This week we have seen the birth of yet another political party. In a glittering event, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Rawan launched his political front named the Azad Samaj Party on the birth anniversary of Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshiram. The stated goal of the party is to save the Constitution and to usher in the rule of the Bahujans, a broad coalition of the Dalits, tribal people, other backward classes and minorities. It vows to end the caste oppression and communalism.
Azad tweeted saying, “Sahab Kanshiram tera mission adhoora, Azad Samaj Party karegi poora! (the party will fulfil the unfulfiled dreams of Kanshiram)”. The old-timers will remember that the BSP workers once used to raise similar slogans – “Baba tera mission adhoora, hum sab milkar karenge poora”. The BSP was formed in 1984. At that time, the Republican Party of India (RPI), founded by B.R. Ambedkar, claimed to represent the political aspirations of the Dalits.
ASP’s BSP formula
The rationale behind the formation of the BSP was that the RPI cannot fulfil the dreams of Ambedkar and to achieve that goal a new party is needed. The Azad Samaj Party or the ASP is using a similar logic – the BSP is no longer in a position to fulfil the dreams envisaged by Kanshiram and so a new political party is required.
This is only the beginning of the political career of the flamboyant Dalit youth leader, who started his journey from the Harijan Colony in the western Uttar Pradesh district of Saharanpur. We do not know the possible trajectories of the political party he has formed. Indian political space is crowded and many political formations wither away without making any impact or even an obituary.
On the face of it, it appears that Chandrashekhar Azad wants to fill the political vacuum that BSP chief Mayawati is creating or may create in the future. Over the years, the BSP has been losing its ideological fervour and vote share. It has moved away from its initial days of aggressive Bahujan politics. And with that, the slogan of the party has also changed from Bahujan Hitay to Sarvajan Hitay.
Some may argue that the strong currents of realpolitik have smoothed the rough edges of the BSP. It looks like any other political party now, barring a Dalit leader at the top. It has formed three governments with the support of the BJP in Lucknow and it found no problem in campaigning for the BJP in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots. On top of everything, it supported the EWS reservation bill, which provides 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker sections among upper castes in government jobs and educational institutions.
As the BSP is fast losing its differentiator, Chandrasekhar Azad sees an opportunity. His immediate goal is to win over the BSP members and also try to attract those who were once associated with the Bahujan ideology but later on got disenchanted with the Sarvajan politics of the BSP.
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Will BJP benefit from ASP?
The secular, Left and Liberal reaction to the formation of the ASP is that it will further fragment the anti-BJP vote and eventually benefit the BJP. But this argument is very weak because in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party, the BSP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh had formed a grand coalition but failed to stop the juggernaut of the BJP. This argument is also superfluous. In the event that the BSP is not able to hold its support base, there will be a rush to capture the Dalit vote bank and in the absence of a Dalit-led party, a section of its voters would drift towards the BJP.
The most pertinent question is why the Dalits, who constitute 16.2 per cent of India’s population, as per 2011 Census, should not have their own political party, especially in UP where the Dalit population is more than 20 per cent?
Before the advent of the BSP, the Dalits were considered to be the captive vote bank of the Congress party. Will it become a problem if the Dalits again start voting for the Congress or for the BJP? In any case, the BSP is now mostly concentrated in UP and in other states, the Dalits already vote for other political parties.
Also read: Rise of Chandrashekhar Azad — from Saharanpur’s saviour to darling of anti-CAA protests
Why Dalits must have a party
The Dalits must have their own political party/parties or at least should align with a formation which has a Dalit leader at the top. On the surface, this argument seems very retrograde and primitive, because democracy is a modern institution and it should, at least in the ideal sense, not base itself on community-level mobilisations. But until that ideal is achieved, when the transition from community to society is complete and when the members of the communities become citizens in the eyes of others, we are stuck with communities functioning as the voting blocs.
Community and caste-based voting can stop only when it works top-down. When upper caste people stop voting as a bloc, only then we can hope people who are lower down in the social hierarchy follow them. In 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and also in the UP assembly election, we have seen bloc voting by the upper castes in favour of the BJP.
In the current scenario, the Dalits must have their own political parties to cater to their aspirations and needs. They should not outsource this responsibility to umbrella political parties that have other core vote banks to cater to. Of late, we have seen many former BSP leaders joining the Samajwadi Party, the same party which has ensured that the reservation in promotion bill was not passed in the Lok Sabha. That one event illustrated why Dalits should have their own party. In the state of Bihar, Dalits have tied their faith with one or the other prominent political formations and this can be one of the reasons why during the 1990s, there was no big political mobilisation against the Dalit massacres.
Surely, there are Dalit members in larger umbrella parties and they can work as effective, informal caucuses to press their demands. But the road from representation to tokenism in large parties is slippery.
Nevertheless, democracy is also about representation. If the Savarna or Dwij leaders can lead scores of national and state parties, then the Dalits can also have many political fronts. Rather, they should have more than one political party. The important issue is about sustaining them. Do they have the financial, social and cultural capital to sustain? Can the Dalits sustain the BSP and the ASP and may be some other formations at the same time?
The author is the former managing editor of India Today Hindi magazine, and has authored books on media and sociology. Views are personal.
Manubadi start crying durring election time hindu , hindu far the vote bank and snach vote of safai bala but why they are not comming farward themself far uplift of thies safaiwala hindus who suffered most from centuries being hindus only why they are not switching the job from pujaris to safaiwala far real uplift of safaiwala asper our P M s research safaiwork is giving the spritual power too so the let the pujaris test thies type of spritual power. Abusing reservation is the faishion of manubadis .
Confused leader. If really you want to uplift Dalits, help the municipality workers, scavengers and tribes who still struggle to meet their two ends. The families who availed reservation till today are well off. My heart bleeds for the above said category. For generations they still do the scavenging and cleaning. Till now so many dalit parties came but their plight has not changed.
The thug dilip mandal can’t look beyond caste, but call others as casteist.