The Scheduled Castes: Political history
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Saurashtra
1931 to the present
November 29, 2017: The Times of India
Caste has been a chokehold, irrespective of the government in power, and Dalit groups have put up a fight for half a century. “Saurashtra was an assortment of princely states under Darbar rulers. Babasaheb Ambedkar came here in 1931 and 1939, and his comrades worked in the community for years to raise consciousness,” says Jayanti Makadia of the Gujarat Dalit Sangathan, an umbrella group of Dalit organisations, trusts, sabhas and panches. “Dalits struggled for land rights, from the ‘60s to the ‘80s, even massing into jails. From the 90s to the mid-2000s, we fought communalism, refusing to be foot soldiers against Muslims,” he says. In 2013, Junagarh enacted a large-scale Dalit conversion to Buddhism, as a message to the BJP government and the Hindu hierarchy.The intense anti-reservation movement in Gujarat since the 1970s, central to its politics, has always turned on Dalits, Makadia says, even though they were not the beneficiaries of the later round of reservations.
“The word reservation has still stuck to us like skin,” he says.But now, every tehsil and locality has Dalit groups that come together when an event occurs, to provide legal support, mobilise and present their side to the state. “We need more efforts like BAMCEF and DS4,” says Vanvi. (The All-India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation and the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti, were formed to push for Dalit interests.) After all, for all the casteism that exists, “nobody would ever dare to attempt this kind of violence in the south, where Dalits have been more politicized and radical,” says K Satyanarayana, scholar, writer and anti-caste activist.But Dalit mobilisation has not aimed for direct political power in Gujarat, partly because their population of 7.1% does not give them the numerical clout. “But if they can unite, they can be a significant pressure group on parties,” says Narayan. While the Congress first claimed them as part of its social coalition — KHAM — the BJP has tried to incorporate them in the Hindutva project. “The problem is that some Dalit communities still prefer to share the spoils of power or other benefits rather than fighting for other Dalits,” says Makadia, referring to the vankar community that has collaborated with the Congress and then the BJP. Others, like Bharti, feel that “the quest for a political movement has distracted from the need to build social resilience among Dalits”.In Gujarat, that resilience is sorely needed.
The rate of crime against Dalits hovers above the national average, according to NCRB data, particularly murders. A recent Rajya Sabha question showed a dramatic upsurge in 2015. And yet, in 2013, only 2.5% of the registered cases of crimes against Dalits resulted in a conviction. That figure stood at 6% in 2015. There is an official backlog of 56,000 government jobs, and land rights are an ongoing struggle.The attacks on Dalits have grown, just as their awareness and assertion on matters of land, employment, and rightful share in resources has increased. “When you know your rights, that’s when the violence happens. When you don’t accept what they say, that’s when the violence increases,” says Vanvi.
(With inputs from Premal Bal)
