Ever since Dimple Yadav, the Samajwadi Party leader and the incumbent MP from Kannauj, touched the feet of Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati at a rally last month, a section of people have gone berserk. From leaders like Shivpal Yadav to Bharatiya Janata Party’s Naresh Agarwal, many have been criticising, mostly through trolling and abuses, Dimple’s gesture, which Mayawati had responded by blessing her. Clearly, the ‘upper castes’ did not like what they saw.
For those riled up over an act that is seemingly an attack on their caste hegemony, such incidents don’t happen – but most importantly, they shouldn’t happen.
Sometimes, the social media exposes the real face of the society. A post on Facebook, put up by ‘Namo: Voice of India’, which has more than one lakh followers, carried an image of Dimple Yadav complaining to her husband, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, “Kitni bar Mayawati ke pair chhuwaoge mujhse, bhaad me jaaye aisa pyar. (How many times will you make me touch Mayawati’s feet? Such love can go to hell)”. Posted on 17 May, the picture with text has been shared by more than 11,000 users.
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Indian media wasn’t far behind. Since the Kannauj rally, both Dimple Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav have been asked by news channels about the gesture of touching Mayawati’s feet in almost all their interviews. Channels have been having fun covering the incident in numerous programmes while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s IT cell has been sharing countless memes.
Why the hue and cry over Dimple Yadav’s gesture?
Why would anyone object to a person touching the feet of Mayawati, a leader who is twice Dimple’s age, president of a national party (BSP), four-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh? Akhilesh Yadav respectfully calls Mayawati his ‘bua’. So, if Dimple Yadav touches Mayawati’s feet, it’s a normal thing.
Several Indian politicians are known for giving respect to senior and elder leaders of opposition parties. Earlier in Janaury, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav from Bihar too had touched Mayawati’s feet to seek her blessings on her birthday and posted a photograph on Twitter. Tejashwi Yadav, too, was similarly trolled and criticised for his gesture.
So, where’s the problem?
Shudras are at the bottom in Hindu society’s categorisation system based on class, known as chaturvarna (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and then Shudras). Dalits are considered outside the class system — avarna — and treated as ‘untouchables’. In the casteist Indian society, the backward castes faced social discrimination, were denied education and the work that came their way were those of manual labour. But unlike Dalits, they did not have to face the curse of untouchability. This gives them a sense of being ‘upper’ or ‘forward’. That is why one finds instances of Dalit atrocities being committed by members of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and some lower castes.
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SP-BSP alliance brought Dalits and OBCs together
In 1993, when the Samajwadi Party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP led by Kanshiram entered into an alliance, it wasn’t merely the coming together of two major parties in the electorally biggest state. It was also an alliance of Dalits and the backwards, who had been presented with the first opportunity to forego a bitter historical past and come together. The alliance successfully managed to stop the ‘Ram wave’ of the BJP. But the alliance ended in 1995, and the price was paid not only by the two political parties but also the two communities, which remained locked in a bitter battle for close to two and a half decades.
Things however changed with the return of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 Lok Sabha election and the 2017 assembly elections. This gave ground for the coming together of SP and BSP. Besides this, over the last five years, the Dalits and backwards, joined by the youth, came together on several issues, including reservation, to oppose the Narendra Modi government. Later, the SP and BSP voters supported alliance candidates in three Lok Sabha (Gorakhpur, Phulpur, Kairana) and Noorpur assembly bypolls and wrested control of all four seats that were previously held by the BJP. It is in the backdrop of this association that the Rashtriya Lok Dal has also entered the alliance.
Also read: Who trolls Mayawati on Twitter and what it says about Indians
What the gesture means
Dimple Yadav’s gesture of touching Mayawati’s feet is representative and an extension of the coming together of the SP and the BSP. This shows the cordial relationship between the two parties. This not only reinforces their political stand but also helps reduce the differences between the Dalits and the backwards in the social life. This has also strengthened the political status of Mayawati.
Hindu upper castes that believe in dominating the narrative dislike this kind of social unity. When Dimple Yadav, born a Thakur and married into a Yadav family, touches the feet of an influential Dalit leader, she is actually challenging that hegemonic class system of the Hindu society that has categorised as women and deprived sections of all castes as inferior.
The author is a student of Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism & Communication, Bhopal. Views are personal.
This article has been translated from Hindi. read the Hindi version here.