29/07/2024
Table of Contents
Introduction
Shefali Sonune (Joint Secretary, Maharashtra State, AIISCA)
Prashant Randive (President of Maharashtra State, AIISCA)
Professor Harish Wankhede (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Chayatai Khobragade (Ambedkarite leader and activist, Nagpur)
Dr. Pankaj Tambe (Ambedkarite Thinker, Andhra Pradesh)
Professor Ajay Choudhary (Symbiosis International University, Pune)
Dr. Rahul Sonpimple (National President, AIISCA)
Vedant Dhengre (Member – AIISCA Nagpur District)
Introduction
Alongside economic injustice, unemployment, and the conventional Hindu-Muslim binary, the 2024 general elections were primarily fought around the ‘Social Justice’ narrative. The opposition alliance (INDIA alliance) led by Congress campaigned on the narrative that "if the BJP came to power with a brute majority, it would change the Constitution" and end reservations for SC, ST, and OBCs. Conversely, the ruling alliance (NDA) led by BJP tried to corner opposition parties by instilling fear that the INDIA alliance would extend SC, ST, and OBC reservations to Muslims. Prime Minister Modi, while speaking at a rally in Haryana’s Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha constituency, referred to a recent West Bengal High Court verdict cancelling five lakh OBC certificates, claiming that the reservation meant for the OBCs was being distributed to the “intruders,” i.e., Muslims.
Issues like SC, ST, and OBC poor representation in government jobs, education, private sector employment, and mainstream media; the need for a caste census; implementation of reservations; and protecting Babasaheb’s Constitution have been central to Ambedkarite Dalit Bahujan discourse and Scheduled Castes-led political parties and their supporters. Notably, these issues concerning social justice became the primary part of the opposition’s narrative to increase its seats and successfully counter the massive campaign of Prime Minister Modi. However, what is even more surprising is that parties like BSP in U.P. led by Bahen Mayawati and VBA in Maharashtra led by Advocate Prakash Ambedkar, whose politics have traditionally revolved around the social justice discourse and related issues, were completely wiped out in these elections. They failed to win even a single seat, and their vote percentage decreased drastically.
It is not surprising that the re-emergence of the Congress-led Opposition and it’s much better performance compared to the last elections have fuelled the so-called progressive or liberal upper-caste intelligentsia to once again imagine strong anti-BJP-RSS political mobilization. What they fail to realize is the danger posed by the decline of autonomous politics of the most marginalized in India. While one might argue that the election results are a fair outcome of democratic electoral contestations, one should not disregard the ‘ethical’ question that arises for parliamentary democracy with the decline of autonomous politics of Dalits and other marginalized sections' parties. The question is, ‘Can we celebrate a strong opposition without any presence of autonomous Dalit politics?’ And in a Deweyan sense, we can ask, ‘What is ‘ethical’ in our democracy?’
This, however, does not exempt autonomous Dalit-led parties from scrutiny regarding their political approaches and leadership decisions, which have resulted in the complete demise of autonomous Dalit politics in the electoral arena. Particularly, when we know that the ‘social justice’ discourse in electoral politics in India is the outcome of long-standing political activism from the Scheduled Caste Federation (SCF) to the Republican Party of India, from Dalit Panther to BAMCEF, and from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to the recent Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), the reluctant political campaigns around the social justice narrative by Dalit-led parties such as BSP and VBA seem to have produced distrust in their respective core vote banks and traditional supporters. As a result, their core vote bank, mostly Dalits in significant numbers both in U.P. and Maharashtra (which proved to be the biggest game changers in disrupting the ruling BJP’s total winning tally), shifted to other opposition parties who successfully made the social justice narrative central to their political campaign.
Along with taking the Dalit vote bank for granted, both VBA and BSP also seem to have lost connection with the grassroots Ambedkarite social movement organizations that, without much resources and support, work for the welfare of the community and, most importantly, produce a vibrant ideological base. Unlike other upper-caste-led political parties that fight elections with the help of media, mafia, and money, the Dalit-led parties lack resources and majorly rely on community support and voluntary activism from local activists. However, we have observed poor coordination between community-based organizations and Dalit-led parties. It is important to note that while for the ruling BJP there exist a number of socio-cultural Hindutva ideological organizations, including the RSS as a most important social organization, Congress, before entering elections, created a huge umbrella of progressive social movement organizations under the banner of the ‘Bharat Jodo Abhiyan,’ who actively campaigned for Congress and its alliance on the ground.
This election also sent a strong message that it’s not only charismatic leaders but also issues concerning everyday life that matter. Sadly, even after such a long-standing journey, Dalit politics still revolve around excessive celebration of a leader’s charisma. There exists little or no space in contemporary Dalit politics and discourse for the need for organizational leadership. The lack of strong local (second-rank) leadership also seems to have worsened the situation of the Dalit-led political parties. As we know, post-Ambedkar, Dalit politics has witnessed both the emergence and decline of leadership in national politics. Kanshi Ram Sahab emphasized building a cadre-based movement. However, present Dalit-led parties not only lack an internal democratic structure but also place no importance on building a cadre at the grassroots.
We (AIISCA), as a social movement organization, believe that while autonomous Dalit politics and leadership have receded in national politics, the Dalit movement at the grassroots has grown strong and continues through various non-party and non-electoral local organizations and groups that imagine and demand a new form of Dalit politics and leadership. We believe that as the 2024 elections once again marked the strong re-emergence of the social justice discourse and proved that elections can be fought and won by putting social justice issues at the forefront, there is hope for a new beginning for Dalit political parties.
AIISCA believes a few key but important tasks should be prioritized by Ambedkarite Dalit parties to regain their natural vote base:
• Dalit-led parties should stop taking the Dalit vote for granted.
• They should create secondary and grassroots leadership.
• They should build well-coordinated efforts with Dalit social movement organizations.
• They should give importance to an internal democratic party structure.
• They should build a cadre-based political movement.
It is in this context that, in order to decide the directions and discuss the future of Dalit politics, AIISCA held one-day conference in Nagpur on 21st July, 2024. The summary report of the conference is given below:
Shefali Sonune (Joint Secretary of Maharashtra State, AIISCA)
Shefali Sonune kick started the conference by inviting the all speakers to the stage and requested them to greet the all leaders frames by lighting the candle and flower. She requested the Maharashtra state office bearers to welcome the all guest speakers for the conference and invited to deliver their speeches accordingly. She anchored the full conference by provoking public with reference to the numerous Ambedkarite ideas and life-events.
Prashant Randive (President of Maharashtra State, AIISCA)
The event started with the inaugural speech of Maharashtra State President of AIISCA (Mr. Prashant Randive) who set the context about the objectives of AIISCA’s public gathering in Nagpur on 21st July, 2024. He discussed the urgent need of a platform to reflect on the latest defeat of Ambedkarite Political Parties in the latest Lok Sabha election of 2024. Furthermore, He detailed the state of Ambedkarite Political Parties across India and their defeat in the contemporary politics of India. Prashant highlighted with the examples of Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Azad Party, VCK, etc. and how Dalit-led Parties have completely lost the political battle in the post-ambedkarite political and social movement.
Moreover, Prashnat’s speech was significant and emphasized on how other political parties in India have centered the several social justice issues which are originally drawn from the Ambedkarite ideology which included Reservation in Government and Private Sector, filling of reservation Backlogs, Atrocities against SC/ST community, Caste Census, and safeguarding of the Indian Constitution. He drew attention of attendees to the failure of grasping such issues among Ambedkarite ideological political parties which subsequently led to their loss in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Prashant concluded his speech stating the fact about how the Ambedkarite political parties have not achieved anything significant in the last 10 years and how it has been reduced to mere identity and tokenized politics. During his arguments - Prashant posed some critical questions in front of the present attendees and guest speaker. Some of his questions were - is it the end of cadre-based Ambedkarite politics which Kanshiram Ji started? Is Ambedkarite politics only revolving around Charismatic leadership? Is there an internal democracy left in Ambedkarite politics?
Professor Harish Wankhede (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Professor Harish began his speech with the remark on the latest 2024 Lok Sabha election results. He noted the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as historical election as it was the first time that the issue of Social Justice and safeguarding of the Constitution was raised on the National level by opposition parties of India. He elaborated on the one side of how the agenda of social justice and constitution helped the parties like Congress to mobilize and organize the marginalised communities on the ground which strengthened their vote bank. On the other hand – he explained how the Dalit parties across India struggled to handle their political roots.
Professor Wankhede threw the light on how the Ambedkarite ideology helped opposition parties to navigate the politics for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the revival of their party politics against the ruling party.
He reminded the audience about Babasaheb’s vision for the Scheduled Castes to become not only intellectual class but also the ruling class. He said “If the Brahminical evils have to be fought in India then it can be countered by only Babasaheb’s “Prabuddha Bharat”.
He added that after Babasaheb – it was Kanshiram Sahab who not only showed us the path of how to mobilize and organize the communities on the ground but also how to become a ruling class. He referred to Maharashtra as the birthplace of Social movements like Dalit Panthers and Republican Party of India but unfortunately, the Ambedkarite political parties have failed to transform the wheel of social movement into political democracy.
In the end of his speech, he concluded that in such a depressing and complex contemporary Dalit politics - the Ambedkarite ideology can rescue us which we can learn from our history and Babasaheb’s writings.
Chayatai Khobragade (Ambedkarite leader and activist, Nagpur)
Chayatai Khobragade pointed out the core values given by Babasaheb in the constitution of Republican Party of India (RPI) to become a governing class of this country. She extended her views on how Scheduled Castes community cannot win by caste politics but by the battle of human rights and self-respect. She quoted the Babasaheb to support her view “We are Indians - firstly and lastly”.
However, Chayatai criticised the political parties like BJP and Congress who fought the 2024 Lok Sabha election on the basis of issues like safeguarding of Indian constitution and Reservation of SC/ST community. She said “The reservation and constitution was never the agenda or concern of political parties like BJP and Congress and this was propagated by the Ambedkarite Ideology.”
She further discussed about the history of Scheduled Castes women and their increase of participation in the politics of Uttar Pradesh and how they initiated the agenda to save the reservation and constitution of India.
She also added “We witnessed the results of Babasaheb’s RPI and the Kanshiram’s BSP but somehow the Ambedkarite society again have found themselves in the depressing and frustrating environment and clueless of whom to vote and whom to trust. In such circumstances - we as a society have supported the INDIA alliance.”
She did produce some critical questions over the current Maharashtra State Governments governance system. She asked “Why did the Maharashtra government diverted the Social Justice funds towards the religious processions? However – she also expressed her disappointment against the Dalit MLA’s who did not raise this issue despite of being in the authoritative position in the state government. She also criticised Advocate Prakash Ambedkar for his complex political stands which left Ambedkarite community confused to whom to vote.
Finally – she moved towards the Middle class Ambedkarite community and asked them to come forward to take their responsibilities for the down-trodden. She provoked the audience on the point of how charismatic leadership within Ambedkarite community has failed the both social and political system and the paradigm shift to produce new and secondary leaders at the local level.
Dr. Pankaj Tambe (Ambedkarite Thinker, Andhra Pradesh)
Dr. Pankaj Tambe mainly discussed three important points on the state of Ambedkarite Political Parties which included the three patterns mentioned below:
● Issue based voting of Dalit community
● Particular Political Party based voting of Dalit Community
● Future based politics of Dalit Community
Dr. Tambe spoke about the history of Institutions and Political parties established by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. He talked about how the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) achieved the success of ways of mobilising and organising Dalit community for their basic rights such as employment and livelihood.
Furthermore, he shared the history of Republican Party of India (RPI) set-up by Babasaheb Ambedkar which tasted the political victory in its inception time. He added that the thoughts provoked by Babasaheb in the Dalit community was a great success and the socio-economical transformation of Dalit community by commencing institutions like ILP, SCF and RPI.
He then focused on the political caravan led by Kanshiram Sahab in the Uttar Pradesh which resulted the consecutive victory of Dalit-led political party to establish the Government and found the voices of “Bahujan” community in UP.
Lastly, He summarised his speech by highlighting the theory of ideas endorsed by the political parties and the people’s verdict to save the Indian constitution rather than a political party.
Professor Ajay Choudhary (Symbiosis International University, Pune)
Professor Ajay shared his insights on the post Lok Sabha 2024 elections results. His instant survey of Election Commission website provided him the valuable data to analyse the success rate of political parties caste-based representative system. He suggested that the democracy in India has been strengthened whenever the political representation has been caste-based. He furthermore added that there must be Caste Census to get the clear picture of representation of Scheduled Castes community across India.
Professor Choudhary argued about how Dalit votes have been diverting to the two mainstream political parties which is BJP and Congress because of the lack of strong Phule-Ambedkarite political parties. Like other speakers – he sharply underlined the political failures of VBA and BSP to secure a single seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
He put forward the idea of how Phule-Ambedkarite parties should function and work along the Caste but also with the issues of health, women, education, employment, basic amenities, etc.
Dr. Rahul Sonpimple (National President, AIISCA)
As a National President of AIISCA, Dr. Rahul Sonpimple extended the warm welcome to all speakers, public and the office bearers of AIISCA presented in the conference.
He began his speech by highlighting the worst conditions faced by Scheduled Castes women in the society and discussed about how they are more vulnerable because of their caste and gender. He gave an example where Babasaheb set-up the separate wing for women in Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) where it produced many prominent Dalit leaders like Jaibai Chaudhary. Drawing from the same principle of SCF – Dr. Rahul cleared the stand of AIISCA to always prioritise the position and leadership of SC women in the organisation.
He further referred to the delivered speeches by guest speakers and talked about why it is important to being in the state of disappointment and dissatisfaction with reference to the agenda of conference. He drew the attention of all by stating the fact that disappointment there may be but it cannot be permanent and this state might be around our social justice issues or any other issues which might distract us but this distraction is important to begin the new way to tackle the problems.
He continued his speech by sharing his thoughts on why AIISCA is conducting this event despite being an autonomous Ambedkarite social movement. Dr. Sonpimple detailed the concept of Modern State and the negotiations with the State from the multiple perspectives. He gave the different examples to make public understand about how and why the negotiation is required in the contemporary Post-Ambedkarite politics? He presented the idea of Babasaheb’s how the Nation is incomplete without the social democracy and how it is just a political democracy based on the inequality and caste-based system.
Dr. Rahul Sonpimple threw the light on the geo-politics of France and England to showcase the emergence of Labor class government in the western part of the world. He explained how England and France governments have been collapsed and changed because of their failure to provide the basic rights to their citizens like employment, livelihood and education, etc.
However, he pointed the reverse state of action in the contemporary politics of India where every political party fought the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on the issues centred on the Social Justice but except the Dalit Parties who are failed to send a single MP to the parliament.
He clearly made the distinguish of Negotiation between the State, Ruling class and oppressed class in the present state of Indian politics. With reference to this difference, He produced important questions like:
• What is the negotiation for the Dalits?
• What is the relationship of SC/ST/OBC and other marginalized communities with Indian State?
Dr. Sonpimple referred the concept of Idealism to reflect the presence of caste-based inequalities in the modern India and how the Dalit parties have completely lost the political battle and social justice which has been snatched away from the marginalised community. He said “The examples of atrocities like Khairlanji and many have exposed the failures of Dalit MP’s to take concrete action for the battle of social justice. They have merely been the pawns of the other political parties and nothing more. Where is the negotiation from our Dalit leaders or MPs with Ruling caste leaders? Why did not a single MLA raised the current issue of Shahu Maharaj Foreign scholarship? Therefore we should ask our leaders such questions when they come to ask for a vote?”
He furthermore built on his arguments to explain why a community should be strong enough to create a pressure on the ruling government - but not afraid to ask! He presented a 2024 Lok Sabha election example for this where upper castes community fought for their politics around the seat distribution – on the other hand - it was the majority of scheduled castes community who stood up to vote for the constitution of India.
Later – he briefly highlighted the history of vote bank in India and its division among the different communities. He tried to unpack the history of how the BJP and Congress were against the constitutional rights of Scheduled Castes and how the current regime damaged the constitutional values and put the barriers in the reservation for SC community by heavily introducing the private sector in India. He referred to the latest report released by the Azim Premji University (APU) which found out that the SC community is most vulnerable and unsafe in the unorganized sector across India.
Keeping the all above concerns and alarming issues – Dr. Rahul Sonpimple (National President of AIISCA) re-emphasised the demands on the behalf of AIISCA which are listed below:
• Dalit-led parties should stop taking the Dalit vote for granted.
• They should create secondary and grassroots leadership.
• They should build well-coordinated efforts with Dalit social movement organizations.
• They should give importance to an internal democratic party structure.
• They should build a cadre-based political movement.
In the recent view of increased poverty and drop-out rates of marginalised students – he publicly announced to open the Savitri Bai Phule Resource Centre in Nagpur to make the education easily accessible to the underprivileged community of students.
Vedant Dhengre (Member – AIISCA Nagpur District)
To express the gratitude and thank everyone who made the conference successful – the AIISCA member of Nagpur Disrtict – Mr. Vedant Dhengre presided over the vote of thanks.
