Dalit Distress- Fear Of Loss Of A Law To Secure Self-Esteem

It's a tight knot for the BJP: How to avoid being signed by Dalit range without alienating its traditional core votebank

- Bhavna Vij-Aurora

It's a definitional issue that goes to the core of the BJP’s existence. The tension between being seen as a ‘Savarna party’, while trying to fulfil an ideological plank built around caste lessness, has been a formative one for it. It has mostly navigated these perilous waters with some decent management skills—mixing intelligent cooption with lofty slogans. But ever so often, the state of play can go out of hand.

That a Dalit BJP MP from Robertsganj, Uttar Pradesh, could accuse CM Yogi Adityanath of “rudeness” and PM Narendra Modi had to promise “action” in response to the written complaint would have been inconceivable even a fortnight ago. It shows the degree of nervousness in the BJP after the simmering Dalit anger boiled over during the April 2 protest.

Party strategists are back at their drawing board. Poll­eve calculators are out. Ambedkar Jayanti, April 14, now looms as a day for trying to invert the optics: ‘Modicare’ will be launched on its eve by the PM in Chhattisgarh. Yet, doubts persist on how exactly to figure out the caste dynamic and control it? Even the whisper of a Dalit out­migration could spoil an already iffy harvest in Karnataka. Was the BJP’s Dalit outreach not adequate? Could the alienation resulting in periodic Dalit threats to convert to Islam—the latest one came this week from restive north Rajasthan—be laid at the BJP’s door?