Dalit Question and Communalism in Uttar Pradesh in the 2000s

Abstract

After widespread violent riots following the Ram Janma Bhoomi Babri Masjid (RJBBM) Movement and the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, there were no major riots in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the second half of the 1990s. Political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), attempted to use the Ram Mandir issue during elections in the late 1990s but did not get a response. However, during the 2000s, the state witnessed a new ‘saffron wave’. Riots took place in the eastern districts of Mau in 2005, Gorakhpur in 2007 and there was a spurt of communal tension in some western districts from 2011 leading to violent riots in Muzaffarnagar and surrounding districts in September 2013. Based on a study of the communal riots mentioned earlier (Pai & Kumar, 2018, Everyday Communalism: Riots in Contemporary Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi: Oxford University Press), it is argued that during the 2000s, UP experienced a post-Ayodhya phase of communalism, markedly different from the earlier phase during the RJBBM period. Our study points to a clear shift in the theory and praxis of Hindutva and thereby, from older forms of communalism to newer ones, more suited to the contemporary socio-economic and political context. The riots enabled the BJP to create deep-seated communal polarisation, consolidate the Hindu vote and win elections, at the centre and later in UP. In this article, the focus is on one significant aspect of the riots in eastern and western UP, which differentiates it from earlier riots––the Dalit Question, its relationship to communalism and the part played by dalits. Election studies and data suggest that some sections of the dalits––who do not form a homogeneous group––supported the BJP during the 2014 and 2017 elections in UP simultaneously a section were co-opted into the ambit of the larger identity of Hindu. The BJP leadership reworked their ideology and strategies of Hindutva to mobilise dalits in order to gain their support and win power. Yet, paradoxically from 2015, and more stridently in 2018, we find large sections of dalits opposing the BJP.