Scholar Badri Narayanan has called upon the Dalits and Muslims of the country to put up a unified front against Hindutva elements which were trying to appropriate the Dalit space.
Delivering a talk on ‘Dalit movements and Hindutva agenda’ jointly organised by the Keluettan Padhana Kendram and the Secular Collective in Kozhikode on Tuesday, Mr. Narayanan, professor of social sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, said Hindutva outfits had been trying to placate the Dalits of the country over the last few decades. These groups had ignored the Dalits in 1950s and ’60s and had concentrated on bringing the tribespeople into the Hindutva fold. The Dalits, who were not allowed their voting rights earlier, began to develop as a vote bank in the ’70s when they stood with the Congress. In the ’80s, the Hindutva groups started making concerted efforts to get Dalit votes through regional strategies. The Hindutva concept of Ramarajya was different from the Gandhian concept of the same and involved anti-Muslim sentiments, Prof. Narayanan said.
