We begin with the conjecture that Dalits, who were once politically inert, have now transformed themselves into a powerful political entity in the competitive power politics of not only Uttar Pradesh (UP), but the entire Northern region of India. In a consistent manner the Dalits have successfully mobilized their subjugated political psyche into a dominant, inevitable, unavoidable and irresistible political force. This paper aims to objectively investigate the shifting patterns of Dalit mobilization and the reasons for their political ascendancy in the power politics of Uttar Pradesh. While analyzing the ascendency of Dalits in UP, we argue that the Dalits metamorphosis into a formidable political identity could be explained by four underlying processes that helped shape the assertion of their new and strong collective identity as well as redefined the nature of contemporary politics in Uttar Pradesh. To begin with, Dalits have undergone a process of identification that denotes the ‘Dalit as a victim’. Secondly, the recipients of extreme sufferings, Dalits embraced the notion of passive Dalit victimhood with a belief that violence and discrimination exerted against them and their consequent powerlessness is tragically unavoidable. It is because of the psychological entrenchment of this notion of their ‘role’ in the hierarchically defined relationships of the caste system (which legitimized their exploitation), that a political Dalit upsurge took so long in the making. The Dalits, instead of engaging with the systematized subjugation politically, remained confined to paralyzing recriminations and toxic resentments within themselves; which then led to a collective frustration of which the present political scenario is, arguably, the catharsis. Thirdly, Dalits were consciously mobilized by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), in Uttar Pradesh, to convert their passive acceptance of victimhood into active assertion of Dalit victimhood. Dalits were incited to use their inner Dalit consciousness, and to unite upon a polarized and binary vision of social interaction that supported the logic that there is an unbridgeable chasm between Dalits and higher caste. It was during the Bahujan Samaj Party’s campaign in the early 1980s to mid 1990s that it appealed to the Dalits to involve themselves in the development of strategies that allow them to make inroads into areas of upper caste domination, to act in ways that increase agency and self-determination and to avoid the belief that cast Dalits were a beleaguered and fragile part of society. Eventually, the traditional victims, meaning the Dalits, strengthened their position in the complex of Uttar Pradesh politics, and constructed a consciously vengeful political narrative directed towards their perceived former tormentors – the higher castes. The political ideology thus constructed, fuels a belligerent political attitude, which is now showing signs of a reversed subjugation that may be in the offing. Lastly, the electoral compulsion to build a social coalition that crosses the winning threshold, and to preserve and advance the acquired power, the party of Dalits, BSP, redesigned its traditional politics of animosity against higher castes and transformed it into a ‘politics beyond victimhood’, by offering dividends to higher caste and other lower caste to align with the party. The Dalit party is using the old Congress’ strategy of ‘social engineering’ and applying it in the reverse. The BSP model of social engineering gives an edge to the Oppressed Castes; it makes sure that its core agenda of dalit empowerment remains at the forefront while it allows for accommodation of the interests of other sections (higher castes, mostly) at the periphery, making aptly clear the relative unimportance of the co-opted interests. Therefore the party is now experiencing a paradigm shift from its earlier overtone of bahujan to a more sarvajan kind of politics.
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Sep 1, 2012
Leanne Lester + 2
Open Access
