Ego clashes among its leaders threaten to rupture Dalit unity
THOUGH the leaders of the Republican Party of India (RPI) are loath to admit it, their party is already on the verge of another split. More than two years after pressure from their workers forced its 13 factions to come together on a single platform in January 1996, Dalit unity in Maharashtra—which secured a spectacular victory for the Congress in this year's Lok Sabha elections—once again stands threatened by ego clashes among its leaders.
At the core of the split is the ever-changing love-hate equation between Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, and Ramdas Athawale, former Maharashtra minister for social welfare. The factions supporting the two leaders have gone ahead with their independent party election schedule. Parallel conventions of Dalits in Maharashtra have also been announced at different times in different districts. There's little to show that Dalit unity is intact.
In fact, the divide is so pronounced that there are fears that Dalit anger may now be turned on their own leaders which keeps both Ambedkar and Athawale from acknowledging that their obdurance might be at cross-purposes with the wishes of the community. So the leaders, both MPs elected with Congress support, are treading on egg shells as they seek capitulation and compromise from each other and hope the workers will once again resolve the dilemma they've thrown up for themselves.
Ambedkar, who has only one other member of the 10-member RPI presidium with him, has already gone ahead with elections at the village, taluka and district levels and hopes to complete the state and national executive elections before the end of next month when he has scheduled a rally in Nanded for October 29. "I am not the organiser. The workers are. And if this rally throws up more than a lakh of people, then the other faction leaders will know that they've been left without any workers at all," Ambedkar told Outlook.
There is, undoubtedly, a note of uncertainty here. For Ambedkar is not unaware of the fact that though the masses are attracted to him for the name he bears and are willing to forgive him many transgressions, they've also opposed attempts to drive a wedge between Dalit workers. As a result, there were clashes among various groups of Dalits in Nasik and Beed districts of Maharashtra early this month. Some of the groups which clashed owed allegiance to no leader in particular. They were merely against the emergence of groupism among their top leadership. Athawale, with seven members of the presidium behind him, has a strangely impractical suggestion to make in the face of the growing adamance on Ambedkar's part: "It was the workers' wish that we unite in January 1996. Now it's the workers' responsibility to keep us united." Meanwhile, he says he'll do everything to avert the split—even compromise with Ambedkar.
Included among his compromise package is the suggestion that both withdraw their respective bids at grabbing the leadership of Dalits and instead allow a third person from outside Maharashtra to take over the party's presidency. Or that the 10 members of the RPI presidium be accorded presidency by turn every year. "Otherwise Ambedkar should go in for an open one-to-one contest with me," says Athawale, suggesting that his rival might not have the mass support he claims.
The solution does not appeal to Ambed-kar. "Why the hell do we have a party constitution if one wishes to mess about with it in this manner?" he queries. "Moreover, I was never a candidate. They've to release me from my duties as returning officer before I can contest which they are unwilling to do." Ambedkar warns that if Dalit unity is lost then the community might end up without a single member in the assembly.
The attempt to woo dissident Dalit leaders has already begun. Of the 10 presidium members, the Sena has already succeeded in weaning away Namdeo Dhasal, once the firebrand leader of the Dalit Panthers. But since then his waning support and his failure to make good the promise that he'd revive the Panthers in a big way has been some source of comfort for the Congress. Says a Dalit watcher: "They (the Dalits) can do little on their own. But with their pocket following they can act as effective spoilers. Athawale's elections do not have the sanction of the presidium. Athawale's does."
But then, each member of the presidium—of which only T.M. Kamble acknowledges that the party is on the verge of a split—believes he has mass support. The bouquet and the brickbats at the Ambedkar and Athawale rallies following the elections the two factions have announced will indicate who is the true leader enjoying mass support. It's an outcome which both the Congress and the Sena-BJP combine are awaiting with bated breath.