A PARADOX OF CASTE POLITICS
Punjab presents a paradox when it comes to caste politics. The state’s polity has been dominated by Jat Sikhs even though 32 per cent of its population comprise Dalits, the highest among all states. But the affluent Jat Sikh community – mainly farmers with large landholdings – has ensured that the main political parties succumb to the compulsion of having a Jat Sikh as chief minister, relegating Dalits, who are either landless or have small landholdings, to the fringes – much like the way Dalits stay in the outskirts of villages called “veras”.
Punjab’s Dalits are divided among all religions: they make up nearly 57 per cent of the majority Sikh population, 38 per cent of the Hindu population, and are part of the Muslims and Christian community as well. And among Dalits, there are 39 sub-castes.
Together they affect the poll outcome of nearly 30 per cent of state’s 117 constituencies in the reserved category.
Unlike the other poll-bound states of UP and Gujarat, the Dalit upsurge against atrocities and discrimination may not resonate in Punjab, believes Ronki Ram, political scientist at Panjab University.
“Though Dalits in Punjab have been seeking their own distinct social identity, the Dalit vote is split across main political parties, and different sub-castes within Dalits have their own political affiliations,” says Ram.
Dr Pramod Kumar, head, Institute of Development Communication (IDC) in Chandigarh, cites the example of the BSP to explain why the Dalit vote cannot go one way in Punjab. “The BSP’S vote share has fallen from 16 per cent to four per cent in Punjab in the last two decades. The party could not make inroads into Punjab as its electoral politics is not based on caste dynamics. Culturally, the Dalits want to follow Jat Sikhs and wear white kurta-pajamas like them. Though socially, they want to have a distinct identity which is manifested in separate cremation grounds, deras and gurdawaras, mainly a reaction to the dominance of Sikh institutions such as the SGPC which have excluded Dalits from their centres of faith.”
The Dalit upsurge in UP and Gujarat may not affect Punjab. “Though Dalits in Punjab may have experienced socio-economic neglect, but they are not hounded like prey,” says Kumar. But almost all mainstream political parties of Punjab are trying to woo the Dalit votebank which is split among various sub-castes and their deras by conceding high positions in party organisations to influential caste satraps. Even the “upper caste-centric” BJP now has a Dalit state president in Vijay Sampla while the Congress has a Dalit face in leader of opposition Charanjit Singh Channi. Even the Jat dominated Shiromani Akali Dal gave substantial representation to Dalits as ministers and by having a Dalit speaker, Charanjit Atwal.
As it makes an ambitious foray into Punjab politics, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too is not behind in the “woo Dalits” policy. Its national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has joined the list of politicians wooing sects or deras in Punjab. Kejriwal paid a much-hyped visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar – the Doaba heartland of Dalits, known as the Mecca of Ravidassia sect of Dalits. Kejriwal knew the poll math as over one-third Dalits belong to this sect which translates into 12 per cent of the state’s population.
After militancy came to an end in the state in the late Nineties, Sikh-hindu tensions gave way to bloody flare-ups between Sikhs and followers of influential deras dominated by Dalits seeking cultural assertion, such as Dera Sachkhand Ballan and Dera Sacha Sauda. They have gained the political muscle to affect the poll fortunes of political parties as vote banks.
Though cow vigilante groups have been overactive in Punjab and the state police recently arrested self-styled Gau Raksha Dal chief Satish Kumar, cow vigilantism has not acquired “Dalit atrocity” colour in Punjab. It has brought Hindu organisations, those which lost relevance after terrorism ended in the state, such as All India Hindu Suraksha Samiti and various factions of the Shiv Sena, and turned them into cow vigilantes, in direct conflict with state’s progressive dairy farmers, mostly Jat Sikhs, who claim their flourishing cow breeding business has been wiped out.