Dalit Political Parties

History of Dalit Politics

• After the Independence, despite constitutional guarantees of equality and justice:
  • The social discrimination and violence against the Dalits continued.
  • Dalit women were dishonoured and abused.
  • Dalits faced collective atrocities.
  • Legal mechanisms proved inadequate to stop the economic and social oppression of Dalits.
• Against this background, in the 1970s, the first-generation Dalit graduates began to assert themselves from various platforms.
• They were fighting against the perpetual caste-based inequalities.
• They demanded the effective implementation of reservations and other such policies of social justice.

Dalit Panthers

• It was a militant organisation of the Dalit youth formed in Maharashtra in 1972.
• Their activities mostly centred around fighting increasing atrocities on Dalits in various parts of the State.
• The larger ideological agenda was to destroy the caste system and to build an organisation of all oppressed sections.
• In the post-emergency period, Dalit Panthers got involved in electoral compromises.
• It also underwent many splits, which led to its decline.
• Organisations like the Backward and Minority Communities’ Employees Federation (BAMCEF) took over this space.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)

• In 1978, the Backward and Minority Classes Employees Federation (BAMCEF) was formed.
• It was a trade union of government employees.
• It took a strong position in favour of political power to Bahujan – the SC, ST, OBC and minorities.
• Out of this, the subsequent Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti and later the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) emerged under the leadership of Kanshi Ram.
• The BSP began as a small party supported largely by Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
• But in 1989 and the 1991 elections, it achieved a breakthrough in Uttar Pradesh.
• This was the first time in independent India that a political party supported mainly by Dalit voters had achieved this kind of political success.
• Under Kanshi Ram’s leadership, the BSP was envisaged as an organisation based on pragmatic politics.
• It derived confidence from the fact that the Bahujan (SC, ST, OBC and religious minorities) constituted the majority of the population and were a formidable political force on the strength of their numbers.