The suicide of Rohith Vemulla in Hyderabad that is fast turning into a nationwide movement on Dalit emancipation-related issues, will have a huge bearing on the upcoming Budget session of Parliament. A number of Opposition leaders say that while the Finance Bill will be allowed to be passed, other legislative business, including the passing of crucial economic legislations, would be impacted.
Vemulla’s suicide has already created an alliance of sorts, ready to take on the BJP. Congress, JD (U), Left, AAP, TMC will ask for the resignations of Union HRD minster Smriti Irani and labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya for their “insensitive handling” of the case.
The suicide case has already turned into a national issue, with cries for justice being heard from across the country. While the PM himself had to speak out on the issue, a couple of BJP Dalit MPs told Businessworld that they are hearing of unrest and protests in their far-flung constituencies in Rajasthan and Maharashtra as well. What should alarm the BJP is that their Dalit MPs have made common cause with the protesting leaders, demanding that the PM intervene and justice be done in the case.
After Irani’s rather tactless public intervention, and a few of BJP office bearers’ move to question the Dalit identity of Vemulla, the party is having to fight the charge of being unsympathetic to the Dalit cause, and being anti-Dalit.
While BJP leaders trace it to Pandit Deendayal Upadhya’s philosophy, it’s a fact that after the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, a large number of Dalits (and OBCs) had rallied behind the BJP. The trend has more or less continued. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a big chunk of Dalit voters in UP ditched the BSP for the BJP. That a large section of Dalits posed faith in the BJP can be gauged by the fact that 48 per cent of reserved seats (for SCs) were bagged by the BJP in the last parliamentary elections.
While Dalits have posed their faith in the party, do Dalits figure in leadership positions in BJP? Hardly. In Amit Shah’s outgoing team of national office-bearers, there’s not a single Dalit among party general secretaries and vice presidents. There’s just a token Dalit representation in the BJP Parliamentary Board.
Maybe it’s the public pressure that will force Shah to include a few Dalits in leadership positions in the party when he reconstitutes his team.
A greater sensitisation to Dalit issues in public space is what will ensure that Vemulla’s death is not wasted.
(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 08-02-2016)
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Suman K Jha was the deputy editor with BW Businessworld
