As the first political party to highlight the tragic suicide case of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD student at the University of Hyderabad, the Congress has not just been able to bring other opposition parties, including the Left parties, the Janata Dal(United) and the Bahujan Samaj Party, on to one platform on the issue of discriminatory practices against Dalits, it has also succeeded in embarrassing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that had managed a sizeable chunk of Dalit votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
For the Congress, the role of its vice-president Rahul Gandhi, including his participation on Saturday in a fast along with protesting students at the Central University, as well as the fact that other parties have followed his example in this protest has enhanced his credibility.
In its efforts at emerging once again as an alternative to the BJP, this forceful standing up for the Dalits has taken the Congress a few steps forward.
But the dilemma for the Congress is clearly that it needs to stand up for the rights of Dalits without alienating the other backward castes and the upper castes — a present and continuing political danger. In the Telangana region, the site of this tragedy, as a senior party leader pointed out, the party’s major support comes from the powerful community of Reddys.
To take another State, Haryana, where the Congress has a strong presence, the tenure of former Congress chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was marked by atrocities committed by members of his community of Jaats against the Jaatavs, a Dalit community.
To get around this, the Congress is trying to run parallel storylines: in the first, to project the suicide as the outcome of caste discrimination, but as that may create an upper caste backlash, it is also seeking to use the issue to reach out to young people by stressing that the tragic episode was caused by curbs on freedom of expression.
If it were to do that, the Congress feels it could pin down the BJP — and the sangh parivar — as being hostile to any that runs counter to their conservative ideology. Freedom of choice — in matters of religion, food habits, clothes, ideology — would appeal to young people regardless of their social, religious or educational backgrounds.
Indeed, in his interactions with students, Mr. Gandhi has not just focussed on the issue of caste discrimination but has also referred to the sangh parivar’s efforts to mute all dissenting voices. Indeed, he said students should be able to freely express their political views without fear of punishment, even as he raised the demand for a law assuring freedom of expression for students.
“My main opposition to Mr. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and the RSS is that they are trying to crush the spirit of Indian youngsters by imposing one idea from on top,” Mr. Gandhi told the striking students on Saturday. “You will one day find that the very same people who crushed Rohith will be blocking your path to freedom, to progress,” he said.
There was a time when the Congress’s support base included Brahmins, Muslims and Dalits. Over the years, this has been whittled away. With the coming into political prominence of Mayawati and the BSP, the Dalit vote, especially in a key State like Uttar Pradesh, has all but abandoned the party.
Over the last two years and more, however, Mr. Gandhi has been making efforts at regaining Dalit support by giving the party’s Dalit Cell a higher profile by getting former IAS officer K Raju to head it. The cell’s activities have increased and serious efforts have been made to try and mainstream members of the Dalit community in participatory and decision-making roles in the Congress, and evolve a strategy that goes beyond contesting from reserved seats.
In recent days, Mr. Raju has held a series of meetings with the National Students Union of India, the Youth Congress and their Andhra Pradesh and Telangana units to strategise on the twin issues of caste discrimination and freedom of choice.
