The principal contention of Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s nationalism was the capturing and equitable sharing of political power in the backdrop of receding colonialism and the accelerating development of the Indian state. This equitable power-sharing along with a fight for dignity and social justice became the central struggle of the marginalized classes in the newly emerging nation-state. (Ambedkar B.R 2009). Ambedkar’s nationalist expression entailed the sociological and ideological reconstruction of the excluded class within Indian society. His contentions now serve as critical standpoints to understand the contemporary political and social progress of the hitherto depressed class. It is in this background that Sambaiah Gundimeda, in his ‘Dalit Politics in Contemporary India’ published by Routledge in 2016, writes on the collective mobilization of the Dalits in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Andhra Pradesh (AP). He draws a comparative analysis of the political and social expressions of the Dalits and their influence on electoral politics in the two states.
The book in discussion is a thesis converted manuscript by Gundimeda, a PhD scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The anecdotal narration in the preface of the book allows us to understand the conundrum of Dalit scholarship in Indian universities, especially when mentored by upper-caste academicians. Gundimeda, who belongs to the Dalit community of the Telegu-speaking region is quite assertive of his political praxis in the narrative that he employs to evaluate Dalit politics in the two states of UP and AP. Adopting a pro-Ambedkarite rigour to his analysis, Gundimeda studies how geopolitical and social conditions change the response of the Dalits to the question of ‘caste’ in the two states.
Gundimeda does an elaborate work in challenging the ‘master narrative’ that fails to recognize the ‘caste factor’ in the Hindu-Muslim political cleavage in North India, thereby invisibilizing the sharp response of ‘Bahujans’ to the caste hegemony, violence, and exclusion of the upper castesunder the leadership of Kanshi Ram and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The primary hypothesis of Gundimeda’s book is an exploration “of whether the politics in north India and south India are based on different trajectories, keeping in mind that the master narrative of politics in north India through much of the late 19th and 20th centuries was Hindu–Muslim cleavage, whereas, in southern India, it was caste division.”
Following this, the scholar also calls into question Ashutosh Varshney and Sudha Pai’s argument that state a delayed development of anti-caste consciousness among the Dalits in UP; thereby contending and animating the fact that the Dalits in UP were the first ones to claim political power as opposed to their counterparts in AP who were seeking social justice.
The remarkable observations and arguments extracted from those, are evidence of Gundimeda’s methodical excellence during his fieldwork in UP and AP. By undertaking participant observation, the scholar provides the readers with an intimate and subjective understanding of the attitudes, culture, historical narratives, and political dilemmas of the Dalit masses involved in the mobilization. To provide an example, his work not only covers the electoral kinetics of UP politics in the post-colonial period but also captures the rendering of a ‘separate identity’ launched by the counter-cultural force of Adi Hinduism during the 1930s, repudiating the ideological hegemony of Vedic Hinduism of the times. He complicates the argument of ‘separate identity’ by observing that while the Dalits adherents of acchut identityin the Adi Hinduism of UP refused to be part of the Hindu fold, those in AP known as the Adi Hindu and Adi Andhra were influenced by Gandhi’s Harijan politics and demanded equal treatment within the Hindu order.
Through this book, Gundimeda succeeds in encapsulating the ideological conundrum that revolves around the politicization of caste. From the electoral exhibition of BSP’s politics and its influence on AP’s quest for political power, one understands that contemporary Dalit politics has not been hesitant in using caste as a resource for mobilization (Jodhka 2006). Defying Ambedkar’s strategy that seeks to annihilate caste, the BSP rather sought the horizontal consolidation of the vertical social order, which makes ‘equalization of caste’ a precondition to realize Ambedkar’s vision.
The philosophy and organization of BSP’s politics encapsulated in the electoral slogan ‘Jiski jitni sankhya bhari – uski utni bhagedari’ display a firm belief in the cosmopolitan ethos of the Bahujan public, an unflinching grassroots mobilization without compromise that parties like BSP managed to upstage and a colossal spectacle of its work rallied against the hegemony of political power held by the Hindu forces. One is rather fascinated by the might with which Kanshiram carried out his political sloganeering, which was both innovative and rooted in the everyday realities of the Bahujan republic. Thus, Gundimeda, through a meticulous description of the activities of BAMCEF, DS-4, BSP, and APDMS of AP, allows for a sensational and evolutionary understanding of Bahujan politics in India.
The peculiarity of the book lies in the fact that Gundimeda does not confine his analysis to the dynamics of electoral politics or elections alone. As suggested by Surinder Jhodka in his work on the Dalits of rural Punjab, the scholar writes that caste and democracy must be understood by looking at what is happening to the inter-caste and inter-community relations on the ground, particularly by observing the changing structures of social and economic relations visa via caste hierarchies.
It is in this context that Gundimeda allows his readers to understand what enables a particular caste to mobilize itself and participate in democratic politics. This, the scholar substantiates by studying the socio-economic changes post 1950-60 because of the development activities such as the Zamindari Abolition Act and the Green Revolution undertaken by the state. While it was the Sat Shudras (Reddys, Kammas, and Kapus) in AP that appropriated the benefits of such programs, the traditional upper castes and the rural dominant castes among Shudras constituted as ‘rural capitalist farmers’ were the cestui que trusts of such reformsin the state of UP. The strategic use of the trope, ‘land to the tiller’ in the implementation of such programs legitimated the exclusion of landless Dalits who were bereft of any assistance under the administration of the Congress minister Charan Singh in UP. Additionally, middle-level caste groups like the Kammas and the Reddys of AP also acted as masters for Dalits at local levels, further domesticating them under Congress leadership. Thus, Gundimeda’s exhaustive exploration which is inclusive of the microanalysis of changing caste relations in UP and AP overcomes the limitations of past scholarship on the subject that was primarily focused on macro analysis of electoral politics or caste associations in India.
Nevertheless, one of the shortcomings of the book is that while it touches on the issue of withdrawal of Muslim loyalties resulting in BSP’s debacle in the 2012 elections, it does not delve enough to investigate the psychology of the ‘Muslim vote’ to understand why Muslim votes were drawn out from the party. Therefore, the book ceases to generate a critical examination of the matter. Apoorvanand is critical of Mayawati’s frustration with the ‘betrayal’ of Muslims for not voting for BSP in the March 2022 UP elections and debunks the myth of ‘the Muslim vote’ (Apoorvanand 2022).
Apoorvanand writes that Muslims irrespective of their caste locations (Ashraf or Pasmanda), unlike differentiated Hindus, do not have the choice to exercise their votes through electoral diversity. This is because all Muslims face an existential threat and security concern by virtue of being a follower of Islam. Recalling Mayawati’s prolonged silence on the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom, criminalization of dissent following the anti-CAA protest, and other executive actions that criminalized aspects of Muslim lives, the professor writes that the Muslim vote is not an ‘aspirational vote’ that expects the community’s welfare but one that merely licenses them a peaceful existence. The absence of such a socio-psychological analysis from Gundimeda’s book in the case of the Muslim body politic reflects the book’s limitation in critically examining BSP’s social activity under the leadership of Mayawati.
In analyzing the drawbacks of Dalit politics, the scholar calls to our attention the euphemism of ‘chamcha politics’ as observed by Kanshiram in the Republican Party of India (RPI), and the ‘dependent politics’ of the Dalits in AP, both of which inhibited Bahujans to lead an independent and autonomous political and social movement. Further, the Dandora debate of AP and RPI’s Jathav identity politics signifies the internal conflicts of Dalit politics and manages to implicitly challenge the homogenous nature attributed to the ‘Dalit’ identity.
The book serves as an asset to trace the trajectory of the Dalit movement post 20th century in India. It becomes a resource for reflexivity in learning and examining Dalit politics among Bahujans, scholars, and activists alike. It was the capturing of political power in UP and the dissemination of education in AP by the Christian missionaries and the colonial government that became a source of change for the social conditions of the Dalits. Both mediums were advocated by Ambedkar if the change was about to take place. The book through its lucid and resilient language empowers Bahujan students with a sense of pride. Gundimeda’s account becomes an enterprise that offers Bahujans and their struggle an identity and visibility in history.
References:
- Ambedkar B.R. (2009). Ambedkar on Nation & Nationalism (G. Aloysius, Ed.), New Delhi: Critical Quest.
- Apoorvanand. (2022). The Myth of the ‘Muslim Vote’. The Wire. 15th March 2022. Retrieved on 23rd March 2022 from https://thewire.in/communalism/the-myth-of-the-muslim-vote
- Gundimeda, S. (2016). Dalit Politics in Contemporary India. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Jodhka, S. S. (2006). “Caste and Democracy: Assertion and Identity among the Dalits of Rural Punjab.” Sociological Bulletin. 55(1), 4-23.