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Chapter 2

DALITS IN THE POLITICAL PROCESSES OF UTTAR PRADESH: 1930-1990

Backward classes assertion in India in general and in the state of Uttar Pradesh

in particular has a long history. If we consider the Bhakti movement of Kabir (1440-

1518),1 Raidas (1450-1520), Chokhamela, etc., which dates back to fourteenth-

fifteenth century, we find that this had generated certain amount of assertion among

the most deprived and despised section of people, namely Untouchables or Dalits2 in

various parts of the country. Based on the preachings of these Bhakti saints,3 the Dalit

social reformers of later period had led their struggle for a dignified status to be

accorded to Dalits in the Hindu society. Further, they had tried to reform the Dalit

Community from within, by asking them to lead a life based of Vegetarianism,

teetotalism, cleanliness, etc. They also motivated them to leave their stigmatized

hereditary occupations through which Dalits were degraded and ridiculed. But all

these efforts, by and large, failed to ameliorate the wretched social, economic and

political conditions of the Dalits. Even the various social reform movements, led by

the Dalits themselves, failed to assure their access to any of the institutions of power

so that they could influence the agenda for change in the society. Thus, they remained

oppressed, exploited, segregated and marginalized in the Indian society for centuries.

Their status remained, more or less, similar in the medieval period, though a

great number of Dalits converted to Islam to run away from their oppression and

suppression in the Hindu society or social order. But with the advent of the British,

the status of Dalits started changing. The British opened different avenues for the

Dalits, which loosened the traditional shackles of the caste system in which Dalits

were destined to live. With the establishment of the new institutions of governance

1 Hess, Linda. The Bijak of Kabir. North Point Press, San Franciso,1983, p. 25 2 The term Dalit refers to the oppressed and exploited social groups. While the term itself is caste

neutral, in writings and in common parlance it has come to be used to refer only to members of the Scheduled Castes (SCs). In this chapter , the term Dalit is used generically to refer to all members of the backward classes.

The term ‘SCs’ is synonymous (and therefore used here interchangeably) with other terms used in the past to refer to them such as ‘Untouchables’, ‘Depressed Classes (DCs) and ‘Harijans’.

3 Mendelsohn and Vicziany. The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1998 pp. 22-26


76

and power, the traditional ones lost their dominance, which further brought changes in

the lives of the Dalits. But before all this, the destiny of Dalits was preordained since

they were supposed to lead a life guided, through proxy, by the Varnashrama dharma.

Yet, as stated above they got limited rights during the British rule, and equipped with

these rights, they stated asserting for having a dignified life. Number of socio-political

movements emerged during this epoch, which attacked the cumulative dominance of

the twice-born castes. The whole struggle of the Dalits was qualitatively different

from the earlier stage of reform movements led by the Dalit saints and social

reformers. The emergence of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, coupled with the passage of

Government of India Act 1935, gave a new impetus to the Dalit assertion, and they

started waging battle, from a more secular quarter, for their liberation, which gave

them, primary to political power and participation in functioning of a number of

institution. However, the two streams of Dalits assertions, i.e, social reform and

political assertion have remained complementary and supplementary, and these exist

simultaneously, through the Dalit assertion has taken lead more in the political realm

in the contemporary Indian society.

Though attempts were begun by the Dalit Castes from the late 19th century to

organize themselves, the various sections of the Dalit liberation movement really

began to take off from the 1920s, in the context of the strong social reform and anti-

caste movements which were penetrating the middle caste peasantry and the national

movement which was beginning to develop a genuine mass base. The most important

of the early Dalit movements were the Ad-Dharm movements in the Punjab

(organized 1926);4 the movement under Ambedkar in Maharashtra mainly based

among Mahars which had its organizational beginnings in 1924;5 the Namashudra

movement in Bengal,6 the Adi-Dravida movement in Tamil Nadu; the Adi-Andhra

movement in Andhra which had its first Conference in 1917; the Adi-Karnataka 4 Juergensmeyer,Mark, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th

Century Punjab. Berkely, 1982, p.164 5 The Political movement which the Mahars have dominated has never been confined exclusively to

their caste and since 1942 has included non –Marathi speaking groups. Since 1956, a majority of the Mahars have converted to Buddhism and no longer use the caste name. Rajni Kothari (ed.), Caste in India Politics, Orient Lomgman, Hyderabad, 1970, pp. 27-58

6 Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar, Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of Bengal, 1872-1947, London, 1997. See his article, ‘From Alienation to Integration: Changes in the Politics of Caste in Bengal, 1937-47’, Indian Economic and Social History Review (IESHR), XXXI, 3(1994). The following works also inform us about Dalits politics and society during the period of independence and partition.


77

movement; the Adi-Hindu movement7 mainly centred around Kanpur in UP; and the

organizing of the Pulayas and Cherumans in Kerala.

When Dr B.R.Ambedkar arrived on the scene, casteism became a real political

issue. He himself having experienced the brutalities perpetrated on the untouchables

found that the problem could not be solved by making any compromise with the

upper-castes. In the course of empowering his Dalit caste fellows, Ambedkar was

drawn into an epic conflict with Gandhi, on the critical question of the Dalit location

within the Hindu social order. Ambedkar felt that once India got freedom, his people,

the untouchables, would once again be subjected to the hegemony of caste Hindus and

be forced to scavenge and sweep for them. To safeguard their interests, he proposed

that there should be a number of special seats in parliament for the Depressed Classes

which would be filled through elections from special Constituencies.8 While a new

constitution for India in the 1930s, the British extended to the Dalit communities the

privilege of voting as a separate electoral constituency.9 Gandhi opposed this

constitutional provision with all the strength at his command, since a separate harijan

electorates would damage Hindu society beyond repair instead,10 he offered the Dalits

reserved seats in the central and provincial legislatures on a scale more generous than

promised by the British. It was on the fifth day of the fast that leaders of both sides

that is, Hindus and the Depressed Classes agreed on a formula that is known as the

Poona Pact, signed on 24 September 1932, by Ambedkar on behalf of the Depressed

Classes and by Madan Mohan Malaviya on behalf of the caste-Hindus.11 The number

of seats reserved for the Depressed Classes under the Poona Pact got practically

double the number reserved under the Communal Award.12

7 Gooptu, N., Caste, Deprivation and Politics: the Untouchables in U.P. Towns in the Early

Twentieth Century. In P. Robb (ed.), Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp. 277-298

8 M.S. Gore, The Social Context of an Ideology:’ Ambedkar’s Political and Social Thought, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London, 1993, p. 111.

9 Ambedkar, B.R.{1930}. Proceeding of Round Table Conference: (1) In the Plenary Session-Fifth Sitting-20th November 1930, Need for Political Power for Depressed Classes. (2) In Sub-Committee No. III (Minorities) Second Sitting, Government of India, in Vasant Moon (ed.). 1982. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches. vol. 2. Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, pp. 502-9, 528-45.

10 Young India, November 12,1931 11

Home Political Department, File no. 31/113/32, NAI, New Delhi 12 Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms, vol. I: p. 96


78

Political consciousness and participation in politics by the Scheduled Castes13

(SCs) in Uttar Pradesh have traditionally been lower castes. The state witnessed no

anti-upper caste movement, as in west and parts of South India during the colonial

period. It was only in the immediate post-colonial period that a small, upwardly

mobile section of the community, influenced by the ideas of Ambedkar and under the

Republican Party of India (RPI), was able to mobilize SCs for a short period of time.

Except for the small elite in the community, the benefits of economic development in

the post-independence period have also not trickled down to the SCs. However, since

the mid 1980s, a new wave of caste-based mobilization in north India has brought the

Dalits into politics in Uttar Pradesh under the leadership of the Bahujan Samaj Party

(BSP), formed by Kanshi Ram. The formation of SP-BSP coalition government in

November 1993, supported by OBCs and SCs and the formation of the first Dalit-led

government in Uttar Pradesh in 1995 and 1997, have introduced far-reaching change

in the politics of Uttar Pradesh.

This chapter traces the emergence of political consciousness, participation in

politics and parallel attempts to form a new social identity ‘Dalit’ by the SCs. The SC

movement has been through phases of ‘integration’ and ‘separation’ from dominant

political formations and the social groups they represent. Integration means the

attempt to join or support dominant parties such as the Congress. Adaption and

accommodation are features of this phase together with little attempt to create a

13 In Sanskrit classical literature Hindu society is divided into four varnas: the Brahmins (priests and

literati), the Kshatriya (the warriors), the Vaishyas (crafts and tradesmen) and the dvijas (twice-born) category, while the Shudras appear as the servants of the categories mentioned above. In 1931 –Brahmins represented 6.4% of the population, the Rajputs, the principal caste of warriors, 3.7%, and the Banyas (mainly merchants composing the third order), 2.7%. The varna system encompasses a system of jatis which are the real castes. The word jati derives from ‘jan’, ‘to be born’ and indeed the jatis which are the real castes. The word jati derives from ‘jan’ , ‘to be born’ and indeed the jatis are endogamous: one is born in the caste one’s parents belong to; they are organized in a hierarchical way due to their status, given in terms of ritual purity, according to a continuum ranging from the Brahmins to the Untouchables. However qualitative leaps exist in this gradation since the varna system gives a structure to the profusion of jatis. Each jati belongs to a specific varna. The jatis of the ‘twice-born’ varnas naturally enjoy a higher status than those which are placed at the level of the Shudras and even more among the Untouchables. This hierarchy of inherited statuses is concomitant with one’s economic function, sometimes to an extremely specialized degree. Originally every jati was defined by a professional specialization: so Brahmins fulfill functions reserved to literati and priests avoiding manual work, especially if it implies forms of violence (like agriculture, which destroys micro-organisms) because non-violence is a brahminical ideal, which manifests itself also in a vegetarian diet. On the contrary, the main Untouchable jati of north India, the Chamars, are leather workers who are particularly impure not only because they treat organic matter, but also because they work with hides, the cow being the sacred animal par excellence of Hinduism.


79

distinctive identity. Separation entails a revolt against the Hindu caste system and

often the embracing of a different creed such as Buddhism. During such periods, SCs

have preferred to form their own party in opposition to dominant ‘elite’ or

‘Brahminical’ parties.

Four distinct phases can be identified in the politics of the Dalit Caste in Uttar

Pradesh.

1. From 1930 to 1947, studies on identity formation of SCs in the United

Provinces rooted in the quest for tracing the roots of Dalit assertion. In

these studies, emphasis has been given to role of important personalities

and their contribution for making Dalits a powerful political force.

2. From 1947 to 1969, when after an initial period of accommodation in the

immediate post-independence period with the dominant Congress party,

SCs decided to form their own party, viz., the Republican Party of India

(RPI).

3. The failure of this experiment led to co-option into the Congress under the

leadership of Indira Gandhi. As a result, up to 1977, SCs supported the

Congress with its radical doctrines of ‘Garibi Hatao’ under which a

number of welfare schemes were put forward to help Scheduled Castes.

4. Since the early 1980s, the SC movement has entered into a period of revolt

leading to the formation of a separate party, ideology and identity. There

has been criticism of, and movement away from Hinduism, though this

phase has been more political than social.

I. Colonial Period: Pattern of Delayed Political Consciousness

The first signs of political awakening among the SCs were manifest among the

Chamars of Agra,14 although they called themselves Jatavs ostensibly to set their

upwardly mobile status apart from their impecunious brothers in central and eastern

14 Pai, Sudha, “Social Capital, Panchayats and Grass Roots Democracy: Politics of Dalit Assertion in

Uttar Pradesh”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 8, Feb. 24 - Mar. 2, 2001, pp. 646-647


80

U.P. This disparity is located in a specific context in a report of the Census of India,

1911, XV, United Provinces of Agra and Awadh: ‘Whenever a caste is spread over

the whole province, the western branches are invariably regarded as higher in the

social scale than the eastern’.15

According to the 1931 Census-the last in which caste breakups were recorded-

Chamars formed the largest caste grouping in U.P., and accounted for 12.7% of the

population. Chamars were followed by Brahmins (9.2%) and then Yadav (8.7%).

However, SCs as a whole constituted only 21% of the population, being only one

percent higher than the upper castes, which also included the non-cultivating castes

like the Kayastha, Banias and Kurmis.

The Adi Hindu ideology was formulated in 1920 by a new generation of

literate untouchables. Some untouchables had acquired elementary literacy from

Christian missionaries in the cantonments or civil stations. Others, born in the 1880s

and 1890s to the untouchable parents who had migrated to the towns, were sent to

municipal schools, in so far as their parents could afford the expenses.16 This newly

emerged public sphere in town stimulated the attempts for new cultural identity for

Dalits. Swami Achhutanand (1879-1933), one of the most prominent Adi-Hindu

leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, was brought up at a military cantonment, where his

father worked, and later settled in Kanpur.17 He had been taught by missionaries had

gained an extensive knowledge of religion texts.18 Ram Charan (1888-1938), an Adi

Hindu leader of Lucknow, was born in a slum at Gwaltoli in Kanpur. His parents were

casual laborers, but sent him to school despite economic hardship. Later, he went to

Lucknow, where he worked in the Railway Audit office to earn money to attend night

school for higher education, and eventually took a degree in law.19 By the 1920s, a

group of literate, but usually not wealthy, men like Acchutanand and Ram Charan had

15 Ramaseshan, Radhika, “Dalit Politics in UP”, Seminar, no.425, January 1995, p.71 16 Provincial literacy figures of untouchable castes cited in various census reports from 1901 onwards

suggest an increase in literacy rates, especially in the towns, although the increase was remarkably slow and small, indicating the spread of literacy to a handful of untouchables only. Census of India, 1901, vol. XVI (Northwestern Provinces and Oudh) Part I, Report, Allahabad, 1902, p. 170: Census of India, 1911, vol. XV (United Provinces of Agra and Oudh), Part I. Report, Allahabad, 1912, p. 255; Census of India, 1921, vol. XVI (UP), Part I. Report, p. 126; Census of India, 1931, vol. XVIII (UP), Part I, Report, p. 480

17 Jaffrelot, Christophe, India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Low Castes in North Indian Politics, Permanent Black, Delhi,2003 pp.200-205

18 Acchutanand biography, pp. 9-10 19 Chaudhary, A.P., Picchre tatha Dalit Barg Ke Mahan Neta Rai Ram Charan Ka Jivan Charit

tatha Unke Sanshipta Karya (hereafter Ram Charan biography), Lucknow, 1973, pp. 1-2


81

begun to emerge among the second generation of urban untouchables, who became

concerned with the issue of caste uplift. Some among them became concerned with

the issue of caste uplift. Some among them had joined the Arya Samaj,20 which

promised to facilitate the social uplift of lower castes, set up schools and hostels for

them, offered scholarships to untouchable students, and presented the hope of

surmounting caste divisions by allowing untouchables to enter the Hindu caste

hierarchy though purification or shuddhi.21

From the early 1920, in the aftermath of the Khilafat movement to oppose

western intervention in the Ottoman empire and in response to the religious ferment

among Muslims, the Arya Samaj stepped up its shuddhi or reclamation activities for

the inclusion of lower castes and Hindu converts to Islam into the Hindu fold, in an

attempt to expand and strengthen the Hindu community.22 Swami Acchutanand

claimed in a speech that ‘the samaj aimed to make all Hindus slaves of the Vedas and

Brahmins.’23 It was also from this period that the political reforms of 1919, introduced

by the British government, brought into sharper focus the issue of the relative

numerical strength of various religious groups, as the principle of communal

representation was given according to population; those religious groups who are

more enumerous get more places; and then what else but acchutoddhar (uplift of

untouchables) conferences everywhere to uplift untouchables’.24 The various

intellectual influences on Acchutanand, one of the chief Adi-Hindu preachers,

described by his biographer, indicate how the Adi-Hindu ideology was formulated.25

An important influence was naturally that of the Arya Samaj and the Samaj’s

vigorous propagation of shuddhi or reconversion in Hinduism. In 1924, local Adi

Hindu sabhas (associations) had been organized in Kanpur, Lucknow, Benaras and

Allahabad to spread the message of Adi-Hinduism, the initiative being taken by

20 The Arya Samaj was a Hindu Reformist Sect begun by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1895. Its

teachings included a distinctive interpretation of the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, the Vedas. It was against idolatry, the non-marriage of widows, caste, and polygamy. Because of its reformed views and innovations, it found little favour with traditionalists, especially orthodox Brahmans. Part of its active goal was to bring back to Hinduism those who had been converted to Islam and Christianity, though a process of Shuddhi.

21 Acchutanand biography, pp. 10-11, 98-99, Ram Charan biography, pp. 8-9 22 Hardy, P. The Muslims of British India, Cambridge, 1972, p. 208; G. Minault, The Khilafat

Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India, New York, 1982, pp. 192-3 23 Extracts from speeches in Acchutanad biography, p. 11 24 Extracts from speeches in Ram Charan biography, pp. 8-9 25 Acchutanand biography, pp. 9-10, Ram Charan biography, p. 4


82

literate untouchables and bhakti religious preachers. Each Sabha had its pracharaks

and upadeshaks, modeled on Christian missionaries and Arya Samajist preachers,

who regularly visited untouchable neighbourhoods.26 The Ravidas Chamar

Mahasabha in Kanpur, for instance, acknowledged Achhutanand as the leader of their

community in the 1920s, and Chamars in Kanpur in large numbers attended meetings

convened by the Adi Hindu Sabha and addressed by Achhutanand. Sweepers in

Kanpur, on a number of occasions in 1925, were also reported to have organized

meetings for social uplift, at some of which Acchutanand was invited to preside in his

capacity as an Adi Hindu leader.27 In Allahabad, the Chamars of the cantonment had

declared themselves to be a self-contained community, having broken away from high

caste Hindus, and celebrated their festivals separately in 1926.28 Similarly, in

Lucknow, in April 1927, various Chamar Mahasabhas held a joint meeting where

they pledged their support to the Adi Hindu movement and resolved to form a

volunteer corps.29

In December, 1927 the leaders of the Adi Hindu Mahasabha in UP made claim

for a more inclusive acchut or untouched identity to unite disparate Dalits castes. The

Mahasabhas laid out its agenda in a conference held on 27 and 28 December 1927 in

Allahabad, an event that was widely reported and discussed in contemporary

newspapers in UP. The conference was proclaimed as the first All India organization.

Adi Hindu conference, and was attended by 25,000 Dalits from UP in April 1927.

Another 350 delegates participated from Punjab, Bihar, Delhi, and Central Provinces,

Poona, Bengal, Madras and Hyderabad. Simultaneously, the Adi-Hindu Mahasabha

raised these issue in a petition submitted to Simon Commission during its tour of

India in 1928. The Simon Commission received the similar petitions from Dalit

association in different parts of UP and India. They provide us with useful material to

understand various facts of Dalit agenda that were being assembled during this time.

What is striking is that most Dalit association which submitted petition to the Simon

commission unanimously claimed separate achhut identity, making this a marked

feature of Dalit politics of the time. Most of the ideas of Adi-Hindu movement were

26 An Adi Hindu Samaj was formed in Lucknow in 1919; the Adi Hindu Mahasabha in Kanpur in

1923 a similar organization in Allahabad in the 1920s. Acchutanand biography, pp. 24-25 27 Police Abstracts of Intelligence (hereafter PAI), No. 16, May 2, 1925; No. 30, August 8, 1925 28 PAI, No. 35, September 11, 1926; No. 45, November 26, 1927 29 PAI, No. 14, April 9, 1927.


83

also widely shared by other Dalit groups across UP, including the Adi Dharmis from

Dehradun, the Kumaon Shilpakar Sabha of Almora, the Jatav Mahasabha of Agra,

the Dom Sudhar Sabha of Garhwal, and the Chamar Sabha of Kanpur. Further,

evidence from CID weekly reports of these years (1926-30) indicates a good deal of

activism conduct by Adi Hindu association. Through their struggles in the 1920s and

1930s, Dalit activists and association in UP gradually formulated an agenda that

addressed the concern of their community as well as issues that mainstream

nationalist associations like the Congress had raised with the regard to the vision of an

Indian nation and democracy. A more passionate and elaborate discussion of these

themes is evident in Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu’s book,”Bharat ke Adi Nivaasiyon ki

Sabhyata” (The Civilization of India Original Inhabitants) published in 1937 from

Lucknow. In claiming that achhut were the original inhabitants of India and

decendants of dasas, asurs and dasyus mentioned in Brahmanical Hindu texts. Achhut

was declared as the identity of all untouchables, separate from Hindu community.

Adequate safeguard for achhut in various elective bodies in the form of separate

electorates were in the demands included proportionate representation in legislative

bodies, reservations in Government jobs, adequate Dalit representation in the

Congress ministry (1937-1939), permanent right over land by hanging the tenancy

acts, fixed wages for agriculture labor and for the removal and skinning of dead

animals, right to use public wells, the abolition of begari, the right to convert to any

religion, and rejection of the term ‘harijan’. Ambedkar ki Awaz Arthath Achhuton ka

Federation (The voice of Ambedkar or the Federation of Achhuts) was the title of

Nandlal Viyogi’s 1947 book published in Allahabad. The title proclaims the

significance of Ambedkar and Schedule Caste Federation (SCF) in reshaping achhut

identity and politics in 1940s by giving it a new voice or awaz. A new feature of

achhut politics in the 1940s was the emergence of the SCF as a party offering a

political platform for all achhuts. In particular, the Federation brought together

diverse achhut political and social group including Jatavs, Raidasis, Pasis, Dhanuks,

Chamars and Others. By the 1940s proportional representation in education and an

emphasis on a shared separate identity had acquired wider social support among

achhuts.30 The appeal of SCF lay in the fact that it provided an organizational body

30 Rawat, Politics and Acchut Identity: A Study of the Scheduled Caste Federations and Dalits

Politics, in Survir Kaul (ed.) The Partition of memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India,


84

for Dalits to launch a concerted campaign against the ill—effects of the Poona Pact,

particularly its denial of proportional representation of Dalits. Adi-Hindu leaders from

UP as well as from other parts of the India were present during the foundation of the

SCF in Nagpur on 18 July 1942. In UP, the SCF was considered a worthy successor to

the Adi-Hindu Mahasabha and rapidly replaced branches of Mahasabha all over the

state. According to Viyogi, the SCF also replaced achhut associations like the Adi

Dharm Mandal in Punjab, the Depressed Classes League of Namasudras in Bengal

and the Depressed Classes Association in the Central Provinces.

The SCF attracted Dalit association particularly Chamar association like the

Jatav Mahasabha of Agra, the Raidasas Mahasabha of Allahabad and the Kureel

Mahasabha and Chamar Mahasabha of Kanpur.31 The Kumaon Shilpakar

Mahasabha was the only non-Chamar association to join the Federation in its initial

stages. Gradually the establishment of the district branches of the SCF also attested to

its growing popularity in urban centers of UP. District branches were established in

Agra, Aligarh, Allahabad, Etah, Etawah, Lucknow, Kanpur Meerut and Kumaon. The

Uttar Pradesh SCF decided to launch a Satyagraha in both 1946 and 1947 to protest

against a Poona Pact, the Congress and the Cabinet Mission Award for rejecting their

demand for proportional representation and a separate electorate. The SCF launched

two different satyagraha32 in Lucknow against the non representative character of

Legislative Assembly, the first in July August 1946 and second from March to May

1947.There were other issues as well, which I have discussed elsewhere, including the

abolition of begari distribution of land to Dalits, free education and scholarships, and

reservation of jobs within the Government services.

To reiterate, the achhut agenda laid by the Adi-Hindu Mahasabha in 1928,

including a program for defining a set of rights seemed to have reached fruition by the

1940s. It was no longer the idea of Adi Hindu Mahasabha alone, but one that was

shared by various Dalit associations in UP and beyond. This vision of achhut politics

and commitment to rights continues to shape the lives of Dalits today.

Bloomington, 2002, pp. 111-139 31 Rawat, Ramnarayan S., “Making Claims For Power: A New Agenda in Dalit Politics of Uttar

Pradesh, 1946-48”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2003, p. 592 32 Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly UP, 1946 Vol. XXIV Official Report (Allahabad, 1947),

pp. 7-8


85

The spread of Adi Hindu movement was not, however, due simply to the lure

of practical benefits accrued from supporting its leaders or the role of ‘patron’ that the

leaders played in the local community. It was primarily caused by the message that

the Adi Hindu leader put forward. The Adi Hindu ideology was particularly attractive

to the mass of the untouchable and was espoused by them because it provided them

with a historical explanation for their own poverty and deprivation, and presented

them not only with a vision of their past power and rights, but also with hopes of

regaining their lost rights. The Adi Hindu preachers cultivated a sense of entitlement

of rights and power at the same time as they heightened an awareness of historical

deprivation. The stress on atmagyan (self-knowledge) and introspection as the source

of independent knowledge without higher caste imposition also enabled the exposition

of a distinctive, autonomous, proud and even defiant self-identity of untouchables.

Adi Hindu movement spread among the ranks of the literature leadership because it

provides a political vocabulary for the untouchables to claims rights and opportunities

in urban society. The spread of the ideology of the Adi Hinduism was reflected in

social reforms among untouchable groups in the towns. The central focus was on

denying the religious rituals and ceremonies prescribed by the higher castes of the

untouchables, and in particular, on defying the lower castes social duties and labour

imposed on them. Many Mahasabha’s denied that pilgrimages, the holding of

expensive religious feasts, especially for Brahamin priests, and elaborate observance

of religious ceremonies were meritorious acts, and these were actively discouraged.

Some Mahasabha’s also decided to streamline the ceremonies observed on the

occasion of birth, marriage and death. Informal saving groups were organized under

the auspices of the local Mahasabhas, whenever possible. The Kanpur Mehtar

Mahasabha decided to overcome an established custom whereby the untouchables.

This tendency was further encouraged by the sympathetic ear that the government lent

to these leaders, often nominating them to local councils and the provincial

legislature, or honoring them with titles.33 These political events were organized to

put forward demands for separate political rights as well as government jobs,

scholarships and entry to schools and colleges. When the Simon Commission arrived

in Lucknow on 28 November 1928, the local Adi-Hindu Sabha, led by the prominent

leader Ram Charan and Shiv Dayal Singh Chaurasia, staged a street play and a 33 Dinkar, Swatantrata Sangram, p. 89


86

crowded demonstration at the Charbagh Railway Station to present the demand of

untouchables.34 Twenty five small Hindu temples that had been opened for the use of

untouchables in 1934 when Mahatma Gandhi visited Kanpur soon fell into disuse

owing to the lack of interest of untouchables.35

Hindu Mahasabha reformers, drinking, gambling and popular religious

practices constituted evils and bad habits, which had to be overcome, not simply to

prevent indebtedness, but also to qualify for higher status and as fit and proper

member of Indian society. The relationship of the untouchable poor with the upper

caste nationalists and religious reformers remained uneasy in the UP towns, and

neither provided and adequate focus for the politics of the untouchable poor. Instead,

bhakti and Adi Hinduism formed the dominant and sustained form on their political

expressed and identity, despite the sporadic and uneven nature of agitation politics

under Adi Hindu banner.

a. Role of the Congress for the uplift of Untouchables in United Provinces

The Congress traditionally paid more attention to the Untouchables than to the

other lower castes, who were sometimes treated almost as badly. This attitude derived

from its well established tradition of socio-religious reform. First, some of the

nineteenth-century socio-religious reform movements had a strongly egalitarian

agenda and aspired to abolish the caste system. They naturally focused on the

Untouchables who were the most obvious victims of the social system. Even when

they had no such motivation, the socio-religious reform movements often focused on

the needs of the Scheduled Castes in order to dissuade them from rejecting Hinduism.

Arya Samajist Congress leaders such as Lajpat Rai (1865-1928) were keen to reorient

the Shuddhi movement towards the Untouchables so as to improve their condition.36

34 Ibid., p. 80 35 Arora, N.P. and N.C. Chaturvedi, Kanpur Ke Gata Pachas Varsh Ki Rajnitik aur Sahityik Jhanki,

Kanpur, 1951, p. 36 36 In 1909 Lajpat Rai called out the upper castes in the following terms: The Hindus are going down

in numbers. Your insolence towards the lower classes of Hindus is paid back by the latter turning their back on you. Mohammedanism and Christianity are extending their arms to embrace them and indications are not wanting of the readiness of the lower classes of Hindus to accept the hospitability of non-Hindu religions and social system. Why? The reason is obvious. As a Hindu you won’t touch him; you would not let him sit on the same carpet with you. You would not offer him water in your cups, you would not accept water or food touched by him; you would not let him enter your temples, in fact you would not treat him like a human being.’ (Lala Lajpat Rai,


87

Initially, the Indian National Congress with a view to avoiding a maze of

unpleasant controversies and schism, categorically ruled out any discussion on social

issues from its platform.37 The situation in 1917 was very different: the extremists and

the moderates had merged the year before, the Muslim League and Congress agreed

on a common platform, and Congress met in the atmosphere of a British promise of

eventual self-government. The need now was for mass support and politicization of

the masses, and by 1917 one-seventh of the Indian population that was Untouchable

had come to be recognized as socially deprived but politically important ‘Depressed

Classes’.38 In 1917, at the Calcutta session, it passed a resolution qualitatively a shift

from its earlier policy that ‘this Congress urges upon the people of India, the

necessity, justice and righteousness of removing all disabilities being of a most

vexatious and oppressive and inconvenience.39 This was a formal resolution, not

followed by any program of action to remove untouchability. However, it was a

welcome move which was jubilantly described by Shinde40 as ‘a unique event in the

whole history of the Congress’. However, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar noted it as a ‘strange

event’.41 The INC was anxious to gain the support of Dalits to the Congress Muslim

League Scheme of Reforms. Knowing well that it had no chance of getting it,42then

they negotiated through Sir Narayan Chandravarkar,(1855-1923)43 who had

considerable influence over the depressed classes. Congress leaders did not want to

see any impression of lack of national support in getting the Home Rule and

Congress-League reforms successfully passed.

‘The Depressed Classes’, The Modern Review, July 1909, reprinted in D. Swaroop (ed.), Politics of Conversion, New Delhi: Deendayal Research Institute, 1986, p. 302)

37 Initially in his presidential address, W.C.Banerjee (first session of INC at Bombay in 1885) stressed it is necessary to discuss the ‘social issues of the day’. But later leadership consciously overlooked it. See Natesan, 1917, p. 3

38 The Depressed Classes- An Enquiry into their Condition and Suggestions for Their Uplift, Madras, G.A. Natesan, c.1912, (articles originally published in The Indian Review, 1909-11) is the first full-scale work on the problem. The Gaikwad of Baroda and N.G. Chandavarkar, both involved in encouraging the 1917. Congress resolution on untouchability, are represented in the book. The publisher, G.A. Natesan, was the mover of the 1917 resolution on Untouchability.

39 Report of the 32nd Session of the INC held in Calcutta on 26-29 Dec. 1917, Chakrabarti and Bhattacharya, 1935, p. 187

40 V R Shinde, a Maratha leader of the Dalit cause who organized many anti-untouchability conferences at the all India level- 1907 at Surat, 1908 at Bankipore, 1910 at Madras, 1912 at Karachi, 1918 at Bombay, and also pioneered educational work in Bombay province.

41 Ambedkar, 1945, p. 119 42 Ibid., pp. 16-18 43 Sir Narayan Chandravarkar was a former President of the Congress, and President of Shinde’s

Depressed Classes Mission Society. He had chaired the meeting of Depressed Classes in Bombay at this time.


88

The publication of the communal award in the summer of 1932; setting out the

Parameters of special representation for depressed classes in India, has been described

as a crucial event in the history of untouchables separatism. The official Congress

resolved in August 1932 to neither accept nor reject the Award. In protest against this

decision, a relatively small group under the leadership of Madan Mohan Malaviya

(1861-1946) broke away from the main body of the Congress to form the Congress

Nationalist Party.

The sentiments expressed by Malaviya against the principle of separate

representation for ‘special classes’ of Indians did, however, strike a chord with a large

body of congressmen.44 For many, rejection of the principle of divide and rule, a

belief in the composite and organic unity of the Indian polity, had nothing to do with

‘Hindu’ Power. But in the nature of Congressmen’s reaction to the section of the

Award dealing with the ‘Depressed Classes’ and its implications for the ‘Hindu

Community’, the gap was narrowed between Malaviya’s position and that of

Gandhian and mainstream congress agents. The significance of possible untouchable

electoral isolation, and Gandhi’s fasts against separate electorates, generated a UP

Congress response that was influenced by four interlinked political languages.

The first political language, concerned with the direct reaction to the

communal award, it is necessary to investigate how far the Congress was willing to

conceive of untouchables as a distinct ‘minority’. Congress attitudes towards

depressed classes and towards Muslims as ‘minority communities’ were quite distinct.

The ‘Hindu unity’ problem seemed to be privileged by comparison to the general

‘minority’ question. Under the leadership of Gandhi, Congress’s objections to

separate electorates for the ‘depressed classes’ were intensely pursued in September

1932. There were many within the Congress, who simply saw support for this

movement as a method of overcoming the unjustified disadvantages of caste. Yet the

response to Gandhi’s fasts picked up most clearly on the rhetoric of Hindu unity: that

of ‘allowing’ or ‘admitting’ a largely passive group of depressed classes into the fold.

44 This was not measured by numerical support for Malaviya’s Independent Party, which was indeed

relatively small. Rather, the sentiments expressed by the Independent about separate representation were shared by much broader group of Congressmen in UP than party figures would suggest. Evidence for this is seen in the response to untouchable uplift and comments by Congress leaders in the later 1930s.


89

Secondly, reaction to these separate electorates also engaged with notions of

Hindu communal integrity dating back to the 1910s and 1920s. Whilst decrying the

plight of untouchables, Congressmen in UP exhibited concern for the integrity of

Hinduism which brought back images of shuddhi and the muscular proselytising of

the Arya Samaj. Congress and Arya Samaj support of the reform of Hindu society

was for the most part based on common political objectives. Politicians associated

with the Hindu Mahasabha and the Arya Samaj used explicitly communal language

which Congress could rarely be associated with publicly. however for all three parties

in UP in the early 1930s, the uplift of untouchables was a necessity for reasons of

national integrity a way of making the ‘Hindu Community’ strong so as to make the

nation strong. For the Hindu Mahasabha, Hindu strength, numerically and politically

was defined against that of Muslims. For the Congress untouchable uplift would

prevent the creation of another division constituency. Muslims were not necessarily

viewed as belligerents, but were expected eventually to mould themselves to the

Congress ideals.

The third political language which talked of the Hindu community as

essentially cosmopolitan, that created a non-Hindu opposition to untouchable uplift.

Resentment of the Congress in UP was related to power, particularly for those groups

jealous of their own social and political integrity. Consequently, from the beginning

of the Civil Disobedience movement, the Congress also came up against Muslim

resistance as a result of its policies for social reform.

The fourth political language- that of the Colonial state in its assumption about

community and political power came to affect the overall meaning of uplift. One

official letter claimed that ‘the Muslims regarded this development as a subtle

manoeuvre to strengthen the hands of the Hindu Mahasabha vis-à-vis the new

Constitution’.45 In the atmosphere of the recently communal award, in which the

Congress Nationalists and Hindu Mahasabha bewailed the injustice done to Hindus in

its provisions, this Muslim view about untouchable uplift seemed particularly

pertinent to the British.

45 Express letter from the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Home Department, to Home,

Simla, 11 August 1933, Public and Judicial Department, 7/533 Oriental and India Office Collections, London.


90

Although the issue of untouchable uplift had always been a Congress concern,

it was not until the prompting of Gandhi’s fast in September 1932 that the campaign

appeared as a popular movement throughout UP. In October the Harijan Sevak Sangh

was established, a Gandhian organization working for the educational advancement

and employment of untouchables. By the following year, Gandhi’s All India Harijan

tour, ending in Banaras in July 1934, collected Rs. 60,337 from UP46 on 11 March

1932 Gandhi had written to Samuel Hoare, then secretary of State for India,

reminding him of a pledge he, Gandhi, had made at the Round Table Conference to

fast until death in the event that separate electorates were implemented for ‘depressed

classes’.

The response in UP to Gandhi’s fast was phenomenal. In virtually every

district and town of the province efforts were made to open up wells and temples to

so-called ‘untouchables’. Mass meeting involving depressed classes were organized

under congress auspices, at which untouchables were requested to pledge their

support for Gandhi and for joint electorates.

Early in 1930s untouchables uplift had been freely incorporated into the wider

program of civil disobedience, which included general boycotts of foreign goods. For

example, on 8 March 1930 in Muzzafarnagar, meetings of the Achhut Uddhar Sabha,

an important ‘depressed classes’ political institution in UP, were addressed by

prominent Congress leaders including Purushottam Das Tandon (1882-1962), an

activist in the servants of the people society, and Algu Rai Shastri, a socialist who

also took an interest in the activities of the Arya Samaj. Resolutions were passed on

the usual subjects like foreign-cloth boycott, as well as on the removal of social

restrictions on ‘depressed classes’.47

II. Dalit and the 1950 Constitution

The Constitution48 of India followed on from a four year period when various

groups involved in the making of a modern India thought out loud about what that

India should look like. The Constituent Assembly debates of 1946-49 give a

remarkable insight into the founding of a postcolonial polity, as indeed does the 46 Pandey, The Congress in Uttar Pradesh, p.69. 47 Police Abstracts of Intelligence, 22 March 1930 48 8 November 1948, Constituent Assembly Debates: Official Report, vol. 7, pp. 317-21


91

Constitution proposed for adoption by the Assembly on “this twenty-sixth day of

November, 1949.”49

The Constitution of India is wedded to the concept of social justice.50 It aims

to foster the goal of socio-economic revolution by creating the necessary environment

for its achievement. By demolishing the hierarchical social order of socio-economic

privileges, it directs the state to build up a new just society promising the justice-

social, economic and political- to all, along with the other basic provisions of the

Constitution.51

In the initial stage of Constitution drafting the claims of minorities (religious)

and depressed classes were given equal importance. This is vindicated from the fact

that while the first Report of the Advisory Committee recommended reservations in

services and education for the backward classes, particularly the scheduled castes and

scheduled tribes, it made elaborate suggestions regarding political safeguards for the

minorities in proportion to their population, although it rejected separate electorates

and restricted such special provisions “for the next 10 years”?52 The instrument of

instructions to the President and Governor suggested the desirability of including

members of important minority communities in Cabinets as far as practicable.

Besides, a general declaration was adopted that “in all India and Provincial Services,

the claims of all the minorities shall be kept in view in making appointments to these

services consistently with the consideration of efficiency of administration.” Further,

a provision was made for a Special Minority Officer at the central provincial levels to

report to the legislatures regarding the working of various safeguards for minorities.53

This report was adopted by the Constitution published in February 1948. However,

49 Corbridge, Stuart, “Competing Inequalities”, The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 59 no. 1 Feb. 2000

p. 66 50 There is ample case of holding, “Democratic form of government, federal structure, unity and

integrity of the nation, secularism, socialism, social justice and judicial review are basic features of the Constitution.” Core Constitutional objective of social and economic democracy cannot be established without removing inequalities in income and status through rule of law-Samantha V. State of A.P. (1997) 8SCC 191.

51 Speech in the Constituent Assembly, 26 May 1949, Constituent Assembly of India Debates, official Report, vol. VIII, 16 May to 16 June 1949, pp. 329-32

52 For the various provisions on reservations, see P. Radhakrishnan, ‘Reservations in Theory and Practice’, MIDS Bulletin, April 1990

53 26 May 1949, Constituent Assembly Debates; Official Report, vol. 8, pp. 329-32


92

the partition of the country and subsequent events54 turned the tide against the

Muslims. A series of amendments adopted to each of these articles during the

discussions of the Draft Constitution in October 1949 effectively removed the

religious minorities from the purview of these safeguards and restricted the scope of

these articles mainly to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Although some of

the minority leaders55 made vehement appeals for such provisions, they were roundly

isolated by the majority opinion56 which was against any kind of special safeguards

for the religious minorities. To make matters worse for them, several of their own

representatives opposed the demand for communal reservations, believing that it will

only lead to division in the community.57 The tone of the majority opinion opposed to

quotas for minorities can very well be assessed from the emphatic statement of Sardar

Patel while moving the amendment to the initial Minority rights drafts “This

Constitution of India or free India, of a secular state will not hereafter be disfigured by

any provision on a communal basis.”

54 The critical factor, however, was the exit of Muslim League after the country was divided. The

majority of the League members left for Pakistan, thereby drastically weakening the hold of Muslim leaders to lobby for their case. Further, the partition turned the tide against the minorities as nationalist leaders became hostile to any such special claims. This is quite discernible from the proceedings of Constituent Assembly debates, as member after member rose to oppose reservation based on communal lines as many feared that it would lead to a further partition of the country. Members were opposed to the re-introduction of communal quota as introduced by the British which led to partition of the country on communal lines. (CAD, Vol. V and VI) An interesting facet is added to this intrigue by Retzlaff (1963) who points out, had the initial timetable for the drafting of the Constitution, which called for its completion in fall of 1947 been adhered to, the Constitution would have included political safeguards for religious minorities.

55 Some of the Muslim members made a passionate plea for reservation in services for their community. For instance Z.H. Lahari, a prominent Muslim League leader said, “In the Legislature you have got statutory reservations where they are meaningless, but when you come to the services it is merely said that their claims shall be considered. This is a very pious wish. Take away the reservation from the Legislature and for God’s sake us reservation in service. Here I speak not only for the Muslims of the United Provinces but also for other minority people.”

56 K.M. Munshi who led the majority opinion against reservations for minorities stated clearly: “I can assure the house that at the time when the Advisory Committee met on the last occasion there was no question of providing safeguards for any religious minority. The negotiation proceeded on the footing that except the backward classes who are economically and socially backward and scheduled castes and tribes who have special claim of their own, no other minority should be recognized in the Constitution” (CAD, Vol. 5, p. 270)

57 J. Kazi Syed Karimuddin, one of the top Muslim leaders was opposed to any reservation for the Muslims. He remarked in the Constituent Assembly debate: “electorates with reservation of seats is absolutely of no consequence to the minorities. It would do them positive disservice. If the two resolutions regarding the continuation of separate electorate or joint electorate with reservation of seats with a fixed percentage of votes of the community to which the candidate belongs which were rejected last time are not acceptable to the House, the minorities should forego this reservation of seats under joint electorates, this going to create permanent statutory minorities in the country. It would be in the great disadvantage and debtment of the Muslim community or any other minority community which claims reservations. A reservation of seats will create more bitterness, more jealousies, more communal hatred and Muslim disintegration. We must be left to our own fate and we are quite prepared to face the future”. (Shiv Rao, 1968)


93

The Constituent Assembly, however, was quite affirmative in its preference

for special safeguards for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.58 The majority

opinion in the Assembly was in favor of quotas for these communities because unless

the entry of member historically disadvantaged groups was facilitated by special

measures, the constitutional provisions of equality of opportunity for all citizens

would remain mere paper promise. It was argued that the constitutional provisions

guaranteeing equality to all individuals were not sufficient to ensure substantive

equality of opportunity for members belonging to historically disadvantaged groups.

Quotas were required to rectify the continuing effect of historical practices of

discrimination against these groups, to remedy the structural forms of discrimination

that would persist after equality of opportunity had been formally instituted and

discriminatory practices outlawed.

Another key reason why quotas were conceded for depressed classes was the

rationale of ‘reparations’. Quotas were based on the assumption that the state should

compensate for the history of oppression inflicted by upper caste Hindu society upon

the lower castes and tribes. Based on the said assumption, the concept of

compensatory relief was restricted to groups belonging to the Hindu religion.

Reservation for other religious groups was rejected as preferential treatment based on

religion would contravene secular character of the Constitution. Member after

member of the Constituent Assembly argued that unlike other minority claims, the

demand for quotas for the ‘backward’ classes was not a communal claim, that quotas

were directed against communal practices of the dominant castes that had excluded

the ‘backward’ classes from the administration, and the representatives of backward

classes demanded preferential treatment on the ground of ‘backwardness’, not their

minority status. Finally, the key considerations of reducing social and economic

inequalities and promoting national integration and development guided the majority

opinion in the Assembly to agree for special provisions for ‘backward’ classes. The

prominent argument in favor of quotas for the Untouchables and tribal groups was

that these were required to bring up sections that were dragging the nation down and

inhibiting its progress.

58 Constitute Assembly Debates, vol. 1, p. 333


94

Special provisions including quotas for the backward classes were allowed

with a number of riders attached to them, and not every appeal of depressed classes

was accepted by the Constituent Assembly. On several of their demands, there were

compromises and trade-offs. For instance, while the Assembly agreed to insert an

‘exception’ clause in the ‘Rights to Equality’ provisions for the backward classes, it

attached a precondition of 10 years’ limit.59

Similarly, on the question of political representation for the backward classes,

the Constituent Assembly rejected the demands for separate electorates and weightage

system. It rather nodded for the creation of joint electorates.

III. The Republican Party of India (RPI) in Uttar Pradesh

The Dalit movement in UP has specific characteristics which distinguish it

from the Ambedkarite movements in other regions, particularly Maharashtra.60

Political consciousness and participation in politics by the Schedule Castes (SCs) in

UP have traditionally been lower castes. The state witnessed no anti-upper caste

movement as in western and southern parts of India during the colonial period. It was

only in the immediate post-colonial period that a small, upwardly mobile section of

the community, influenced by the ideas of Ambedkar and under the Republican Party

of India, was able to mobilize SCs for a short period of time.61

59 During the course of framing special provision of reservation for the depressed classes, there were

heated discussions on the issue of determining time duration for such an important provision. While T. Channiah wanted the reservation to remain for a period of 150 years, Hriday Nath Kunzru moved an amendment to Article 10 (3) stating, “Nothing in this Article shall, during a period of ten years after the commencement of this Constitution prevent the State from making any reservation of appointments of posts in favor of any backward class of citizens…” He was of the view that the compensatory benefits even in appointments should be limited to 10 years. He was apprehensive that the continuation of reservation for an indefinite period may result in the states’ being irresponsible in the upliftment of the backward classes. Kunzru received strong support from Ambedkar, who thought the provision should be extended for 10 years and if the conditions of the backward classes did not improve sufficiently, they should be able to find ways to maintain such concessions (CAD, Vol. VII)

60 Das, K.C., Indian Dalits: Voices, Vision and Politics, Global Vision Publishing House, Delhi, 2004, p. 166

61 Joshi, Barbara J., Democracy in Search of Equality: Untouchable Politics and Indian Social Change, Hindustan Pub. House, Delhi, 1982, p. 105


95

The formation of the RPI62 in 1957 inaugurated a new and ‘separatist’ phase in

the SC movement in Uttar Pradesh, but it proved to be shortlived.63 The main

architect of the RPI in UP was Chhedi Lal Sathi, Ambedkar attracted him into the

SCF in 195264 and he become the first president of the RPI in UP, a post he was to

occupy till 1964.65 In Uttar Pradesh the RPI polled well among Muslims who were

distrustful of the Congress in the wake of the 1961 Aligarh riot,66 when the

government had been leninent towards the Hindu assailants. The Muslims’ response

was to ally themselves with the scheduled castes against the upper castes who

traditionally supported the Congress and the Jan Sangh.

The RPI derived inspiration and sustenance from the Jatav Mahasabha,

Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF), Depressed Classes League and Jatav Sudhar

Sabha, organizations which had played a vital part in mobilizing the Jatavs in the pre-

independence period.67 The political leadership was then in the hands of Paras Ram

and Chandhri Inder Mann, who succeeded in gaining recognition for the name Jatav

for the caste group, officially called Chamar, and was closely identified with the

political movement of Ambedkar.68 Besides the Jatav organizations the Depressed

Classes League, which had been closely associated with the Congress, was also

offered a forum for political activity.

The Jatav organizations functioned mainly in Hathras, Aligarh and Sasni:

consequently, much of their mobilization efforts were concentrated in urban areas, but

following the introduction of adult suffrage it became necessary to gain a firm

foothold in rural areas so that the Jatavs were able to wield political power and 62 The name ’Republican’ was taken because of the Dalit identification of the Republicans as the

party of Lincoln who symbolized the ending of slavery. Ironically, Ambedkar himself was fully aware that Lincoln’s primary goal in the Civil War was to hold the Union together, not to end slavery, and that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued only when the two goals could be achieved together. Neither the majority of Dalits nor (presumably) Ambedkar cared that in other ways the Republicans represented the more conservative political party in the U.S.

63 Das, K.C., op.cit., pp. 140-141 64 Chatterji, Debi, Up Against Caste: Comparative Study of Ambedkar and Periyar, Rawat Pub., New

Delhi, 2004, p. 155 65 Jaffrelot, Christophe, India’s Silent Revolution, pp. 107-108 66 Mendelsohn and Vicziany, op.cit., p. 213 67 Both these groups, i.e., the Jatav Mahasabha and the Depressed Classes League combined their

activities in a third organization, the Jatav Sudhar Sabha, a non-political body founded by leading Congressmen of the district, for educational and welfare activities, Ian Duncan, Levels, the Communication of Programmes and Sectional Strategies in Indian Politics-BKD and the Republican Party of India in UP and Aligarh District, 1979, pp. 266-67

68 Ibid., pp. 265-69


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influence. The merger of the Jatav Mahasabha and the SCF was a step in this

direction. In fact, their coming together provided much impetus to the activities of the

SCF. In 1957 it organized a massive rally which was attended by thousands of

Harijans who were publicly converted to Buddhism. But soon thereafter the SCF

began to lose much of its appeal. A weak organizational structure combined with the

absence of powerful political symbols which could provide a rallying point for

various aggrieved groups, led to the decline of the SCF. It was left to B.P. Maurya

The son of an agricultural labourer from Khair, a tehsil of Aligarh district to build

something out of the existing structures and coalesce different elements into a

powerful and all-embracing struggle for the rights and privileges of the scheduled

castes. Inspired by Ambedkar, he became involved in their conversion to Buddhism.69

In addition, he worked to reform the life-style of Jatavs by urging them to ‘give up the

evils of drinking and gambling’ and to ’avoid spending money going to distant places

to worship gods and take dips in the rivers.’70 In this way he widened the concept of

mobilization by including broader social issues as well. Besides, he enlarged the

political spectrum by reaching out to the landless and poor peasants of all castes in the

hitherto neglected rural areas.71 At the same time, he did not dismiss the need to

generate scheduled caste solidarity by dwelling on the communitarian themes of caste

oppression and subordination at the hands of upper castes.72

The RPI under Maurya’s leadership made a concerted bid to break the

Congress stranglehold on the scheduled castes by drawing attention to the persisting

problems of poverty and deprivation of the ‘weaker sections’. While the Congress

was castigated for its failure to honour its tall claims regarding the Scheduled castes,

the RPI was presented as a viable alternative to existing political formations. The

basic thrust of the RPI was to devise programmes which would improve the social

status and economic well-being of the ‘weaker sections’, defined as scheduled castes,

Buddhist converts from scheduled castes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other

backward classes. To achieve this, the RPI laid stress on higher education which

69 See Brass for a discussion of Jatav political and social organizations, in ‘caste, Caste Alliance and

Hierarchy,’ pp. 217-18 and Duncan, pp. 265-69 70 Brass, ‘Caste, Caste Alliance and Hierarchy in Aligarh,’ p. 228 71 B.P. Maurya criticized the old leadership for its neglect of rural areas. Duncan, 1979, p. 272 72 Ibid., p. 272.


97

would open up possibilities for employment in the bureaucracy and administration,

and demanded that the existing provision for reservations be left undisturbed.

In Aligarh district, the RPI won the Lok Sabha seat and two Vidhan Sabha

seats in 1962.73 The new MP was B.P. Maurya,74 Aligarh was a non-reserved seat and

Maurya had been selected precisely because he had made a point of never contesting

elections in reserved constituencies. In April 1957, he had orchestracted a huge

conversion meeting in which 100,000 Jatavs became Buddhists.75 Such a mass

conversion and the transformation of Hindu temples into Buddhists temples infuriated

the upper castes. Riots followed and the police had to intervene. Maurya played a

major part in the Jatav demonstration and he too was failed for Duncan “By the

beginning of the 1960s, Maurya had become the idol of the Jatavs of Aligarh district,

his fame and reputation had spread to surrounding areas and he has well on the way to

becoming a Scheduled Caste political leader of national status’.76 It was no fluke that

Maurya achieved such electoral success in Aligarh district, for it had the heaviest

concentration of Chamars in Uttar Pradesh, accounting for 22% of the population.

However, Maurya was able to broaden his base beyond his caste. True to the RPI’s

principles, he was persuaded that the Scheduled Castes had to ally with other groups,

which is why he joined hands with Muslims who were disgruntled by the Congress as

exemplified in his 1962 election slogan: ‘Jatav Muslim bhai-bhai, Hindu Kaum kahan

se aayee?’,77 ‘Jatavs and Muslims are brothers, where do the Hindus (community,

nation) come from?’ The coalition was the cornerstone of the RPI’s success.

This tentative step crystallized into a formal alliance with conservative

Muslim leaders in western U.P. before the elections of 1962. The Muslim-Jatav

alliance was rendered possible because Muslims began feeling bitter against the

perceived that it ruling Congress and the government after the 1961 riot, in which the

community was at the receiving end. Some Backward Castes leaders from the Yadavs

and the Kurmis, who were part of the Shoshit Sangh, which preceded the emergence

73 Government of India, Election Commission, Report on the Third General Elections in India, vol.

II, Delhi, 1963, pp. 430-31 74 One such candidate, running for the Aligarh city MLA seat, received 9 percent of the vote (city

Scheduled Caste population is 14 percent) even without a symbol, but results of the dispute were more serious in rural areas where informal communication channels adequate to long-term transmission of ideas were not adequate to short-term transmission of electoral information.

42 He had become a Buddhist in February 1957 in Aligarh and had therefore changed his name from Bhagwati Prasad Maurya to Buddha Priya Maurya.

43 Jaffrelot, Christophe, India’s Silent Revolution, op.cit., p. 109 77 Amar Ujaalaa, (Hindi Daily, Aligarh), March 27, 1962


98

of the Socialist Party in eastern UP, also joined the RPI to enable the party to garner

Backward Castes votes as well.78

While in other parts of UP, the RPI attempted to broad base its appeal to

attract persons from the Backward Castes, in Agra–the place of its origin–it remained

essentially a one caste party. As the Jatavs had become politically differentiated, in

Agra at least they had reached the limits of self-sufficient status politics and were at a

dead end insofar as pursuing caste goals were concerned. Further advances naturally

dependent upon their ability to coalesce with other elements in society, but even the

viability of a second Jatav-Muslim tie-up was in doubt during the 1964 poll, because

the Muslims felt that their own precarious standing in Agra’s politics was becoming

jeoparadised because of their co-operation with the Jatavs.

In the 1960s, the RPI described itself as an ‘Ambedkarite’ party and used a

combination of caste and class mobilization in order to win votes. It used the former

to unite the entire SC community and the latter for demanding distribution of land to

landless laborers, adequate distribution of food-grains, control over rising prices, full

implementation of the Wages Act 1948 and reservation in the services for SCs and

STs. These demands listed in the election manifestos and resolutions presented to the

government enhanced its appeal both among the urban-educated SC groups and

traditional rural voters in the countryside.79 Apart from these demands and the goal of

upliftment of Dalits, it had no clear ideology or strategy.

Moreover, although the RPI had two clear goals-to defeat the ‘Brahmin’

Congress party and improve the condition of Dalits – its leaders were divided over the

methods to be used, a good example being the issue of reservation. The moderates

thought it necessary to continue the policy of protective discrimination for some time

in order to help Dalits improve their position in Indian society, and believed they were

dependent upon the larger society for their betterment. The radicals, drawing upon the

ideas of Ambedkar, held that all types of protective discrimination should be

immediately abandoned. They maintained that under the present system of

reservations, the ‘yes-men’ of the Congress were elected from Dalits, rather than

78 Ramaseshan, Radhika, Dalit Politics in U.P., Seminar, no.425, January 1995, p. 72 79 Election manifesto of the RPI for the Years 1962 and 1967, New Delhi.


99

leaders who would fight for the ‘real’ interests of the community. They believed that

all organizations for the advancement of Dalits in the state were agencies for the

distribution of Congress patronage. This, they argued, harmed the Dalits movement,

while if reservations were removed, it would be possible to attempt more

revolutionary goals such as communism.80

Finally, the existing power structure in UP, particularly in the rural areas, in

the first two decades after independence, did not allow any space for the RPI to

become a strong force, and it remained a marginal party. In each district, the

Congress built a broad-based coalition consisting of former zamindars, the locally

dominant proprietary castes of Brahmins, Rajputs and Bhumihars, sections of the

middle-status cultivating castes with self-sufficient holdings, and also had the bulk of

the lower backward, Dalits and Muslim minority vote. Local upper caste leaders were

also used to mobilize the lower castes on the basis of patron-client relationships and

thereby build ‘vote banks’ or ‘caste coalitions’. Hence, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was

a party supported by the upper and lower castes, i.e., a party of extremes. In the

1960s, the Congress party also attempted mobilization through its own which enabled

it to gain a chunk of the Dalits votes.81

It is concluded that caste factors had played a major role in all the election

campaigns, and caste and communal slogans were freely used by leading political

parties. ‘Blacken the faces of Brahmans, Thakurs and Lalas,’82 exhorted the

enthusiastic campaigners of the RPI. At the same time, social and economic issues

profoundly influenced the outcome of the election. This was evident in the growing

disaffection of backward and scheduled castes with the Congress and their demands

for greater recognition in district politics. The Congress projected a policy of

balancing the interests of peasant proprietors and lower castes and classes, and often

appropriated the slogans and concerns of the left opposition. In fact its broad based

support structure enhanced its reformist credibility and, at the same time, helped to

diffuse class tensions.

80 Ibid. 112 81 Kuber, W.N., B.R. Ambedkar: a critical Study, People,s Publishing House, New Delhi, 1979,

pp.18-19 82 Brass, ‘Caste and Caste Alliance and Hierarchy in Aligarh,’ p. 231. Comparison of voting patterns

at the constituency level by Brass reveals; a very clear association between the distribution of the important castes in the villages of the constituency and the distribution of support in the same villages, such that villages dominated numerically by particular castes supported candidates ofd the same caste or the party identification with the interests of the caste.


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IV. The Scheduled Caste Movement in the 1970s

The 1970s can be described as a phase of integration and a hiatus between two

periods of separatist political activity by Scheduled Castes in Uttar Pradesh.

Following the 1969 state assembly elections, the Republican Party of India and the SC

movement as a whole lost its distinct identity and entered into a phase of long-term

decline. During this phase, SCs moved closer to the upper castes and the Congress

who were able to co-opt them and again their support. The middle castes in the mid-

1960s, due to mobilization by their leaders and the economic gains from the Green

Revolution, entered into politics with the formation of parties such as the Bharitya

Kranti Dal. As a result, caste conflict in the countryside was now mainly between the

lower castes and the rising militant middle caste. Contemporary ‘non-political’

Ambedkarite organizations in UP have their roots in the Dalit Panthers and the

BAMCEF, which represent two different patterns of ‘non-political’ Ambedkarism,

Both were founded in the 1970s in reaction to the post-independence failure of

Untouchable politics.83 On the one hand the Congress Party failed in providing the

untouchables a proper representation. On the other hand, the Republican Party of

India (RPI), which constituted the Ambedkarite alternative after a short period of

success in the mid-1960s in a few urban and rural pockets in western and eastern UP,

also failed. RPI’s setback was largely due to internal factionalism, failure to gain the

support of the non-Dalit lower castes, as well as economic and political weakness in

the face of the Congress party’s resources. The once popular and successful RPI

leader from western UP, B.P. Maurya joined the Congress party at a time when Indira

Gandhi started appealing to the Dalits and other marginalized sections with her anti-

poverty slogans. Although Dalit voters strongly supported Indira Gandhi and helped

her reach power in 1971, it was they who suffered the most from state violence on the

poor (such as male sterilizations and destructions of slums) under the Emergency that

she imposed in 1975. The North Indian Dalit politician Jagjivan Ram, who became a

regular minister in the central government as well as Indira’s trusted lieutenant during

the Emergency, precipitated the end of the Emergency when he criticized its excesses

and left the government in 1977. Having been a key advocate of Dalit government

employees’ interests, his departure symbolizes the end of this subaltern elites’ 83 Shah, Ghanshyam, “Stratification and Reservation: Case of Scheduled Castes and Tribes,”

Mankind, June 13, 1981


101

traditional support to the Congress. Despite the electoral promise made to Dalits in

order to garner their support, he failed to become the prime minister of the new Janata

Party central government.

In the late 1960s, attempts were made by Congress leaders to create a new

social base for the party, made of the poor, landless, SCs and the Muslim minority, in

order to counter the challenge from the rich peasantry and the middle castes

represented by agrarian parties/groups. The party under Indira Gandhi adopted radical

image and populist policies such as ‘Garibi Hatao’ and the 20-point programme. The

breakdown of the earlier vote banks made it necessary to appeal directly to the small

farmers and landless labourers most of whom are SCs. This is reflected in the

manifesto for the 1971 Lok Sabha elections. It admitted that the Green Revolution had

benefited only the better-off farmers and promised that its benefits would spread,

‘covering the entire countryside… particularly to benefit the small and marginal

farmers and the landless’. Redistribution of surplus land and bank nationalization, it

pointed out, would, enable the government to provide credit to small farmers and

employment to the landless.

In Uttar Pradesh between 1971 and 1977, a number of policies were designed

to strengthen the Congress base among the rural poor and the lower castes. Land

ceiling was reduced to 18 acres of irrigated and 7.3-7.9 acres in the case of non-

irrigated land per family. During the Emergency, there was vigorous implementation

of this measure in UP, leading to many bigger landowners losing land. Special

programmes were begun for the rural poor landless and small farmers and for SCs,

house sites and land was distributed and wells dug for drinking water. Many of these

schemes were carried out under central supervision to bring about a ‘total rural

regeneration’.84 By these policies, the Congress was able to capture and integrate SCs

within the Congress patronage and protection system. However, in UP, due to the

dominant position of the BC cultivating peasantry mobilized across the state by the

BKD/BLD, the benefits from these policies for SCs were perforce limited. Their share

in political and economic power, particularly in the rural areas, remained limited. In

fact, the implementation of these policies created greater caste tension as the BCs in

84 Election Manifesto of the Congress for the year 1977, No. 20, New Delhi


102

most areas were landowners and SCs either tenants or laborers. Atrocities during the

Emergency also led to SCs withdrawing support from the Congress party.

Power struggles within the RPI, arising from the impulse to break the

hegemony of the Jatavs weakened the party’s base to such an extent that by the time

Samyukta Vidhayak Dal came to power in U.P. in 1967, the Congress, under the

leadership of Indira Gandhi, was in a position to co-opt a majority of the RPI leaders

and members within its fold. The co-option was deliberately timed to coincide with

the assiduous efforts of the Congress to refurbish its own image as a party which

identified itself with the poorer peasantry and the SCs, a plank which came in handy

during the restoration of Congress rule between 1971 and 1977. These years were

consequently marked by the growing antagonism of sections of the rich peasants

towards the Congress.85

B.P. Maurya shifted to the Congress in the early 1970s. He had been defeated

as a RPI candidate in 1967. Then the party had lost heavily during the 1969 assembly

elections. In the presidential elections that year, the RPI supported V.V. Giri, who

eventually became Indira Gandhi’s candidate. The Prime Minister called Maurya to

finalise their collaboration and then asked him to join the Congress®. As working

president of the RPI he refused and instead proposed, an alliance, but Indira Gandhi

told him that she wanted him in the party.

Maurya’s justification of his shift from the RPI to Congress is revealing of the

mechanisms of the co-option process: even though he claims that he had laid down his

ideological pre-conditions for joining, these proved very shallow and he joined Indira

Gandhi-rather than Congress- in order to obtain a ministerial post: he became Minister

of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry in 1974-this was probably the real

pre-condition. Before that, he had been given a Congress (R) ticket in 1971, in a non-

reserved constituency, Hapur, where he had won with 62% of the valid votes.

Interestingly, by the late 1960s he had already been subjected to ‘the criticism now

leveled at all the leaders that they are corrupt and open to bribes’.86 Maurya-who was

85 Ramaseshan, Radhika, “ Dalit Politics in UP”, Seminar, 425, January 1995 p. 72 86 Lynch, Owen, op.cit., p.124


103

till then known ‘for his fiery, witty, and bitterly anti-Congress speeches’87- eventually

adopted the Congress discourse on the Scheduled Castes: ‘There is nothing like Dalit

politics. This is a most confusing approach because Scheduled Castes and Scheduled

Tribes are part and parcels of the entire society.’ Such words echo Gandhi’s analysis

of the caste system and, indeed, Maurya remains respectful of the Mahatma. Chhedi

Lal Sathi followed the same route. He recounts how ‘Mrs Gandhi came to (him) and

said “We are in trouble; we are asking for socialism, so you join us, otherwise upper

castes and the rich people will come” Sathi joined Congress in 1970 and became

general secretary of the UP Congress in 1973. The RPI was also affected by its

attempts to ally itself with the Congress. In addition to Bhandare, in the late 1960s,

Gaekwad and Maurya were were favourably inclined towards such a policy. There

was so much reluctance within the party that Gaekwad could only finalise a seat

adjustment in 1971, when the RPI could only be a junior partner of the Congress. This

relationship became even closer during the Emergency, when the RPI supported

Indira Gandhi. In the 1977 elections, the main faction of the Ambedkarite movement,

the RPI (Gawai), remained an ally of Congress, but it lost heavily, whereas the RPI

(Khobragade) which had reached an agreement with the Janata Party and the

Progressive Democratic Front- a regional party formed in Maharashtra by Congress

dissidents-won alone Lok Sabha seat.88

V. Dalit movement in the 1980s

a. The Bahujan Samaj Party

In the 1980s, the SC movement in UP entered a new phase of separation from

and hostility to the mainstream parties and the upper caste Hindu community under

the leadership of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Its emergence and establishment as

an important political force can be traced to two interlinked developments in the state.

The first is the steady decay and in fact a collapse of the ‘Congress system’ in UP

(Stone 1988). Centralization of power by Indira Gandhi and increasing central

intervention in the 1970s destroyed local leadership, created rampant factionalism and

led to disintegration of both the social base and the machinery of the party. Still

87 Ibid. 88 Jaffrelot, Christophe, India’s Silent Revolution, p. 113


104

dominated by upper-caste leaders, it failed to throw up BC or SC leaders and

therefore became increasingly marginalized in a society where these caste groups had

become important. This created a political vacuum in the state, leaving space for

parties representing social groups hitherto not mobilized.

A parallel development was a number of significant changes within the SC

communities in 1980s. Many studies point to improvements in the condition of SCs

although only in the parts of the state; the pace of change was slow and poverty

remained. The Green Revolution increased investment in agriculture while

urbanization increased employment opportunities on farms, brick kilns, construction

activities and rickshaw pulling in the cities. As a result, absolute dependence on

landowners and old patron-client relations disappeared. Less prepared to suffer

indignities, SCs gave up carrying and skinning of dead animals and adopted

‘Sanskiritisation’ which reflected in their wearing of the sacred thread and abstinence

from meat. The catalyst for change was education and spread of the electoral process

while welfare programmes of the government, in backward areas particularly, had a

negligible impact. A small urban elite had also arisen, primarily among Chamars, in

the post-independence period, who were the first to gain education and avail of

reservations, leading to a white-collar middle class and small entrepreneurs. Some of

them prospered in their traditional leather business. Today, Chamars/Kureels/Jatavs

holding Class 1 government jobs in UP compare favourably with those belonging to

the Brahamin, Kayasth or Vaishya communities89. These changes created a small

educated core in the SC community, who were in the vanguard of the new ‘Dalit’

assertiveness in the 1980s and 1990s.

The nature, organisation, goals and ideology of the BSP can be understood by

comparing it with three reference points-(a) the RPI, which would place within the SC

movement in UP; (b) the Dalit movement in various part of the country, with which it

has similarities and substantial differences; and (c) its relationship with the Congress

party, because this reveals its relevance and origin as a reaction against the Congress

variant of SC welfare policies, and enables it to establish distinct identity.

89

The Economic Times, June 4, 1995


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b. Kanshi Ram’s Political Strategy for Shaping the Bahujan Samaj

Kanshi Ram was born in 1932 in a Scheduled Caste family in rural Punjab-his

native village Khwaspur is situated in the district of Ropar.90 His exact origin is

subject to controversy but he seems to have been originally from a Ramdasia jati -

Chamars converted to Sikhism.91 Without talking of his religious affiliation, he

underlines that his early environment was not as oppressive as the one Untouchable

suffered elsewhere:

Because of the Sikh religion, also because most of the Chamars

have adopted the Sikh religion,92 there was some upward mobility.

The teaching of the (Sikh) gurus is more egalitarian.

Like Ambedkar’s family, Kanshi Ram’s benefited from the military jobs that

the British reserved for Untouchables.93 His father was the only man of the family

who did not leave for the front during World War II because at least one man had to

stay behind. The army not only provided a good salary, it also raised the self-esteem

of the Untouchable soldiers. This social and family context, which one generally does

not find in the Hindi belt, explains why Kanshi Ram was able to attend college.

I was first exposed to the miseries of the Mahars and Mangs (an even

lower Untouchable caste) and then I read Annihilation of Caste and

What Gandhi and the Congress have done to the Untouchables.

These are the two books, which have influenced me most. Later I

came to know about Mahatma Jyotirao Phule.

“I started building the bahujan samaj in 1971

90 Parliament of India, Tenth Lok Sabha Who’s Who, Delhi, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1992, p. 326.

Mendelsohn and Vicziany give another date for Kanshi Ram’s birth, 1934 ( O. Mendelsohn and Vicziany, The Untouchables. Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 219.

91 Sunday, February 13, 1994, pp. 23-31 92 In fact, the proportion of Hindu Chamars is still very high in Punjab. In the 1931 Census, they

were 62.1% of the total, as against 14.4% for Sikh Chamars. 93 Kanshi Ram still comes from the lower classes: two of his sisters got married to landless laborers

in Punjab, a third one to a civil servant of the fourth category and the fourth one to a soldier. His first brother is welder at the thermion factory of Ropar, and the second one cultivates the 1.5 acre family farm. (Sunday, February 13, 1994, pp. 28-31)


106

Kanshi Ram inaugurated a new type of movement when he founded, on

October 14, 1971, “The Scheduled Caste (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other

Backward Classes (OBCs) and Minority Communities Employees Association.” This

association was limited to the district of Poona but prefigured Kanshi Ram’s future

organization since he already endeavored to federate employees of Dalit, Tribal,

lower castes caste and religious minority background. Amongst the five vice-

presidents who assisted Kanshi Ram were one Mahar, one Tribal, one Mali (gardener-

OBC), one Muslim and one Christian. They were representatives of what Kansi Ram

considered the bahujan samaj.

The association launched in 1971 became a federation in 1973, and went

beyond the limits of Poona. Kanshi Ram left the town three years later and created a

new movement soon after. On December 6, 1978 he officially founded the All-India

Backward (SC, ST, OBC) and minority Communities Employees Federation

(BAMCEF) whose aim was to organize the elite of the bahujan samaj, essentially

wage earners with intellectual qualifications who had benefited from quotas.

BAMCEF could make rapid headway and reach a kind of critical mass because of the

growing number of educated Scheduled Caste members in the administration.

In order to achieve the eradication of caste, Kanshi Ram believed in the

strategic use of caste as a tool by Dalits for their emancipation. He felt that as long as

a casteless society was not formed, caste would have to be used to dethrone

Brahminism. If the Brahmins could use their caste for deriving their own benefits, he

asked why he could not use it for the benefits of his society.94 According to Kanshi

Ram, caste is a double-edged sword which injures you from both sides. He believed in

using the sword of casteism in such a manner that the Bahujans benefit, while the

upper-caste people do not.95 Kanshi Ram raised his voice against Brahaminical

hegemony and used against them the same strategy by which the Brahmins had come

to power. He wanted to rouse the consciousness of the Dalit and backward classes and

believed in associating them with the Bahujan society. His idea regarding Ambedkar’s

demand for a separate electorate for Dalits96 was also different. He aspired that the

94 Singh, S., Bahujan Nayak Kanshi Ram, New Delhi, Samyak Prakashan, 2005, p. 122 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid., p. 123


107

Dalits should attain a respectable and glorious position in the mainstream society and

they should not be treated as a separate entity.97

Kanshi Ram was following in the footsteps of Ambedkar who also thought

that the lower castes not only needed to become aware of their rights and organize but

had also to seize power. In Kanshi Ram’s vocabulary, it implied a shift from

“assertiveness” to “empowerment”. Even Kanshi Ram, the chief architect of the

present Dalit upsurge in North India,98 believed that his party should not simply be a

Dalit party but a party of 'bahujans' (literally, majority); hence the name, Bahujan

Samaj Party.99 The bahujan samaj, in Kanshi Ram's rendering was to be forged

through a broad alliance of the Dalits, the backwards and the minorities, particularly

the Muslims. Kanshi Ram also saw clearly that the Dalits alone, comprising not more

than about 20 per cent of the electorate in any constituency, could not possibly

challenge upper-caste dominance.

Kanshi Ram founded the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (Committee to

fight for the community of the exploited and the oppressed) on December 6, 1981-

Ambedkar’s death anniversary. This organization dispensed with the official

euphemisms (Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes etc.) preferring instead the words,

Dalit and Soshit that politicized Untouchables use more frequently to designate

themselves. However, Dalit does not refer here to the Untouchables only, as it is often

the case, especially in Maharashtra. The English language publication of the DS-4, as

the movement came to be known, The Oppressed Indian, repeatedly published

editorials propagating n historical vulgate in which the Shudras (OBCs) and Ati-

shudras (Untouchables) were bracketed together and went on to include Tribals as

well.

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the 1932 Poona Pact that the Congress

was preparing to celebrate with great pomp, Kanshi Ram published a booklet, the

Chamcha Age, where he denounced this agreement as sealing the alienation of the

Untouchables. He argued that the system of reserved seats that had been forced on

Ambedkar, who favoured a system of separate electorates, had helped the high castes

97 Akela, A.R., Kanshi Ram Ke Saakshatkaar, Manak Prakashan, Delhi, 2007, p. 29 98 The Hindu, March 16, 2011 99 The Hindu, March 16, 2011


108

dominate Congress, co-opt Dalit candidates who were mere sycophants (Chamcha) of

the Congress since the Scheduled Castes were not in a majority in any single reserved

constituency.100 Facing such a situation, the DS-4 had to act as a political party and

contest elections. It was the only way out since, “A tool, an agent, a stooge or a

Chamcha is created to oppose the real, the genuine fighters”. The DS-4 presented 46

candidates for the assembly elections of Haryana in 1982, without making much of an

impact.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), officially founded on April 14, 1984,

Ambedkar’s birthday, took over from the DS-4.101 It did not imply much more than a

change of name but by rechristening his organization that way, Kanshi Ram

consummated his shift from social work to party politics. The BSP has made rapid

progress on the electoral front. During the general elections of 1984, it received more

than one million votes. This number was multiplied six-fold in 1989 when the party

got 6,215,093 votes, 2.07 percent of the recorded votes and obtained three seats in the

Lok Sabha. In 1991, it won only two seats and 1.61 percent of the votes but five years

it gained 11 seats with 3.64 percent of the votes.

The growth of the BSP enabled the party to obtain the statute of National Party

from the Election Commission after the 1996 elections. This growth resulted chiefly

from Kanshi Ram’s continuous efforts to get the bahujan Samaj organised since the

1960s. The title of the BSP mouthpiece, Bahujan Sangthak (the organizer –in the

sense of unifier-of the masses) bears testimony to the priority given to organizational

aspects. Today, thanks to the activists trained by the BAMCEF and the DS-4, the BSP

has committees in all the districts of Uttar Pradesh. In Madhya Pradesh, in the mid

1990s only six districts did not have a BSP unit. Forever, the rise of the BSP has also

much to do with the party’s implantation and mobilization techniques and their

actions while in office.

c. Mobilization, Politics, and Power

The political mobilization started by Kanshi Ram in UP, in favour of the BSP,

was based on three strategies. First, to elevate the self-esteem of Bahujan society;

second, to associate them with the social reform movements; and finally, to provide

100

Ramaseshan, Radhika, “ Dalit Politics in UP”, Seminar, 425, January 1995, p. 73 101 The DS-4 has not been dissolved. BSP workers argued that it was now the party’s youth wing, in

charge of agitations such as the one in favor of reservations. But no action has been held on behalf of the DS-4 over the last 15 years.


109

them the benefits of democratic power and development plans by arousing in them the

desire for power. If we see the last 25 years of the BSP’s political history, we find that

the aspirations of the grassroots decided the form of the aforementioned strategies.

The issues of the social reforms movement was encountered by the deeply associated

with the life of the grassroots. These issues mainly revolved around the needs of the

poverty-stricken rural and urban Dalits residing in the slums.

Under the leadership of Kanshi Ram, a liquor prohibition movement (Sharaab

Bandi Andolan) was carried out during the 1990s. The movement was eventually

taken up by other leaders so that it stretched across India, from Kashmir to

Kanyakumari. Under this movement, the BSP appealed to the Dalits to avoid alcohol,

using that money instead to educate their children and become politically stable,

teaching them that alcohol was a slow poison that gradually destroys the life of every

Dalit family and its women. Another big mobilizational movement carried forward by

the BSP under Kanshi Ram’s leadership was the refugee movement (Sharanarthi

Andolan). This movement endeavored to associate the Dalits of the urban slums with

the BSP. Kanshi Ram said that the landless Bahujans get fed up of the exploitation

they face at the hands of the landlords and thus, leave their village and migrate to big

towns and cities in search of employment and a reputable life. There they are forced

to reside in slums, under bridges, near railways tracks, and other dirty places, leading

a life worse than that of animals. Nearly 10 crore people leave behind their villages,

small lands, house, and cattle and come to the cities. Kanshi Ram gave them the name

Indian refugees (Bharatiya sharanarthi)102 and saw them as an important base of BSP

and an agency for their political expansion. He said that 10 crores refugees was a big

problem for the Manuvaadi rulers, but that they are the strength for the BSP. Their

caste is a strong vehicle which can be used to liberate these dejected people from the

exploitation and injustice inflicted on them103. He believed that the Dalits who

migrate from the villages to the towns, get ready to associate themselves with a new

political consciousness very quickly as a means of survival. Most of them are

educated, read newspapers and magazines, and deliberate on political issues.

The BSP’s other most effective mode of disseminating myths was the cycle

squad (cycle dasta) in which groups of party workers rode cycles across villages and

towns shouting slogans. They stopped at short intervals to communicate their 102 Singh, S., Bahujan Nayak Kanshi Ram, Samyak Prakashan, New Delhi, 2005, p. 124 103 Ibid.


110

messages to the people by linking them with the myths of that region. Another mode

of dissemination was the cultural squad (jagriti dasta), which transmitted messages to

the villagers through songs, dances, dramas, and other cultural forms of that region.104

In 1984, after the formation of the BSP, Kanshi Ram and the BSP carried

forward an expedition for the founding of Bahujan society. This expedition was based

on the strategy of associating the castes. Kanshi Ram has tried to emerge as a

spokesman for the bahujan samaj by advocating the interests of all its sub-groups. He

clearly expressed this concern in a speech at the Vidhan Sabha of Haryana that was

made during the election campaign in 1987:

The religious minorities also badly need this party. The religious

minorities have many problems and their problems are increasing day

by day and are becoming more and more difficult. But we think that

the biggest problems are the riots done against them. The Muslim

minority is a big community and is about 11 to 12 percent of the whole

population. Against these people, in the 365 days of the year, at least

400 disturbances happen or are created against them. in this way

whatever progress or betterment they achieve with hard labor is

destroyed by these riots.

Kanshi Ram, thus admitted quite readily that in some respects the conditions

of the Scheduled Castes were better than those of other components of the bahujan

samaj. For example, he admitted that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes

had a larger presence than the OBCs because of the quota system and that a special

effort had to be under-taken in their favour. One of the BSP’s slogans has been

“Mandal ayog lagu karo, kursi khali karo” (Implement Mandal or vacate the seat).

Kanshi Ram has repeatedly emphasized the under-representation of OBCs in the

administration:

In this country, out of 450 District Magistrates more than 125 are from

SC/STS but those from the OBCs are see any of them as District

Magistrate very few. The number of OBC is 50 to 52 percent but we

104 Singh, R.K., Kanshi Ram Aur BSP: Dalit Aandolan Ka Vaicharik Aadhaar- Brahminvaad Virodh,

Kushwaha Book, Allahabad, 1996, p. 122


111

donot see any of them as District Magistrate. The issue, which is

special for us, is that reservation is not a question of our daily bread,

reservation is not a question of our jobs reservation is a matter of

participation in the government and administration. We want

participation in the government and administration of this country.

There is democracy in this country. If in the republic 52 percent of the

people cannot participate, then which is the system in which they can

participate?105

As far as BSP workers are concerned, most are graduates. Kanshi Ram made

graduation essential for all full-fledged party workers, as it is easy to politicize them.

He visualized this educated class as agents of social mobility for oppressed Dalits and

their political socialization. Education provides Dalits a chance for social and

professional mobility. This educated class of party workers became the backbone of

Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan movement, mediating between Kanshi Ram and the Dalit

community. They disseminated the thoughts of Kanshi Ram to the Dalit

community.106

In search of political classes among the Dalit groups, Kanshi Ram endeavored

to convert approximately 20 lakhs educated SC and ST government employees, who

are intelligent and have skills and capital, into the Dalit political public and associate

them with the BSP.107 Moving forward in search of a Dalit public, Kanshi Ram

adopted the policy of developing the literate Dalit classes into a cadre by using them

to arouse political consciousness among the common and illiterate Dalits. He believed

that such people would politicize other Dalits. He divided his political activists into

two categories: worker and cadre. In an interview published in the magazine Maya in

1984, he said that there were more than one lakh workers and over 25 lakh cadres in

his party.108 He felt that after the Brahmins, it was the Harijans who constituted the

105 Azadi ke 44 sal bad bhi bahujan samaj (anusuchit jati, janjati, pichare varg va dharmic

alpasankhyak) anyay atyachar ka shikar in Kanshi Ram, Asha Ki Kiran, op.cit., p. 58 106 Singh, R.K., Kanshi Ram Aur BSP: Dalit Andolan Ka Vaicharik Aadhaar-Brahminvaad Virodh,

Kushwaha Book Distributors, Allahabad, p. 86 107 Akela, A.R., Kanshi Ram Ke Saakshatkaar, Delhi, Manak Prakashan, 2007, p. 13 108 Ibid., p. 15


112

more scholarly group.109 In this manner, the BSP, in its order of political mobilization,

first of all endeavored to reflect the aspirations, emotions, language and dreams of the

grassroots Dalits in its aspirations, emotions, language and dreams of the grassroots

Dalits in its politics. Second, it included in its political cadre Dalits who were

educated, employed had migrated, or had become a part of the urban slums, in the

form of a mobile Dalit community.

Thus, we see that the Uttar Pradesh Dalit-Bahujan politics developed a new,

diverse, and innovative political strategy, which comprised the political philosophy,

logic, and style of Ambedkar based on the socio-cultural philosophy, logic and style

of Ambedkar based on the socio-cultural milieu of UP Today, it is due to the

movements undertaken for expansion of Dalit political consciousness that in the

villages too, we can perceive, explicitly, the political public of both literate and

illiterate Dalits.

109 Ibid., p. 20

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