Emergence of the new young dalit leadership raring to take on the ideological hegemonistic onslaught of the Sangh head on has unnerved the top RSS and BJP leadership. Significantly they had subtly extended their support to the farmers movement in Gujarat and Maharashtra. This has turned the Sangh parivar skeptical. The manner in which the RSS and its ultra Hindu outfits targeted the dalits and launched mercenaries attacks on them even killing some of the poor dalits, witnessed unleashing of the new dalit force, which has been quite different and radical from the traditional dalit leadership.

This new leadership has blunted the old leaders and turned them irrelevant. India is witnessing a new swing in Dalit politics today. This could be perceived and understood from the way Dalits have reacted to denial of their rights, to atrocities on them, the modes of struggles, rejection of the economic status. The new leadership put emphasis on asserting the element of dalit individuality. This certainly has been the new form of the politics.

The new leadership has also raised the issue of defining and evaluating their contribution in the relation to the capitalist economy and market forces that have been central to the Indian economy. New organizations have come and one of important being the Bhim Sena. The new faces leading the dalits are erudite with a vision. If Jignesh Mewani is the face of Dalit assertion in Gujarat following the Una incident last July, in which a group of Dalits were brutally assaulted by cow protection vigilantes. Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan is the new face from Uttar Pradesh. Bhim Army Ekta Mission founder Chandrashekhar was an ABVP member as a law student.

Though caste continues to be the basic index of their assertion, they are at the same disillusioned of the caste politics. They nurse a strong feeling that their caste leades have simply exploited them and used them for their personal gains. The RSS outfit Gau Raksha Dal and their mercenaries have simply hastened up the process of consolidation of these dalit forces. The dalits were always secular in their approach and vision. It is something else that in recent years they have turned against the Congress and other parties. But in the existing situation, faced with Hindutgva consolidation, targeting of Dalits and Muslims by the Gau Rakshak Dals and introduction of the element of moral policing of society the emerging dalit leadership realized that these were potential threat to their survival and existence ob viouslyh it was imperative that they should politically draw closer.

It is also significant that a paradigm shift is being witnessed in the attitude of the dalits and agricultural labourers towards the movements relating to their own problems. The new turn in Dalit politics is precisely calling for a widening of the landscape of struggle rather than merely restricting it to political power or religious conversion. The slogans that resound in the Dalit movement today indicate such a thaw: The banners read, and slogans echo: ‘choice of food’, ‘right to land’, ‘Swabhiman’ and ‘Atmabhiman’ (self-respect), ‘Azadi’ (freedom) and ‘dignity’. The new dalit movement was “pitching for an alternative model of development, based on land reforms, where productivity and wealth gains will be made by redistributing land to those who will work on it themselves, land to the tiller.”

The Sangh which intends to rule India cannot accomplish its mission unless it domesticate or win over this huge population. Nevertheless it also realizes that controlling them through use of coercion will not be e pragmatic step. The best option is to win over their sympathy and support. The dragging out of Mohammad Akhlaq from his house and his killing by a local Hindu mob on the charge of storing beef at his house in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, has become an important issue in Dalit struggles, woven around the right to food.

Obviously, according to the BJP leadership, having Kovind as the President of India would go a long way in accomplishing the Sangh’s mission. But task does not appear to be so easy and smooth. A dalit leader quipped: “when a Dalit gets a seat at the table of power, people are happy that a Dalit voice has found representation. But we find that benefits accruing to individual Dalits don’t translate into political or material gains for the community as a whole.”

Sangh leadership ought to realise that the politics of the poor and the landless can never be a politics of the individual, or revolve around one leader. It necessarily has to be the politics of the collective. The dalit leaders are sure that in their quest to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra, these band of Hindutva fundamentalists would continue to perpetrate repression and torture on the dalits. The dalits can petition the new President. But how far that would be effective is an open secret.

May be Kovind would be a decent and capable President. But this is not the sole requisite to deal with the dalit resurgence. Kovind has been a diehard Sangh member. Though he is from the SC background, he resisted the temptation of taking to radical Ambedkarism or stoking caste conflict. One thing is obvious that Kovind has been selected to promote the philosophy of Hindu Rashtra and Hindutva.

It is indeed intriguing that how could RSS whose chief Mohan Bhagwat has been clamouring for abolishing the reservation of the dalits and OBC suddenly develop soft corner for the dalits and work for their empowerment? Kovind’s projection as the presidential candidate must not be confused as the change of the Sangh’s soul and vision. It would also not strive to promote a new breed of aspirational leadership from the subaltern classes as this will go against its ideological line and alienate its support base. Sangh will like to keep the dalits happy and at the same time promote and protect the interest of its core support base of Hindutva and upper caste Hindus.

It would indeed be wonderful if Kovind's ascent to Rashtrapati Bhavan ushers in a more tolerant attitude towards Dalits in India. True enough the decision to have a dalit as the President was made by the Sangha just after the Saharanpur violence. Saharanpur was rocked by caste clashes between Dalits and Thakurs. The Sangh had decided to focus on the community to win their support. The Sangh parivar has agreed to strive to keep Dalits intact under the larger Hindutva umbrella. The different outfits of the RSS and the BJP are working to win over the Dalits. Incidentally selection of Kovind is a step in that direction. (IPA Service)