The rapid decline of the Bahujan Samaj Party over the years has led some to believe that Dalit politics lacks a suitable road map. Rebuilding the Bahujan movement will be difficult if the political agenda and electoral strategies are not improvised. In such a crisis, the Dalit-Bahujan leadership could learn from B.R. Ambedkar’s political experiments.
Ambedkar’s social movement and political thoughts are heralded for making Indian society sensitive towards the ideas of social justice and democracy. Ambedkar was keen to find a dignified place for the ‘Untouchables’ in modern institutions, including legislative bodies. He appealed to the ruling classes to recognise the ‘Untouchables’ as a new social and political minority, and demanded special safeguards for them from the state. He thought community-based political representation would liberate the ‘Untouchables’ from the hegemony of the social elites and help them bring their issues to the mainstream. But Ambedkar was not interested in framing the Dalits as a political force for the Dalits alone; he expected them to unify vulnerable caste groups, religious minorities and the deprived working classes and bring about revolutionary political change.
