Ramdas Athavle should not join hands with Shiv Sena.

[BCI Satish]

Electoral politics follows a strange logic in India. While Gopinath
Munde, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was hobnobbing
with the Congress, in recent times the leaders from the Shiv Sena,
like Narayan Rane and Sanjay Nirupam, have joined the Congress. On the
other hand, Ramdas Athawaley of the Republican Party of India (RPI), a
party claiming to be the party of Dalits based on the ideology of Dr
BR Ambedkar, has allied with the Shiv Sena. It defies logic how the
avowed votaries of the Hindu rashtra – Rane and Nirupam – can glibly
shift to the Congress, which is formally a secular party and opposed
to the concept of the Hindu rashtra. Equally surprising is the fact
that the Congress, with the legacy of Gandhi and Nehru, has even
accepted politicians who have had the opposite ideology throughout.

More surprising than this fact is the alliance between the RPI and the
Shiv Sena. One can recall that a new term has been floating around for
some time now that talks about this alliance. ‘Shiv shakti’ is coined
from ‘Shiv’ of the Shiv Sena and ‘Shakti’ of Bhim Shakti, ‘Bhim’ being
the mythological hero of Dalits. It has been made popular by the
slogan “Shiv shakti is equal to desh bhakti(patriotism). And, since
then this hobnobbing has been in progress. As such the politics of
both these parties is very strange and logically they are totally
opposed to each other’s agenda.

The Shiv Sena was propped up by Mumbai industrialists in collusion
with a section of the Congress leadership to break the hold of the
Left trade unions in Mumbai. From there, it went on to launch tirades
against south Indians – calling them lungiwallahs – and in a series of
‘hate other’ political campaigns, it targeted Gujaratis and later
north Indians. During this period, it indulged in street violence and
intimidated these linguistic groups. Later it latched on the chariot
of the Hindu rashtra and boasted of being part of the Hindutva
politics in alliance with the BJP. The Shiv Sena also has been
seriously implicated in the post-Babri mosque demolition violence in
Mumbai by the Srikrishna Commission report.

As far as its political agenda is concerned it has been the most
vociferous party opposing the issues related to Dalits. After the
publication of Ambedkar’s collected works, the Shiv Sena protested
against the volume Riddles in Hinduism which is heavily critical of
gods Ram and Krishna. The party also opposed the move to change the
name of Marathwada University to Dr Ambedkar University. It was also
the only political party in the country which opposed the
implementation of the Mandal Commission. On the other hand, Ambedkar
talked of annihilation of caste, opposed the notion of Hindu rashtra
and converted to Buddhism opposing Hinduism. He believed in educating,
organising and agitating for democratic rights of Dalits. To achieve
these goals, he formed the Independent Labor Party in 1936, the
Scheduled Caste Federation in 1942 and laid the outline of the
political principles for the Republican Party of India.

The RPI soon suffered splits. It was also co-opted by bigger parties,
like the Congress and the BJP. The major agitation launched by Dada
Saheb Gaikwad of the RPI did galvanise Dalits, but after that the
Dalit leadership has been groping in the dark. The formation of
militant Dalit Panthers in the 1960s, which peaked in 1970, was a
brief phenomenon, which again led to splits and weakening of the cause
of Dalits.

The Dalit politics started changing with Kanshi Ram and the Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP), who took different path to power. He trained cadres
for a long time, focussed the power in his hands and soon became
politically successful. He later passed the baton to Mayawati, who,
through different trajectories, succeeded in becoming the Chief
Minister of Uttar Pradesh. She did ally with the Samajwadi Party and
the Bharatiya Janata Party on the way, campaigned for Narendra Modi in
Gujarat and justified the Gujarat carnage partly. Today the BSP is the
ruling party in Uttar Pradesh. It has given a boost to the Dalit
identity, but the condition of Dalits has not improved.

Where does the Dalit movement go from here? A section of Dalits has
benefitted form the reservation policy, education and other
accompaniments of affirmative action. At the same time, a reaction to
the enhancement of Dalits’ position in society has been the rise in
the politics of Hindu rashtra, something which aims at the subjugation
of Dalits and women. This is clever politics of Hindutva to attack
Dalits and Other Backward Classes on the ground of reservation and
later co-opt and use them against religious minorities. The Shiv Sena-
RPI alliance is plain opportunism from both sides. The Shiv Sena is
totally opposed to the Ambedkar’s values of liberty, equality and
fraternity, while the RPI was meant to reflect the aspirations of
Dalit masses for social equality, political place in the society and a
dignified life. Can they be political allies? For the RPI, this path
has been chosen on the plea that the Congress has not given adequate
political power to the leaders of the RPI. They now think that
alliance with the Shiv Sena and the BJP is the path to political power
for Dalits. Time alone will tell the righteousness of this strategy,
but one thing is sure that, if at all, this alliance will give power
to a couple of leaders of the RPI but the issues of Dalits cannot be
addressed by the more dominant political allies, whose very agenda is
against the interests of downtrodden masses.

The Shiv Sena-BJP combine has shrewdly tried to wean away a section of
Dalits for electoral advantage; they may also be able to use the RPI
leadership for electoral gains. But, as far as the Dalit movement is
concerned, the challenges are immense and playing junior patterns to
the parties totally opposed to the political values of Ambedkar will
be counterproductive. The only path for Dalits for an empowerment
seems to be social agitations and movements around their material
issues, issues of security, equality and dignity. This, though a
painful path, is the only option available to Dalits for better
future.