Was bound to spill over’ Gujarat model may dent BJP’s prospects in poll-bound states
INSTANCES OF ATROCITIES AGAINST DALITS UNDER NDA
OCT 15: A 15-yearold Mahadalit boy allegedly burnt alive in Bihar as his goat was eating paddy crops in a field belonging to an upper caste man OCT 21: A Dalit family is hacked to death and their body parts strewn around a farm in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra
OCT 20: Upper caste members allegedly set ablaze the house of a Dalit family in Faridabad over a dispute. Two children burnt to death MAY 14: A group of Jats attacks Dalits over a plot in Dangawas, Rajasthan. Ensuing violence leaves three Dalits and one Jat dead
SEPT 5: A Dalit woman is allegedly stripped and forced to drink urine in
Chattarpur, MP, following a land dispute
JUNE 16: A Dalit girl is purportedly beaten up by an upper caste man — a pehelwan — as her shadow falls on him in Chattarpur, MP JAN 17: Rohith Vemula, a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide in his hostel room amid an ongoing conflict between the university and a group of Dalit students NEW DELHI: Gujarat model of governance was instrumental in catapulting the BJP to power at the Centre in 2014, but the same now threatens to skittle its ambitions in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab.
Agitations in Gujarat over the flogging of four Dalits for skinning a cow have compounded the problems of CM Anandiben Patel who is already on a shaky ground. But, polls in Gujarat are still about 15 months away and Dalits constitute only 6.7 per cent of the state’s population. The party may still hope to salvage the situation in PM Narendra Modi’s home state.
The BJP’s immediate concern is the upcoming elections and, in the long term, the setback to its assiduous attempt for an image makeover — from a Brahmin-Bania party to an all-inclusive one.
The BJP’s wishy-washy stance on the lynching of a Muslim man in UP’s Dadri and Gen VK Singh’s alleged reference to dogs in the context of two Dalit children’s murder in Haryana had undermined the party’s Dalit outreach in the run up to Bihar polls. Suicide by Hyderabad university Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula last January, in which some Union ministers’ role came under the scanner, also dented the image of the BJP that was already struggling to fend off allegations of being “anti-reservation”. The way opposition parties pounced on the Una incident in Parliament on Wednesday should give the BJP a sense of déjà vu.
“It (Dalit flogging) will go against the BJP in UP elections. Yeh BJP ke khilaf lahar banayegi (It will create a wave against the BJP) It has completely undermined the BJP’s efforts to reach out to Dalits,” says Professor Badri Narayan of the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion at the JNU.
The BJP was hoping to eat into BSP’s Dalit votebank by weaning away non-Jatavs from her. A fortnight ago, PM inducted Shahjahanpur MP Krishna Raj, who belongs to Pasi community, in his council of ministers. Another Dalit MP to be made a minister was Ajay Tamta from Uttarakhand. Recently, BJP president Amit Shah had a well-publicized meal at a Dalit family’s home in Varanasi. It’s the same party, which used to ridicule Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s stay at Dalit houses. Last April, the BJP appointed Vijay Sampla, a Dalit, its Punjab unit chief.
Una incident might put paid to all these overtures by the BJP towards Dalits. BJP MP Udit Raj, the most prominent Dalit face of the party, however, believes the incident will not have any bearing on the party’s prospects in other states “as the (Gujarat) government has already taken action”. “But what happened in Una is very unfortunate. How can a human being be less important than an animal? It’s not a law and order problem; it’s a social problem,” says the North-West Delhi MP.
But the way the BJP promptly reacted to the use of abusive words against Mayawati by its UP unit vice-president Dayashankar Singh betrays the party’s concern about its image. The party immediately sacked Singh and no less than finance minister Arun Jaitley expressed regret for his colleague’s misconduct. The BJP still has a lot of firefighting to do. Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to visit Una on Thursday, followed by Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal the next day.