D. Karthikeyan

Dalits want to be decision-makers and have a share in political power, declared Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, during a rally in Madurai. The Bahujan Samaj Party leader, who is trying to expand her reach, has put up candidates for all the 39 seats in the State.

Her party is unlikely to have much of an impact in this election, but the changing pattern of the Dalit vote since Independence is a cause for hope. Twenty per cent of the State’s population, Dalits largely voted the Congress in the early years after Independence. However, in the late 1960s, they shifted loyalty to the DMK and later the AIADMK.

Dalit intellectuals in the State feel that the Dravidian parties with their populism have failed to retain the Dalits within their fold. The emergence of Dalit parties after the birth centenary of B.R. Ambedkar indicates the failure of the social pluralism preached by the Dravidian parties, they say.

Atrocities at the hands of intermediate castes made a section of the Dalits organise themselves under the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Puthiya Tamilagam (PT). But both parties have deviated from addressing the core issues affecting Dalits.

For example, the PT has been attempting to emulate in southern districts what the PMK did in the northern districts. The DPI tries to be the vanguard of the Lankan Tamil cause.

Hugo Gorringe, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, and author of Untouchable Citizens: The Dalit Panthers and Democratisation in Tamilnadu, says that ultimately the PT and the VCK need to grow beyond their Dalit constituency to succeed. Dalit writer Stalin Rajangam feels that prioritisation of issues is important. He says: “Dalit parties have not even established themselves as a pressure group whether part of the ruling alliance or not. No important issue affecting Dalits been addressed adequately.”

Decline in momentum

The momentum that Dalit movements had in the early 1990s has declined. This is reflected in the couple of seats allocated for the VCK in the DMK alliance and the fact that the PT could not get itself into any of the major alliances.

The BSP, with its social engineering and politically astute seat allocations for three Brahmins, three Muslims and OBCs, is expecting to make inroads. Suresh Mane, national general secretary, says, “Our party alone has the vision to make the oppressed share political power.”

Kalpana Kannabiran, senior professor, NALSAR University of Law, says that the social engineering formula of U.P. would not work here as Tamil Nadu had a political history of anti-caste movements that was different.