In March 1930, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar launched a satyagraha seeking that Dalits be allowed to enter and pray in the Kalaram temple at the pilgrimage centre of Nashik in Maharashtra. This was opposed by caste Hindus, who also used violence against protestors who were asserting their demands peacefully.
This resistance to the satyagraha, which continued for around five years, led Ambedkar to announce (October 1935) at Yeola in Nashik that he was “born as a Hindu, but would not die as one.” Eventually, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism along with lakhs of his followers in 1956.
Around 80 years later, Ambedkar’s grandson, Prakash Ambedkar, who leads the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), has created a flutter by seeking that temples and other places of worship be opened for devotees. Earlier this week, Prakash protested at the iconic temple of Lord Vithoba at Pandharpur.
The former Lok Sabha MP has also given the state government a 10-day ultimatum to comply with this demand, failing which a fresh agitation would be launched.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime is yet to allow devotees access to places of worship due to concerns over the rising spread of the coronavirus. However, parties including the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and even the All India Majlis E Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), are seeking that religious places be opened up.
However, it is Prakash’s protest that has been most striking. For one, his grandfather had shunned Hinduism and its Gods while embracing Buddhism. In fact, the first three vows while accepting Buddhism pertain to not worshipping Hindu Gods like Vishnu, Shiva, Rama, Krishna and Ganapati.
In 2017, a popular Marathi actor Bhalchandra (Bhau) Kadam, a Buddhist Dalit, had to face intense flak after he installed an eco-friendly Ganpati idol during the Ganesh festival.
As ones who shunned the faith, the Buddhist Dalits (erstwhile Mahars who converted to Buddhism) are seen as challengers to Hinduism, which often pits them at odds with Hindutva forces. In the 1980s, the publication of Ambedkar’s book ‘Riddles in Hinduism,’ which had criticised Hindu deities, had led to a confrontation between Dalit groups and the Shiv Sena.
So, what is Prakash Ambedkar up to? Does this signify that the Ambedkarite political movement, which is classically seen as an anti-Hindutva, rationalist force, shifting towards or being co-opted by majoritarian sentiments? Or is this an attempt to broad-base the Dalit-Ambedkarite movement?
On his part, Prakash stresses that while the government has allowed shops, establishments and even liquor vends to open, there is no point in continuing with the curbs on places of worship. Moreover, the right to worship in a temple is a fundamental one. Temples and places of worship have an organic economy around them, with the livelihoods of stakeholders like flower vendors dependent on these shrines. This has been affected by the lockdown.
There is restiveness among Ambedkarites at Ambedkar’s grandson visiting a temple and seeking its re-opening. However, even those critical of the move admit that this may be an attempt to broaden the base of the VBA, which faced a rout in the Maharashtra assembly elections, and desertions from the ranks thereafter, especially to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the VBA had ridden on the anger and consolidation after attacks on Dalits visiting the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial near Pune on January 1, 2018, allegedly by Hindutva forces. In the Lok Sabha polls, the VBA, which had allied with the AIMIM, was accused of playing the role of the spoiler for the Congress and NCP, contributing to their defeat in eight seats.
As VBA functionaries note, this protest is an attempt to reach out to the powerful 13th century warkari sect, which worships Lord Vitthala (another name for Vithoba). A warkari group had joined the VBA’s protest at Pandharpur.
The members of this bhakti sect are influential in Maharashtra’s polity. The warkaris hail from across caste lines in Maharashtra, and neighbouring states like Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. This has led to social forces ranging from the Sangh Parivar to the anti-Brahmin Maratha Seva Sangh (MSS) trying to strike roots in them.
The opposition by some warkari leaders had held up the passage of the landmark anti-superstition law. Eventually, it was the murder of rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, who had championed the cause of this legislation, which ensured that the ‘Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013,’ was approved.
Earlier, during the erstwhile Congress-NCP regime, protests by warkari groups led to the scrapping of a proposed Dow Chemical facility at Chakan near Pune. They also forced writer Anand Yadav to resign as the president of the Marathi literary meet (2009) after controversial references to poet-saint Tukaram in his novel.
Veterans of the Dalit movement admit there is a “sense of defeat” among the faithful over the larger cause being in a state of retreat.
While former Dalit Panther leader Ramdas Athavale has been co-opted by the BJP and is a union minister of state, leaders of smaller factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI) flit between supporting political formations.
Prakash has an influence cutting across sections like other backwards and Muslims. Other leaders of the RPI have a base largely restricted to Buddhist Dalits, who are estimated to form 7 per cent of the population, and have failed to strike a larger socio-political alliance with other marginalised groups like tribals and nomadic communities, or even Hindu Dalits. The Dalit movement has also hovering around a certain set of issues like quotas in jobs and education.
Much before the term ‘social engineering’ entered political lexicon, Prakash had executed a political victory by bringing together these disparate social forces in a rainbow coalition at Kinvat in Nanded in the 1990s, and developed the demographically-diverse Akola district in Vidarbha as his base. He represented Akola twice in the Lok Sabha (1998 and 1999) as a result of this potent social combination.
In the backdrop of the VBA’s electoral losses, Prakash’s protest at Pandharpur may be aimed at reaching out to and strengthening his base among OBCs, who form around 53 per cent of the population, and are the vanguard of Hindutva. This has been preceded by the VBA losing its leaders to other parties, especially the NCP, which is trying to expand socially and change the perception of it being a party of the dominant Marathas.
While entrenched sections of the other backwards, like the Malis (gardeners) and Vanjaris are seen as having benefitted the most from quotas, the VBA, like its previous avatar, the Bharatiya Republican Paksha-Bahujan Mahasangh (BRP-BMS) has wooed smaller OBCs, who feel neglected.
The choice of Pandharpur for the protest is also significant. Though Vithoba is revered as a manifestation of Lord Krishna, religious and theological schools ranging from Shaivites, Jains and Buddhists have claimed him as their own, underlining the deity’s syncretic traditions. In 1955, Ambedkar had stressed that the Pandharpur shrine was originally a Buddhist one.
Unlike the older generation of Dalits, whose identity and consciousness were forged through an association with Ambedkarite ideology, urban and middle-class Dalit youngsters are more accepting of Hindu customs. Also, at a time when majoritarian assertion is a political reality, taking any “anti-Hindu” stance does not bode well, admit Dalit leaders.
Traditionally, Dalit leaders and RPI factions have been co-opted by larger political forces, like the Congress, and now, the BJP, or social sections like the dominant Maratha community with terms like ‘berjeche rajkaran’ (politics of accretion).
Smarting after an electoral defeat and meltdown, the VBA may be trying to turn this structure on its head, by trying to create a larger auxiliary constituency encompassing the OBCs and other castes, but with a Dalit leader at the helm.
Prakash’s breakout agitation may be aimed at taking the Dalit movement beyond its traditional axis. But the real challenge lies in balancing the contradictions of this outreach with the core principles of the classical Ambedkarite ideology.
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