PM Narendra Damodardas Modi – Courtesy PTI
Looking invincible till a year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suddenly is caught in a piquant situation where he is entering the 2019 battle with his prestige at stake. Increasingly facing the ire for atrocities against Dalits and the minorities, Modi who had in 2011 refused to wear a skull cap as Gujarat CM has offered a chaadar at the shrine of Kabir Das at Maghar.
Modi has a two pronged agenda on mind. One he wishes to woo the Muslims and he also wishes to consolidate his base amidst the Dalit community who are staunch followers of the revered saint.
Modi’s visit to the shrine of the 15th century saint marked the 500th death anniversary of Sant Kabir. Modi interestingly is said to have sounded the poll bugle from UP’s Maghar which is a town of weavers – most of whom are supporters of the Peace Party.
The visit to the state comes at the backdrop of a series of defeats at the hands of the united opposition and a growing sentiment against the party.
The defeat of BJP in the Kairana battle and the subsequent win of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a small regional Jat-dominated party centred in western Uttar Pradesh are signs that the BJP is on a slippery wicket. This at times when they have also faced the wrath of the united opposition in UP’s Phoolpur and Gorakhpur bypolls.
Speaking to a media outlet MP from Sant Kabir Nagar, Sharad Tripathi believes BJP governments at Centre and state are committed to welfare of weaver community.
Even before Modi could land on Maghar soil in signs of a silent churning there were hectic parleys on among opposition parties – the SP, BSP, RLD and the Peace Party to come together to standup against the BJP. They are already in plans to hold rallies together in the area.
BJP was keen to retain Kairana to send a message that its defeat in the Gorakhpur and Phoolpur Lok Sabha byelections in March was an aberration. Kairana has been in the spotlight over reported 2016 exodus of Hindu families.
The opposition interpreted the verdict as a defeat of the BJP’s “communalism” and the revival of the Jat-Muslim political coalition.
News outlets quote spokesperson of SP, Rajendra Chaudhary who says the area around Maghar had been the stronghold of the SP.
Poll watchers are closely watching this shift of focus from the Land of moksha to the Gateway to hell.
In his recent Mann Ki Baat talk, Modi invoked 15th century mystic poet and saint Kabir in his speech, the PM said that Kabir appealed to “people to rise above divisions of religion and caste and make knowledge and wisdom the sole basis of recognition”.
Those who understand the caste dynamics of politics believe that Prime Minister’s decision may perturb upper caste people, primarily BJP’s main votebank in the state.
Maghar is called the gateway to hell because popular belief amongst Brahmins is that dying in this town leads a person to hell.
Revered equally by both Hindus and Muslims, Maghar has a masusoleum and a samadhi sthal dedicated to the 15th century poet.
Followers of kabir, the ‘Kabir Panthis’, come mostly from the Dalit and backward Hindu castes, with their maximum concentration in eastern Uttar Pradesh, mainly from Varanasi to Gorakhpur.
There is growing discontent among the Dalits in the state and their perceived alienation from the saffron party.
The joining of hands between SP and BSP has only strengthened the cohesion between Dalits and backwards.
On the contrary, Narendra Modi has urged BJP MPs to remind Dalits that BJP was the party that took measures to honour Ambedkar.
Dalits have recently taken to the streets against the government. Supreme Court removing a protection for them under the special law Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 has not gone down well.
Even the BJP internally is not quite on the same page, nearly four of the saffron party’s Dalit MPs from UP have voiced dissent against the party leadership handling issues of Dalits in the state.
Dalits account for 21.2% and Muslims 19.2% of Uttar Pradesh’s population.
The Lok Sabha members – Savitri Bai Phule from Bahraich, Chhote Lal Kharwar from Robertsganj, Ashok Kumar Dohre from Etawah and Yashwant Singh from Nagina – have alleged dilution of the SC/ST Atrocities Act, the impression that the saffron party does not support the reservation policy and escalating police atrocities against Dalits have not been handled well.
Having a look at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report on the Prevention of Atrocities against Scheduled Castes, an anti – Dalit crime happens every 18 minutes. Every day, on an average, three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits murdered and two Dalit houses burnt.
NHRC data suggests, 37 per cent Dalits live below the poverty line, 54 per cent are undernourished, 83 per 1,000 children born in a Dalit household die before their first birthday and 12 per cent before their fifth. Dalits are prevented from entering police stations in 28 per cent of Indian villages.
Dalits do not get mail delivered to their homes in 24 per cent of villages. They are denied access to water sources in 48 per cent of our villages.
From the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, in 2016 to the inhuman flogging of four Dalit youths in Una, Gujarat, by cow vigilantes the Dalit story has picked steam overtime.
Meanwhile, a casteist attack on a Dalit celebration in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon village led to the death of a young man.
The Dalits have realised their power as they number over 300 million, constituting 25 per cent of the population. 84 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha are reserved for Scheduled Castes, 40 of which went to the BJP in the 2014 general election.
Dalits have fast become a strong community in the complex electoral caste matrix of India. Although BSP supremo, Mayawati represents the Dalits, her losses in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha elections have created a vacuum in the Dalit leadership. The Dalit vote bank, therefore, is all the more alluring. The BJP has reached out to non-Jatav Dalit communities by pushing Dalit leaders such as Thawar Chand Gehlot and creating alliances with Dalit leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Ramdas Athavale.
Even as Narendra Modi plays the Dalit card ahead of the 2019 election, it would be interesting to see whether the godly lure of a saint like Kabir can actually work as a vote churner.
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