ABSTRACT
The eclipse of the Janata Party (1977–79) and the decline of the Congress Party since the early 1980s in Uttar Pradesh form the background to the emergence of a ‘revised’ Dalit politics of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founded in 1984. This chapter traces the evolution of an institutionalized Dalit-Bahujan politics as perceived by Kanshiram through the Backward and Minorities Communities and Employee Federation (BAMCEF), a union-type association of educated Scheduled Castes (SC) (1973) and the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4) (1981) to generate political awareness among the low-caste poor in urban and rural areas. Much of Kanshiram’s political inspiration for a new-age Dalit politics was based on his reading of Ambedkar and Phule and a macro-theoretical analysis based upon the political failure (fragmented and compromised political leadership and poor organization) of ‘Ambedkarite parties’ — Republican Party of India and Dalit Panthers — in Maharashtra. It formed the immediate ‘political backdrop’ to an innovative style of Dalit politics based on an ethnicization of Dalit–Bahujan caste groups to create a Bahujan Samaj, a focussed political leadership (Kanshiram and Mayawati) and a durable party organization to challenge the ‘Brahminic social order’ in the Indian democratic process.
