Sanjay Paswan, former head of the BJP’s Scheduled Castes Morcha, has said the party’s recent efforts to reach out to Dalits are not going beyond “rhetoric” and restricted to the “tokenism of sitting, eating and meeting” with members of the community. “Over 50 per cent of the Dalits in Uttar Pradesh had voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi [in the 2014 general election]. It would help the party if it projected a Dalit face in the U.P.[Assembly] elections,” he said, speaking to The Hindu .
“The Dalit community does not want charity, it wants parity ” Mr. Paswan said he was articulating these views because “there was no forum in the party where he could have done it.” “All these actions have no relevance anymore to the community, which is irritated by such tokenism” he said.
He said the party should go beyond honouring Daliticon B.R. Ambedkar and acknowledge the contributions of his successors like Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram and the former Deputy Prime Minister, Jagjivan Ram, if it wanted to increase its penetration among Dalits in the politically crucial States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“All sorts of rhetoric are going on. We will do this and that for Dalits. We will eat and bathe with them. It is no longer relevant. Issues like entering temple or eating together do not exercise the minds of the community. It irritates them. It is myopic. People think Dalits will be happy with such tokenism or symbolism. It is not like that. The aspirations of the new generation of Dalits are different,” he said.
Mr. Paswan said Kanshi Ram had an “integrationist approach” to empowerment while staying in the Hindu fold. “If Sardar Patel — a man who banned the RSS — can be integrated into our leadership pantheon, why not Kanshi Ram? If you do not want to own Kanshi Ram, at least do not disown him. Make a passing reference to his works, his speeches,” he said.
