RACE FOR BABASAHEB’S LEGACY

and Mallikarjun Kharge were prominent ministers, for home and railways respectively. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Meira Kumar, was daughter of Dalit icon Jagjivan Ram. “While the BJP has imported some leaders from outside, it has sidelined its own Dalit leaders, such as Sanjay Paswan, Satyanarayan Jatia and Ram Nath Kovid,” says Professor Vivek Kumar, of the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The ground connect, therefore, is broken. The correlation between Dalit support and the contrasting fortunes of the two national parties—BJP and Congress—has resulted in a mad rush between them to appropriate the legacy of B.R. Ambedkar, India’s biggest Dalit icon. The seriousness with which the BJP is pursuing Dalit votes is reflected in the party’s U-turn on Ambedkar over the last decade— from Arun Shourie, a senior minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, calling him a “false god” to a series of programmes launched by the Modi government to celebrate his contribution to the social and political fabric of India. Even Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, now hails him as the “ultimate unifier”.

During his London visit last November, Modi inaugurated a memorial at the site where Ambedkar lived during his London School of Economics days. The prime minister also laid the foundation stone for an Ambedkar memorial in Mumbai, and on March 21, for an auditorium to be constructed at 25, Alipur Road, Delhi, the house where Ambedkar had died. He also paid homage to the father of the Indian Constitution at his birthplace in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, observing it as Social Harmony Day, and got the United Nations to observe Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary.

Stumped by Modi’s blitzkrieg on Ambedkar, the Congress woke up late but willing to admit its historic oversight. “Though he partnered with the Congress to frame the Constitution, we did not try to own his legacy until his 125th birth anniversary,” Raju concedes. “First the BSP appropriated him, now all parties are doing the same.” To stake its claim, the Congress, too, organised a big rally in