In Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Maharashtra, Is Dalit Politics Dead?

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 rara avis among Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet flock. The three-time Union Minister of State for Social Justice has been donning the mantle of the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) star Dalit leader without contesting elections in the recent past. Since joining the BJP-led ruling alliance in 2012, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha and given a ministerial post despite his party not winning a single seat in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha elections. In Maharashtra, the RPI (A) has opted not to contest the assembly elections for the second time in a row. Additionally, the absence of the People’s Republican Party of India, led by prominent Dalit leader Jogendra Kawade, highlights the lack of representation for Dalit aspirations in the state’s electoral arena. This time, Kawade has shifted his party’s support to the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance. 

Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, often accused of being the BJP’s B team, will contest 208 seats. However, due to ill health, Ambedkar has decided not to campaign on the ground. In the sea of political colours in Maharashtra, the blue associated with the Ambedkarite movement has faded, tattered and largely merged with the saffron of Hindutva. 

The absence of these two Ambedkarite parties from the electoral race, along with key leaders from the community not actively campaigning, highlights the lacklustre state of Dalit politics in Maharashtra—the birthplace of the anti-caste political movement led by Babasaheb Ambedkar. 

“Over the last ten years, major Ambedkarite parties have not entered the election arena. They are absent from the electoral competition, having been co-opted by the ruling BJP,” says activist and commentator Bandhuraj Lone. “These leaders have betrayed Ambedkar’s ideology and the SC community at large in pursuit of power.” 

Ambedkarite parties, especially the RPI founded by Ambedkar in 1956, traditionally led the SC population. However, after the 1970s, divisions over Ambedkar’s ideology led to the party splintering into over 70 factions, with many leaders co-opted by the Congress, the BJP and the Shiv Sena.

Dr Sukhdeo Thorat, former chairman of the University Grants Commission, attributes the factionalism within the RPI to the lack of clarity in implementing Ambedkar’s democratic socialism and advancing interventionist policies. “Ideologically, RPI leaders were unable to implement his vision of socialism combined with parliamentary democracy. There was no clarity on economic policy,” says Thorat. As Dalit parties and political groups drifted from Ambedkar’s political philosophy, symbolism replaced ideology. The focus shifted to issues such as the unveiling of Ambedkar’s statue or the construction of Ambedkar Bhawans and museums, Thorat adds. 

For instance, the Namantar Andolan—the campaign to rename Marathwada University after Ambedkar—became a rallying point for Ambedkarite parties and groups for 16 years. The failure to rename the university led to riots and violence against SC communities, resulting in communal and political turmoil. 

Experts say the extreme fragmentation of the RPI and other Ambedkarite parties has diminished their bargaining power for political representation and the welfare of their constituents.  Between the 1999 and 2014 assembly elections, the RPI and Prakash Ambedkar’s erstwhile Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh managed to win just one seat in the state legislature. In the 2019 assembly election, none of the candidates from Ambedkarite parties secured a victory. 

According to Lone, the gradual decline of the Ambedkarite movement, once at the forefront of progressive socialist politics in Maharashtra, is the result of the deliberate isolation of the Scheduled Caste vote bank by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP. Traditionally, the SC vote bank supported RPI factions or secular parties like the Congress and the CPI(M), influencing outcomes in SC-majority districts like Nanded and Solapur. However, the BJP has weakened this vote bank’s power, says Lone, pointing to its success in diminishing SC influence. Over the last decade, the BJP-led Mahayuti government has cut funding for SC welfare programs, including scholarships and support for institutions like the Pune-based Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Research and Training Institute. While sidelining SC issues, the government introduced new scholarships for Maratha and OBC students to appease these groups amidst ongoing quota politics.

Ahead of the assembly polls, the BJP targeted Maharashtra’s SC Buddhist population with symbolic gestures, such as granting classical language status to Pali The Congress had earlier absorbed RPI factions to disrupt Dalit vote consolidation, but the BJP deepened the divide by splitting SC voters along religious lines. It enlisted dominant SC castes like Matang and Charmakar as Hindu loyalists, while nominating Amit Gorkhe, the first MLC from the Matang community, in recent legislative council elections.

“Matangs and Charmakars take pride in their Hindu identity and have found a support base in the BJP, while the Buddhist population has stayed with the Congress or Ambedkarite parties,” says Lone. Due to the fragmentation and co-opting of main factions, Ambedkarite parties are left with a diminished mass support base. The Dalit political movement may be on a downward slide, but its influence has not entirely waned.

During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the narrative that the BJP intended to amend the Constitution and end SC reservations caused a major shift of SC votes to the MVA comprising the Congress, the NCP (Sharad Pawar) and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray). Poll analysts estimate that SC and Muslim votes helped the MVA secure 31 seats. “Ambedkarite forces overwhelmingly backed the INDIA bloc and will continue to do so in the upcoming legislative elections,” says Shyam Gaikwad, convenor of the new Progressive Republican Front (PRF), an umbrella organisation of over 100 RPI factions and political and social groups. The BJP’s rise since 2014 has strengthened “communalist forces” and driven Ambedkarite elements to align with parties committed to upholding the Constitution, he adds. 

The PRF will not contest elections independently due to limited resources, but it has declared its support for the MVA. “Without our backing, the MVA parties cannot make significant gains,” Gaikwad says. “The leaders who have been lured by the BJP are not true heirs of Ambedkar’s ideology. The real Ambedkarite forces are still active on the ground and remain secular.” Jawale disputes the notion that supporting the Congress will benefit the SC community. “Both the Congress and the BJP are enemies of the Ambedkarite political movement. Congress leaders are equally responsible for breaking up the RPI,” he says, accusing all parties of using Dalits only as a lucrative vote bank, without paying any heed to their upliftment. “After Babasaheb, no political leader has done any constructive work for us. The benefits we are reaping in social and educational fields are his legacy,” Jawale adds.

(This appeared in the print as 'Tattered Blue')