In a country where Dalits have undergone repression and denial of basic human rights for centuries, there may be nothing unusual in their being stripped and beaten for skinning dead cows in Gujarat and slurring of their tallest leader, Mayawati, in Uttar Pradesh. But their countrywide protest this time reflects a new resolve to take on tormentors.
Considering that Parliament is in session and elections are due in crucial states of Punjab, UP and Gujarat next year, analysts have looked at this new mood of Dalit assertion from political lens. On the face of it, recent developments suggest that the BJP is in danger of losing any gains that PM Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah may have made so far.
The spontaneity of Dalit street protests in Uttar Pradesh has raised the prospect of all of them rallying behind Mayawati’s BSP and ignoring the BJP’s efforts to woo them. The SCs, comprising 21 per cent of the state population, form the core support base of BSP in which the BJP seemed to have made inroads in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In Punjab too, where Dalits account for 32 per cent of the population, they have emerged as a formidable social bloc with a strong reactive impulse.
The ramifications of their new assertiveness go beyond the realm of politics. The tale of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit student at Hyderabad University who was driven to suicide by the authorities, typifies something bigger and more tragic.
The rub is that development in India has often meant a more unequal society, one that is deeply casteist and continues to institutionalise discrimination. With self-proclaimed Ambedkar bhakt at the helm of the government, the Dalits might have expected a modicum of directional change in development policies, but the two years of the Modi regime has only resulted in reversal of many of the gains made by them in the past few decades.
The reality is that for centuries, the Dalits had been doing all the dirty work, so that others could continue with their notions of ritual purity. Recent protests signify a change. In Gujarat alone, hundreds of dead bovines have been left rotting since July 11, leaving citizens and officials aghast. If the Dalits in other parts of the country follow suit, India may have a severe civic crisis at hand. For, even today, the most revolting of its sanitary tasks are carried out by them.
Unfortunately, Dalit political parties in North and Central India have overwhelmingly relied on identity politics. While claiming to fight for their recognition and calling for equal respect, they have ignored the issue of redistribution. This may have boosted the social and economic standing of Dalits better situated in terms of class, but has failed to improve the lives of the majority. Their quest for equal treatment will remain limited so long as it lacks redistributive politics that addresses exploitative economic relations in Indian society.
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