With rising Dalit anger, BJP may lose ground in poll-bound UP, Gujarat

Q: What happens when Rohith Vemula meets Babar?

A: The BJP finds itself stuck between Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, afraid of losing both.

Since Vemula is still fresh in its memory, the story that needs to be recounted to the BJP is that of Babar.

As a 12-year-old, Babar became the ruler of Fergana in eastern Uzbekistan. Soon after he decided to conquer Samarkand, only to lose Fergana to an internal rebellion. And when he returned to claim his kingdom, Babar lost Samarkand.

For the BJP, a similar drama is playing out in its backyard – Gujarat – as it tries to conquer Uttar Pradesh. While its armies circle Lucknow, Gujarat is in the throes of a rebellion and invaders like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal are hovering over the state.

The state’s Dalits have been on the warpath for the past few days. They are protesting public humiliation and flogging of a family of Dalits in Una village of Gir Somnath with bandhs, arson and suicide attempts by ‘Gau Rakhshaks’ – self-styled gangs that dispense justice in the name of a cow.

For almost 20 years, Dalits were part of the virat Hindu Parivar assembled by the BJP. Snared by the BJP’s Hindutva ideology, Dalits had formed a formidable coalition that ensured BJP’s successive electoral wins in the state.

The parivar is now disintegrating. Rattled by a series of attacks on Dalits, the community is reconsidering its affiliation, introspecting if it has a place in the saffron parivar’s concept of Hindutva, asserting its identity.

Dalits are nearly 7 percent of Gujarat’s population. Traditionally, they were supporters of the Congress but moved into the BJP fold in the 90s. Their anger could prove costly to the BJP, especially when Patels are already threatening to jettison the BJP.

The problem with the growing Dalit unrest is two-fold for the BJP: One, since it is spontaneous and devoid of centralised leadership, it is much more difficult to control and manage. Two, it is sending out a wrong signal to Dalits in UP, where the BJP is trying to reach out to them.

The Dalit churn, incidentally, hasn’t begun in Gujarat just because of the incident in Una. Dalits were uncomfortable because of a series of attacks by people from upper castes that failed to stir the Gujarat government into action.

On 11 July, for instance, a group of 49 persons from upper castes hacked a Dalit in Sodhana village of Porbander to death. After protesting for four days, the Dalits agreed to claim the body and perform its last rites when the government arrested some of the accused and promised strict action.

Before that, a Dalit teenager was locked inside her house and torched in Surendranagar district, leading to sporadic protests. According to the The Times of India, crime against Dalits rose to 19 percent in Gujarat in 2014, the highest growth across the country.

The problem with BJP is that it took the wrong inspiration from Rohith Vemula’s suicide. When the Dalit student committed suicide in Hyderabad University, instead of taking quick punitive action, it decided to brazen it out, going to an extent of pointing fingers at the dead student and his mother.

Compare this alacrity with the haste it has shown against its vice-president Dayashankar Singh for his derogatory remarks on Mayawati. If the BJP had shown similar urgency and sensitivity in dealing with Vemula’s suicide, it would have immediately quelled allegations of the party being anti-Dalit.

Mishandling the Vemula episode led to anxiety among Dalits and doubts over the BJP’s  credentials. As cases pile up one after the other, the angst is pouring out on the streets. As Firstpost has pointed out in a series of articles, BJP may pay a huge price for its misadventures in UP.

Elections in Gujarat are about 18 months away. It is too early to argue that the Dalit protests will harm the BJP in the next polls. Its impact would depend on its intensity, spread, and longevity. But, the Dalit unrest has given an opening to the Congress in the state.

In theory, the Congress couldn’t have asked for a better deal. The clashes with the Hindutva Parivar is threatening to break the compact Dalits-Patels-OBCs and other upper castes have had for two decades. But, on the ground, the Congress is still not in a position to channel this anti-government sentiment into an electoral revolution. The party has no leader, its cadre is dejected and the AAP is snapping at its heels.

Rahul Gandhi’s tour of Una, where he met the victims, is aimed to express solidarity with Dalits. But, the party will have to do more than that to build it into a larger movement against the Anandiben Patel government and threaten the BJP’s existence. But, as Rahul’s history shows, he and his party will forget all about Una after his symbolic visit.

It is beyond doubt that Babar’s Fergana is under serious threat. But it is doubtful if the man who has been compared with Bahadur Shah Zafar of the Gandhi dynasty has the skills and courage to sack the BJP’s final bastion.