Gujarat 2017: Is Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani the messenger of new politics?

This is a moment full of possibility for the articulation of a Dalit-Bahujan oriented left-wing politics - not just in Gujarat but elsewhere in the country

The rise of Jignesh Mevani is a landmark in the present moment, as the Congress rises from a state of disarray toward a possible political realignment in the near future. The process had already begun when a part of the powerful Patidar community, long understood to be the bedrock of the BJP’s social base in the state, had broken away from it.

But alongside this, the rise of the young leaders Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani together produced the new young face of emergent Gujarat. There is no doubt that the vacuum that characterised the space where the