Jignesh Mevani’s politics may be too radical for Gujarat’s moderate Dalits

Jignesh Mevani | Photo from Facebook.com/JigneshMevaniOfficial

Jignesh Mevani had ruled out participating in active politics for a long time saying it would cloud his credibility as an activist, and force him into unwelcome compromises.

Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani have become heroes of social resistance in Gujarat today. Among them, it is Hardik Patel who has garnered maximum attention because of the massive response he is getting from the numerically strong, and politically influential, Patidar community.

Jignesh Mevani is trudging a path that is quite different from that of Patel and Thakor, even as he remains strategically aligned with them on the common objective of defeating the BJP in the state elections. This staunch Ambedkarite journalist-turned-activist lawyer led the Dalit Asmita Yatra to protest the alleged anti-Dalit attitude of the state government and to demand swift action against cow vigilantes involved in merciless flogging of four Dalit youths at Una in July 2016. His left-of-the-centre, secular activism has covered issues related to Dalits, landless labourers, manual scavengers, marginal farmers, minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

Mevani had ruled out taking part in active politics for a long time. Electoral dynamics, he had argued, would cloud his credibility as an activist, and force him into unwelcome compromises.

He is now contesting the state election as an independent candidate from the Vadgam constituency in Banaskantha district. The Congress party has supported him by shifting its sitting MLA to another constituency. Vadgam—a reserved constituency for Scheduled Castes—is almost entirely rural, and economically backward. Its 2.6 lakh voters consist of around 65,000 Muslims, 43,000 Dalits, 25,000 Chaudharis, 21,000 Thakors and 13,000 Darbars. Congress candidate Manilal Vaghela had defeated influential BJP cabinet minister Fakirbhai Vaghela in this constituency in the 2012 assembly elections .

The Aam Adami Party, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Arundhati Roy and several left-leaning and Dalit student leaders from JNU are also supporting Mevani, and are currently campaigning for him in Vadgam. Mevani announced that he would not accept donations from any political party or corporations and, instead, would fight using the contributions received from people.

“Janata ki ladai, janata ke paison se (The people’s struggle using the people’s money)” is how he said he’d maintain his political independence.

The issues Mevani has brought up in his campaign include providing drinking water to villages, the deepening of village lakes, a government-funded college in the area, irrigation facilities for farmers, restoration of ground water levels and setting up libraries in villages. He has also been speaking on issues related to secularism, the condition of minorities in the state and the need for an alliance between Muslims and Dalits to counter the forces of Hindutva.

The BJP has been quick to rouse the fears of Dalits, and other voters, about Mevani’s ‘pro-Muslim’ beliefs and has questioned his nationalism. Photographs of Mevani receiving a donation from members of a political outfit aligned with the Popular Democratic Front, which is being probed for alleged links with the Islamic State in West Asia, have been widely shared by the BJP.

Dalits in Gujarat constitute only about 7 per cent of the population. They are demographically so dispersed that they are an unimportant factor in deciding the results of elections. Ideologically middle-of-the-road, they have voted for the Congress for several decades before many of them got co-opted into the Hindutva fold in the post-Ram Janmabhoomi phase. Neither a Dalit movement, nor a Dalit party like the Bahujan Samaj Party, has a notable presence in the state.

Therefore, Gujarat’s largely moderate Dalit community might find Mevani’s agenda too radical for the state’s socio-cultural background. The Congress party might also find him a difficult companion in the long run due to his intransigence on the caste system, and his unwillingness to engage in power-sharing or deal-making.

Mevani’s call to defeat Modi’s Vadnagar from Vadgam might appear electorally insignificant. But the symbolic meaning of his assertions should not be lost. He is an outside-the-mainstream politician who thinks it is possible to work out, within India’s constitutional system, an alternative form of politics. Especially, when mainstream parties have, for all practical purposes, given up actively promoting human rights, social justice, secularism and political probity.

Amit Dholakia is professor of Political Science, Maharaja Sayajirao University.