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,