Tattered Blue

Where is Maharashtra’s Dalit politics headed?

- Shweta Desai

MEMORIES of atrocities against Dalits in the Marathwada region still besiege Balasaheb Jawale’s recollection of his childhood spent in Beed district. The 35-year-old, who now has a PhD and teaches at a local college, is haunted by the caste-violence inflicted on the region’s Dalit community, spilling the boiling caste cauldron over onto the streets of Marathwada with brutal killings, rape and destruction of properties being the order of the day. The murder of a Buddhist Dalit, Dadarao Dongare in Sonna Khota village in Beed in 2003 in particular, is etched in his memory.

As local authorities looked the other way and the police refused to file a case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the upper-caste perpetrators, it was the Republican Party of India (Athavale) that aided the victims’ quest for justice. The Amberkarite party’s network was well-entrenched at the village, taluka and district levels and more importantly, Dalits looked at the party’s founder, Ramdas Athavale, as a credible community leader. “Within the Ambedkarite political movement, Ramdas Athavale commanded a tall position. We looked up to him as a grassroots leader who was connected to the pains and aspirations of the Dalit people,” recalls Jawale.

Times have changed and so has Jawale’s opinion of Athavale. Today, Jawale resents Athavale for abandoning the interests of Maharashtra’s 13 per cent-strong Dalit population and joining hands with the ideological opponent, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “He has surrendered the entire RPI (A) for the sake of a single ministerial post. Politically, he has no identity and despite being aware of this. he is still holding on to power,” says Jawale. “This is the defeat of Athavale’s politics.”

Meanwhile, Athavale is more-or-less the