MESSIAH OF THE DOWNTRODDEN

KANSHI RAM (1934—2006) Uniter of the economically exploited and socially oppressed

Kanshi Ram successfully captured the Dalit imagination by proposing a third path avoiding both revolution and collaboration. Displaying extraordinary organisational energy and strategic acumen, he first assembled a unionised network, BAMCEF (All India Backward And Minority Communities Employees Federation), linking scheduled caste employees across the county. This was used as a platform to create an activist group, DS4 (Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti) that, through aggressive propaganda, reached out to Dalits, lower castes and poor Muslims in both urban and rural areas forging a wider coalition of the economically exploited and socially oppressed. The final step came in 1984 when he formed a full-fledged political party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, for combat in the electoral battlefield.

The Dalit leader was an ardent votary of B.R. Ambedkar’s slogan, “Political power is the master key”, asserting that this and not a fight for social reform should be the community’s first priority. Significantly, unlike Ambedkar, who espoused the annihilation of caste, Kanshi Ram chose to use caste as a navigational tool to sail the political seas, expertly leveraging it to win elections. While both galvanised Dalits, they were quite different people. One was an intellectual giant who set a broad agenda of emancipation for Dalits while the other was a homespun, self-taught leader operating in the rough and tumble of multi-party Indian politics. Kanshi Ram himself described this difference when he said, “He used to gather books; I tried to collect people.”