 294 to 256; only 11 new schemes introduced
 
Budget 2017-18: Allocation for Dalits was Rs 52,393 crore or 2.5 per cent of total. According to the Jadhav guidelines, amount should be 4.25 per cent of total
 
8. Jharkhand
 
April 2016: Sanitation workers of all municipal bodies given an ‘incentive’ of Rs 1,000 each on Ambedkar’s commemorative anniversary

• Shoes and clothes for sanitation workers
• Sanitation workers travelling long distance to get bicycles
• Women sanitation workers to get sewing machines
• Equipment for labourers in unorganised sector
• Establishment of SC Commission
• Housing scheme for Dalit widows under Bhimrao Ambedkar Awas Yojana; financial aid of Rs 75,000 to build houses in hilly areas and Rs 70,000 on the plains. Target to build 11,000 houses in ongoing financial year