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After farmers, agricultural labourers and fishermen, the Congress party is now padding up to take up the cause of Dalits and their champion, BR Ambedkar.
On June 2, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi will flag off year-long celebrations to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Ambedkar, from Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, where he was born.
Independent India's first law minister and chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, Ambedkar was a lifelong campaigner against untouchability. June 2 marks the centenary of his graduation from Columbia University in the US. Congress overtures are an attempt to win back the Dalit vote, which has moved away from it to other parties. Prompted by Gandhi and the party's Scheduled Caste cell chief, K Raju, a former bureaucrat handpicked by Gandhi, Congress has been consistently highlighting Dalit issues. Within hours of the Ambedkar-Periyar study group being banned by IIT-Madras, Gandhi's office tweeted: "IIT student group banned for criticising Modi Government. What next?" It also said: "Free speech is our right. We will fight any attempt to crush dissent and debate."
Following an anonymous complaint that the students' group was inculcating hatred against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union human resource development ministry inquired into it, and the institute shut down the group for "violating" rules. Congress students' wing, National Students' Union of India, also held a demonstration at HRD Minister Smriti Irani's residence protesting against the incident.
While the Congress had directed all state units to organise celebrations on April 14 this year, the birthday of Ambedkar, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) top brass will be present at the massive rally in Mhow. Gandhi is also slated to interact with local Dalit leaders and activists. The celebrations will end next year. The party's yearlong activities will include spreading information about Ambedkar's ideology and his role as the architect of the Constitution, through seminars at the national, state and district levels. It will engage youths in schools and colleges, organise padyatras (marches), essay and elocution contests on Ambedkar's ideas and ideology Congress will also start a campaign of "zero tolerance against discrimination" and highlight the atrocities against members of the scheduled castes.
On the anvil are also programmes in Mumbai and Nagpur, places connected with Ambedkar's legacy. Mumbai is likely to be the venue for a chintan baithak, or a brainstorming session, next year, to deliberate on how to empower Dalits and address the social discrimination faced by them. Apart from stock taking on the progress of delivering of promises made to the community.
This is not the first attempt by Gandhi to highlight the concerns of Dalits.
In October 2013, he had come in for much ridicule when he spoke of the "escape velocity of Jupiter" needed to propel Dalits from the existing social status quo. However, the party has gone in for extensive preparation this time around.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has hit out at Congress and at Gandhi for their attempt to "appropriate" Ambedkar. Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot said, "Rahul Gandhi and his party never honoured Ambedkar. Neither was he given the Bharat Ratna, nor was his oil painting installed in Parliament premises as long as Congress was in power. If today, somebody is going there (Mhow), I want to ask why did he not do it for so many years? Today they (Congress) are doing it as the land beneath their feat has slipped." Ambedkar was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1990, when VP Singh was the prime minister, heading a National Front government.
