Aditi Phadnis: Will Mayawati deliver?

PLAIN POLITICS

Dalits are in danger of being overwhelmed by the old politics of caste collusion.

The Dalit intellectual discourse in India and abroad is more intense than it has ever been. Now that a Dalit party has managed to win power in a state government on its own, what should the Dalit project be? There is widespread jubilation at Mayawati's victory, but there is also concern: both at the size, power and nature of the Opposition and over new priorities for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

First, let us not imagine that Mayawati's success at social engineering will bring down caste violence in rural UP. Caste violence against the Dalits will not go away because The Enemy has not disappeared. In the last assembly election, the Samajwadi Party won 143 seats but got 26 per cent of the votes. In this assembly election, the SP's vote share is still 26 per cent though it has won only 97 seats. Those who locked up Mayawati in a guest house, got goons to rain blows at the door, abused her in the filthiest language and shattered Dalit belief in the rule of law, continue to be a powerful presence in the Lucknow Vidhan Sabha and outside. They will also continue to make their presence felt, possibly more loudly than before.

This was borne out in the first week after Mayawati took oath. An incident of atrocity against a Dalit family was reported from Hardoi, where Naresh Aggarwal has won with a handsome majority. The only difference was, this time, an FIR was filed. Dalit activists just smile wryly and say that in 2006 alone, newspapers from all over India reported 16,000 cases of violence against Dalits "" rape, murder, theft threats...This accounts for just about 5 per cent of all incidents of atrocities on Dalits (95 per cent are not even reported). Therefore, law and order has been and will be the first priority of the Mayawati government. Transfers and postings have begun but the Dalits are yet to hear how their life and property will be protected from a caste backlash that will inevitably follow.

Among the first statements Mayawati has made is the promise of reservations for the poor among the upper castes. This is both awkward and baffling. From the upper caste representatives in her government, there is no promise of launching a campaign in their community to prevent or eradicate untouchability. Surely social engineering experiments have to be negotiated?

What is the point of giving reservations to poor Thakurs and Brahmins when their wives continue to baulk at sharing the table with Dalits and do not let them enter their kitchens? This may appear to be trivial but it will represent a dilemma for Mayawati's supporters: they voted for her and her social engineering experiment out of emotion and the promise of empowerment. But the politics of it?

If this is going to be the manifesto for the future, the Dalits should be seriously worried. By 1985, they had begun to shift from the Congress to the BSP because they felt it represented an alternative and were tired of being treated as voting fodder by the Congress. From then on, it has been a slow but profitable journey. In Maharashtra, Dalits have organised themselves but the beneficiary has not been the BSP. But the latest evidence that you need to be organised to fight has come from the Uttarakhand assembly elections and the Delhi municipal elections, where the BSP has done well. Now suddenly Mayawati is talking about upper caste reservation.

Clearly this is a result of sharing power with the upper castes and weakening Dalit leadership in the BSP. So is the politics of caste collusion going to overtake the Dalits once again? As it is, most of the leaders who were with the BSP in the 1990s have now drifted far from it, be it Sonelal Patel or Dayaram Pal. Internal democracy is not something that the BSP is well-known for. It is needed now more, before bitterness at collusion destroys the Dalit cause.

What of the larger Dalit project? There are specific problems like rights of Dalit women, reservations in higher education and the private sector, and employment. But the biggest, most enduring problem is the right to land.

Dalits hold pattas to land but not its physical ownership. A political leader who has the courage to give Dalits ownership of land alone can win their support. Many years ago, the then Chief Minister Digvijay Singh tried this in Madhya Pradesh and managed to rule for two terms (1993-2003). But he was ousted because he gave pattas to Dalits, not the land, which continued to be surrounded by enclaves of upper castes, so the Dalits couldn't even pass through it to claim control of it. Giving land to Dalits has to be Mayawati's first, uncompromising agenda. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that upper castes are now among her closest advisors, this is unlikely.

Most Dalit groups say the Indian state and society need to be more inclusive""the injustice done to the community can be corrected only if society acknowledges it has a duty to do right by the Dalits. Masquerading as an exclusively Dalit party, doing a deal with the upper castes as a tactic to claim power and then asserting Dalit rights""whether on land or other resources Indian democracy has to offer""is Dalit empowerment with limited durability. Because the forces of reaction are always waiting in the wings.