Dalit Movements After 1947 (Post Independent India)

Dalit Movements After 1947 (Post-Independent India)

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The Dalit movement in India represents one of the most significant and sustained struggles for social justice in modern Indian history — a movement rooted in centuries of resistance against caste-based oppression, and one that acquired new institutional, constitutional, and political dimensions after independence. Far from being a purely post-1947 phenomenon, the Dalit movement’s modern origins trace back to the Bhakti Cult, through 19th-century reformers like Jyotirao Phule, and reached their most decisive articulation in the life and work of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. After independence, this legacy took new forms — from Ambedkar’s own conversion to Buddhism and his central role in drafting the Constitution, to the militant Dalit Panther movement of the 1970s, and finally to the assertion of Bahujan electoral politics under Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. This article traces the full arc of the Dalit movement — its origins, ideological currents, key leaders, and its evolving relationship with the post-independence Indian state — before examining two important exam-oriented questions on the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, and the differing approaches of Ambedkar and Gandhi.

Origins and Meaning of “Dalit”

• Dalits were among the worst exploited and oppressed people in India. However, those deliberately degraded as “untouchables” by Brahmanical forces had never truly accepted their position — they had begun protesting against it from the very beginning.
• Their earliest response to untouchability found expression in the Bhakti Cult.
  • Prominent saints of this movement included Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, Ramananda, Vallabhacharya, Kabir, Tukaram, Meerabai, and Chaitanya.
  • Untouchable saints such as Ravidas, Chokhamela, Nandana, and several others were themselves drawn to the Bhakti Cult.
• The modern Dalit movement finds its origins in the 19th century, when Dalits began transforming their lives and their aspirations began to be taken seriously — though notably, most source material on the background of these movements was written not by Dalits themselves, but by foreigners who developed an interest in them.
• The word “Dalit” is derived from Sanskrit, meaning “crushed” or “broken to pieces.”
  • It was perhaps first used by Jyotirao Phule in the 19th century, in the context of the oppression faced by the erstwhile “untouchable” castes of the Hindus.
  • Mahatma Gandhi later adopted the term “Harijan” (roughly, “Children of God”) to identify the former Untouchables.
  • Under the Indian Constitution, Dalits fall under the category of “Scheduled Castes.”
• Today, many Dalits use the term to move away from more derogatory caste names or the term “Untouchable” itself.
  • The contemporary use of “Dalit” centres on the idea that, as a people, the group may have been broken by oppression, but survives and even thrives by finding meaning in the struggle of its existence. Dalit is now a political identity.
• Dalit movements were an expression of the growth of a larger national and human consciousness among India’s oppressed people — a democratic awakening of the lower castes.
  • Fundamentally, these were movements to achieve social mobility for groups that had been left behind, and a reaction against the social, cultural, and economic dominance and exclusiveness of other classes over them.

Factors Behind the Growth of Dalit Consciousness

• The Dalit movement is, at its root, the outcome of centuries of accumulated resentment generated by the treatment meted out to Dalits by the upper castes of India.
• Since Dalits were assigned the duty of serving the other three Varnas, they were denied higher training of the mind and were excluded from social, economic, and political status.
  • The division of labour led to a division of labourers based on inequality and exploitation.
  • The caste system degenerated Dalit lives into a pathogenic condition, in which occupations effectively hardened into castes.
• For centuries, Dalits were excluded from mainstream society and permitted only menial occupations — such as cleaning dry latrines and sweeping.
  • Because Dalits lived within Hindu villages, they did not have the advantage of geographical isolation that tribal communities enjoyed.
  • They were pushed to the outer areas of villages, while the mainland was occupied by Brahmins, and were barred from entering these mainland areas in every sense — prohibited even from wearing decent dress and ornaments, besides being treated as untouchable.
• Many atrocities against Dalits were committed in the name of religion.
  • Under the Devadasi system, and in extreme cases, molten lead was poured into the ears of a Dalit who happened to overhear a sacred mantra.
  • To retain their stronghold over society, the upper castes monopolised education.
• The most inhuman of these practices was untouchability itself, which forced Dalits to live in extremely degrading conditions — ultimately compelling them to rise and protest against the inhuman practices of Brahmanism, beginning their movement with the basic demand for equality.
• The Dalit movement that gained momentum in the post-independence period thus has roots stretching back to the Vedic period, through the Shramanic–Brahmanic confrontation, and later the Bhakti Movement.
• With the introduction of the English language and the influence of Christian missionaries, Dalits began to encounter the ideals of equality and liberty, marking the beginning of the Dalit movement in its modern form.
  • Frustrated Dalit minds, when combined with reason, began active confrontation against the atrocities of Brahmanism.
  • New systems of education and new political and economic forces — resting on principles of individual liberty, equity, and democratic spirit — gradually percolated among the Indian masses, including Dalits.
  • Educated Dalits gradually began articulating the problems of poverty, exploitation, and humiliation inflicted by the upper castes.
• The movement also received a fillip from British colonial policy, in particular:
  • The British policy of classifying caste in census operations, which — as part of a broader divide-and-rule strategy — inadvertently provided an opportunity for caste mobilisation and claims to social pre-eminence.
  • The influence of Western philosophers, whose ideas such as “all men are created equal” further energised the growth of Dalit consciousness.
  • Improved communication networks, which made wider links and coordination possible; new systems of education, which opened avenues for socio-economic advancement; a new administrative system and rule of law, which undermined certain long-held upper-caste privileges; and economic forces such as industrialisation, which opened up equal opportunities for all and dismantled social barriers.
  • The commercialisation of agricultural production and agrarian relations, the emergence of contractual relations, and new employment opportunities outside the village — in factories, mandis, and elsewhere.
  • Constitutional provisions in favour of Dalits, which empowered them and led to greater awareness of their rights.
• Social reform movements — such as those led by Jyotiba Phule in Maharashtra and Sri Narayana Guru in Kerala — also began to question the caste system and caste-based inequality.

Key Pre-Independence Leaders and Reformers

Jyotirao Govindrao Phule (1827–1890)

• The first leader of Dalits, Phule occupies a unique position among the social reformers of 19th-century Maharashtra.
• He concentrated his energies against the unjust caste system, under which millions had suffered for centuries.
• He founded the Satya Sodhak Samaj (“Society of Seekers of Truth”), serving as both its president and treasurer.
  • The organisation’s main objective was the liberation of the Shudras and prevention of their exploitation by Brahmins.

Narayan Guru

• Born into the Ezhava caste (an untouchable caste) in Kerala, he established the SNDP (Shree Narayan Dharma Paripalana Yogam), both within Kerala and beyond.
• He criticised Gandhiji for his faith in Chaturvarna, which Narayan Guru maintained was the parent of the caste system and untouchability, pointing out that the differences between castes were only superficial.
• He gave a new slogan: “One religion, one caste and one God for mankind,” and built temples open to all castes.

Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahuji

• Regarded as the founder of reservations, he was the first person to introduce reservation provisions for Dalits in government jobs, and was keen to ensure that Dalits received respect.

Other Leaders

E. V. Ramaswami Naicker

• A crusader for social equality, Naicker fought against untouchability as the leader of the Justice Party–Dravidian Movement.
• He denounced Hinduism as an instrument of Brahmanical control, condemned the Laws of Manu as inhuman, and dismissed the Puranas as mere “fairy tales.”

Jagjivan Ram

• In Bihar, Jagjivan Ram emerged as the most important Congress leader working on Dalit issues, forming the Khetmajoor Sabha and the Depressed Class League.
  • In 1937, he organised agricultural labourers at Gopalganj, Bihar, to fight for their right to move between places for higher wages.
• He was the founder-president of the Dalit Varga Sangh, one of India’s biggest Dalit organisations, conceived to unite downtrodden people through small village-level segments.
• As Labour Minister in the central government, he oversaw the passage of a Labour Act fixing minimum wages for labourers.
• He also founded the All India Backward Classes Federation, one of the largest organisations working for the interests of backward classes.

Gandhiji

• Gandhiji integrated the abolition of untouchability into the national movement, organising major campaigns such as the Vaikom and Guruvayur Satyagrahas.
• His effort was to make the upper castes realise the severity of the injustice caused by untouchability, stressing the issue through public speeches and writings in Young India and Harijan.
  • He held that Hinduism contained no sanction for treating any human being as untouchable, and that the Bhagavad Gita never taught that a chandala was in any way inferior to Brahmins.
• To boost efforts for the upliftment of Harijans, Gandhiji founded the Harijan Sevak Sangh in 1932, while in jail — an organisation outside the Congress, born out of the fast he undertook that year.

Swami Vivekananda

• Swami Vivekananda held that untouchables were not “depressed” so much as “suppressed” by Hindus, who in turn had suppressed themselves through this very act of suppression.

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Pre-Independence Work)

• Dr. B. R. Ambedkar emerged as the major leader of the Depressed Classes by the late 1920s.
  • He began legal practice at the Bombay High Court in 1924, from which point his active public career as a social worker, politician, writer, and educationist commenced.
• From December 1920, he brought out the Marathi fortnightly Mook Nayak (“Leader of the Dumb”).
  • In January 1919, he had given evidence before the South Borough Reforms (Franchise) Committee, claiming political rights for the depressed classes of India.
• In 1924, he started the Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha in Bombay, for the moral and material progress of untouchable students.
  • To propagate this cause further, he started the Marathi fortnightly Bahishkrit Bharat in April 1927, and a weekly, Janta, in 1930.
• In 1927, he founded the Samaj Samta Sangh to preach social equality between untouchables and caste Hindus, with inter-caste dining and inter-caste marriage as key programme components; the organisation’s mouthpiece was another paper, Samta (1929).
• In 1927, he led a Satyagraha to establish the civic right of untouchables to draw water from a public tank at Mahad, in Kolaba district — Hindus claimed the tank as private property, leading to prolonged litigation, which Ambedkar won in the Bombay High Court in 1937.
• He led another Satyagraha in March 1930 to establish the right of untouchables to enter the famous Kalaram Temple at Nasik, withdrawn in 1934.
• In recognition of his leadership of the Depressed Classes, Ambedkar was nominated a delegate to all three Round Table Conferences in London (1930–1933), serving on some committees until 1934.
  • His demand for a separate electorate for untouchables was opposed by Gandhiji at the Minorities Committee of the Second Round Table Conference (November 1931).
• In 1935, he announced that untouchables should leave the Hindu fold altogether and adopt another religion, believing they would never gain recognition of social equality within it.
  • He first considered Sikhism (1938–40), but this effort proved fruitless. He eventually embraced Buddhism, giving Deeksha to lakhs of followers at Nagpur.
• Attempts were also made to organise Dalits politically:
  • He founded the Independent Labour Party in 1936, which captured all the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes in the Bombay Presidency legislature.
  • He worked to abolish the exploitative Khoti system prevailing in the Konkan region of Maharashtra, and the Vetti/Maharaki system (unpaid hereditary service rendered to caste Hindus in local administration).
  • He successfully persuaded the government to recruit Mahars into the military, culminating in the formation of the first Mahar Regiment in 1941.
  • Between April 1942 and 1946, he widened his political base and formed the Scheduled Castes Federation as an all-India political party in 1942; though it contested elections, its candidates lost to the Congress.
  • He also cooperated with the colonial government, on the understanding that this would secure more benefits for Scheduled Castes — serving on the Governor-General’s Executive Council (1942–46), through which he secured central government funds for SC/ST education and reservation of posts in central and provincial services.
• With the growing process of democratisation, Ambedkar demanded adequate representation for Dalits in legislatures and administration.
  • The Government of India Act, 1919 had provided one seat for the Depressed Classes in the Central Legislative Assembly.
  • In 1932, the British Government under Ramsay MacDonald announced the Communal Award, envisaging a separate electorate for the Depressed Classes; Mahatma Gandhi went on a historic fast in protest, particularly with respect to the Depressed Classes.
  • The issue was resolved through the Poona Pact (September 1932), which provided for the reservation of seats for Depressed Classes within the general electorate.
    • The Constitution of India now provides for reservation of Scheduled Caste seats in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha under Articles 330 and 332, in proportion to their population.
• Ambedkar later joined Nehru’s Cabinet as Law Minister, and served as Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee.
  • He also drafted the Hindu Code Bill with such skill that he was called the “Modern Manu,” ensuring that Dalit concerns found a place in the Constitution.

The Dalit Buddhist Movement (Neo-Buddhist Movement)

• The Dalit Buddhist movement (or Neo-Buddhist movement) is a socio-political movement by Dalits in India, started by B. R. Ambedkar.
  • It radically reinterpreted Buddhism, creating a new sect known as Navayana, and sought to be a socially and politically engaged form of Buddhism.
• The movement was launched in 1956, when nearly half a million Dalits — formerly untouchables — joined Ambedkar in converting to Navayana Buddhism, rejecting Hinduism, challenging the caste system, and promoting Dalit rights.
• Other regional strands also emerged: the Adi Dharm in Punjab, the Adi Hindu movement in Uttar Pradesh, and the Namashudra movement in Bengal.

Dynamics of the Dalit Movement

The strategies, ideologies, and approaches of the Dalit movement varied by leader, place, and time.

Sanskritization

• Some Dalit leaders followed the process of Sanskritization to elevate themselves within the caste hierarchy, adopting Brahmanical manners — including vegetarianism, applying sandalwood paste to the forehead, and wearing the sacred thread.
  • Leaders such as Swami Thykkad (Kerala), Pandit Sunder Lal Sagar (UP), Muldas Vaishya (Gujarat), and Moon Vithoba Raoji Pande (Maharashtra) adopted established upper-caste cultural norms as an assertion of their right to equality.

Adi-Hindu Movement

• Treating Dalits as outside the fourfold Varna system, and describing them as “outcastes” or “Panchama,” gave rise to the Adi-Hindu movement.
  • Certain Dalit leaders believed that Dalits were the original inhabitants of India and were not Hindus at all — that Aryans or Brahmins, who had invaded the country, forcibly imposed untouchability upon these original inhabitants.
  • They believed that discarding Hinduism would automatically end untouchability.
  • Dalits under this movement began calling themselves Adi-Andhras (Andhra), Adi-Karnataka (Karnataka), Adi-Dravidas (Tamil Nadu), Adi-Hindus (Uttar Pradesh), and Adi-Dharmis (Punjab).
  • Acharya Ishvardatt Medharthi (1900–1971) of Kanpur claimed that Dalits (“Adi Hindus”) were the ancient rulers of India, trapped into slavery by Aryan invaders.

Conversions

• Dalits also pursued religious conversion as a route to escape untouchability and improve their moral and financial condition.
  • A significant number converted to Christianity, particularly in Kerala.
  • Some, especially in Punjab, converted to Sikhism, becoming known as Mazhabis, Namdharis, Kabir Panthis, and similar groups.
  • Others converted to Buddhism — most notably Dr. Ambedkar himself, along with millions of followers, at Nagpur in 1956.

Founding New Sects

• As a protest against Hinduism, some Dalit leaders founded their own sects or religions:
  • Guru Ghasi Das (Madhya Pradesh) founded the Satnami sect.
  • Guruchand Thakur (Bengal) founded the Matua sect.
  • Ayyankali (Kerala) founded the SJPY (Sadhu Jana Paripalana Yogam).
  • Mangu Ram (Punjab) founded Adi Dharam.

The Dalit Literary Movement

• With mainstream media and newspapers largely under the control of the powerful upper castes, the pen became the primary tool available to Dalits for self-expression.
  • Denied a voice in mainstream media, Dalits began publishing their own magazines to record their own experiences.
• Dalit literature — literature born of Dalit consciousness — first emerged during the Mukti movement, and later flourished significantly with the formation of the Dalit Panthers, producing a wave of poetry and stories depicting the miseries of Dalits rooted in the rules and laws of the Vedas and Smritis.
  • This literature argued that the Dalit movement fights not only against Brahmins, but against anyone who practises exploitation — whether Brahmin or Dalit.
  • New revolutionary songs, poems, stories, and autobiographies poured out of this literary movement, as educated Dalits and intellectuals began speaking openly about their problems, explaining to their less literate counterparts the changes society required.
  • Dalit literature compared the past condition of Dalits to their present and future — not to foster hatred, but to raise awareness of their circumstances.

Power as a Means to Attain Dignity

• Since power can only be countered by power, the first prerequisite for attaining it was knowledge.
  • Phule and Ambedkar thus placed central emphasis on Dalit education, which would confer not just reasoning and judgement, but also political power, and thereby socio-economic status and a life of dignity.
  • They understood that gaining political power could serve as either an end in itself or a means to other ends — with power, Dalits would no longer need to “beg” from upper castes, and would gain greater economic and educational opportunities.
  • Upper castes enjoyed social power regardless of individual circumstances through their linkages with fellow caste members across the bureaucracy, judiciary, and legislature — making it essential for Dalits to acquire power to influence the country’s economic and political scenario.
• Phule held that without knowledge, intellect is lost; without intellect, morality is lost; without morality, dynamism is lost; without dynamism, money is lost; and without money, the Shudras remained degraded — all this misery traceable to a lack of knowledge.
  • Inspired by Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, Phule sought education as the only path capable of uniting Dalits in their struggle for equality.
• This movement was carried forward by Ambedkar, who contested with Gandhi to secure Dalits their right to equality, famously urging them to “Educate, Organize and Agitate.”
  • Education — the primary source of reason — equips the mind with the knowledge needed to discern the truth of phenomena, including the reality of Brahmanism in Indian society, and to agitate against caste-based inhuman practices.
  • Only through genuine agitation could Dalits attain power and win their struggle against exploitation.
• Gandhi’s politics, by contrast, centred unambiguously on the defence of caste within the preservation of the Brahmanical social order — he fought for Dalit rights but was not prepared to endorse inter-caste marriage.

Post-Independence Dalit Movements

B. R. Ambedkar and the Buddhist Dalit Movement

• Babasaheb Ambedkar has undoubtedly remained the central figure in the epistemology of the Dalit universe — revered as one who devoted every moment of his life to their emancipation, who sacrificed comforts within his reach to remain on their side, who conclusively disproved the theory of caste-based superiority by rising to be the tallest among the tall despite enormous odds, and who finally held forth the torch to illuminate the path of their future.
• Upon India’s transfer of power on 15 August 1947, the new Congress-led government invited Ambedkar to serve as the nation’s first Law Minister, which he accepted.
  • On 29 August, he was appointed Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, charged by the Assembly with writing India’s new Constitution.
• The text he prepared provided constitutional guarantees and protections for a wide range of civil liberties — including freedom of religion, the abolition of untouchability, and the outlawing of all forms of discrimination.
  • He argued for extensive economic and social rights for women, and won the Assembly’s support for introducing a system of reservations in civil service jobs, schools, and colleges for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes — akin to affirmative action — through which India’s lawmakers hoped to eradicate the socio-economic inequalities and lack of opportunity faced by India’s depressed classes.
• Ambedkar resigned from the Cabinet in 1951, following the stalling in Parliament of his draft of the Hindu Code Bill, which sought to expound gender equality in the laws of inheritance and marriage.
  • He independently contested the 1952 Lok Sabha election but was defeated in his Bombay constituency by the little-known Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar.
  • He was subsequently appointed to the Rajya Sabha in March 1952, remaining a member until his death.

Conversion to Buddhism

• Ambedkar had considered converting to Sikhism, whose framework of resistance to oppression appealed also to other Scheduled Caste leaders, but rejected this path after concluding, following meetings with Sikh community leaders, that conversion might leave him with a “second-rate status” among Sikhs.
• He had studied Buddhism throughout his life, and around 1950 turned his full attention to it, travelling to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to attend a meeting of the World Fellowship of Buddhists.
  • While dedicating a new Buddhist vihara near Pune, he announced he was writing a book on Buddhism and planned a formal conversion once it was complete.
  • He visited Burma twice in 1954, the second time to attend the third conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Rangoon.
  • In 1955, he founded the Bharatiya Bauddha Mahasabha.
  • He completed his final work, The Buddha and His Dhamma, in 1956; it was published posthumously.
• After meetings with the Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Saddhatissa, Ambedkar organised a formal public conversion ceremony at Nagpur on 14 October 1956.
  • He and his wife completed their own conversion, and he then converted roughly 500,000 of his gathered supporters.
  • He then travelled to Kathmandu, Nepal, to attend the Fourth World Buddhist Conference.
  • His works The Buddha or Karl Marx and “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India” remained incomplete at his death.
• His allegation that Hinduism was the very foundation of the caste system made him controversial and unpopular within the Hindu community, but his conversion sparked a revival of interest in Buddhist philosophy in India and abroad.
  • Ambedkar’s political philosophy has given rise to numerous political parties, publications, and workers’ unions active across India, especially in Maharashtra.
• The Buddhist movement was somewhat hindered by Ambedkar’s death so soon after his conversion, and did not receive the immediate mass support from the Untouchable population that he had hoped for.
  • Division and a lack of direction among leaders of the Ambedkarite movement proved an additional impediment.
  • According to the 2001 Census, India had 7.95 million Buddhists, of whom at least 5.83 million were in Maharashtra — making Buddhism the fifth-largest religion in India, comprising 6% of Maharashtra’s population but less than 1% of India’s overall population.
  • The Buddhist revival remains concentrated in two states: Ambedkar’s native Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh — the land of Acharya Medharthi and his associates.

Acharya Ishvardatt Medharthi (1900–1971) of Kanpur

• A strong supporter of the Dalit cause, Medharthi studied Pali at Gurukul Kangri, and was well versed in Buddhist texts.
  • He was initiated into Buddhism by Gyan Keto (born Peter Schoenfeldt, a German who arrived in Ceylon in 1936 and became a Buddhist) and Lokanatha, in 1937.
• Medharthi strongly criticised the caste system, claiming that the Dalits (“Adi Hindus”) were the ancient rulers of India, enslaved by Aryan invaders.
• He retired from his Buddhapuri school in 1960, shifting to an ashram in Haridwar, where he turned to the Arya Samaj and conducted Vedic yajnas across India.
  • His follower Bhoj Dev Mudit converted to Buddhism in 1968 and established a school of his own.

Rajendranath Aherwar

• An important Dalit leader in Kanpur, Aherwar joined the Republican Party of India and converted to Buddhism along with his entire family in 1961.
  • In 1967, he founded the Kanpur branch of the Bharatiya Buddh Mahasabha.
• The Dalit Buddhist movement in Kanpur gained fresh impetus with the arrival of Dipankar, a Chamar bhikkhu, in 1980, whose first public appearance was scheduled at a mass conversion drive in 1981, organised by Rahulan Ambawadekar, an RPI Dalit leader.
  • In April 1981, Ambawadekar founded the Dalit Panthers (U.P. Branch), inspired by the original Maharashtrian Dalit Panthers.

Dalit Panthers

• In the early 1970s, a new radical trend known as the Dalit Panthers emerged in Maharashtra as part of a wider, countrywide wave of radical politics.

Background

• In 1967, the first non-Congress state governments were formed; political movements by youth were gathering momentum worldwide, and in Maharashtra, the Yuvak Kranti Dal had been formed.
  • Between 1959 and 1964, a large land rights movement led by Dadasaheb Gaikwad, associated with the Left, conducted agitations in Marathwada and Khandesh, resulting in over a lakh of people being jailed.
  • In the late 1960s, Chief Minister Y. B. Chavan was forced to extend reservation benefits to converted Buddhists as well.
• Dalit youth grew emboldened to question the new post-Ambedkar leadership of the Republican Party of India (RPI), whom they felt were too soft on their issues.
• Dalit literature began to flourish, speaking in a new, angry language:
  • Dr. M. N. Wankhede published Asmita from Aurangabad; Baburao Bagul started Amhi (“We”) in Mumbai.
  • These magazines gave rise to a galaxy of Dalit literary figures, including Daya Pawar, Namdeo Dhasal, Arjun Dangle, Avinash Mahatekar, and Raja Dhale.
  • Dhasal’s Golpitha, published in 1971, caused a sensation in conservative Marathi literary circles with its crude, direct language.
• The movement’s anger was sharpened by recent atrocities against Dalits — including the case of a Dalit woman paraded naked in Pune district.
  • When Dhasal released the group’s manifesto, called Zahirnama, in 1972, Dhale responded with a pamphlet alleging it had a purely Communist agenda.

Formation and Ideology

• The Dalit Panthers claimed ideological allegiance to Ambedkar’s thought, but were directly inspired by the Black Panther Party in the United States — a socialist movement combating racial discrimination against African-Americans during the mid-20th-century civil rights movement.
  • They adopted the name “Panthers” because they intended to fight for their rights like panthers, rather than be suppressed by the strength of their oppressors.
  • The US Black Panther Party acknowledged and supported the Dalit Panthers through its own weekly newspaper, circulated worldwide between 1967 and 1980.
• The Dalit Panthers were formed on 9 July 1972 in Mumbai, as India prepared for grand celebrations marking 25 years of Independence.
  • Writer-poets J. V. Pawar and Namdeo Dhasal, inspired by the Black Panthers, immediately called for a boycott of the 25th Independence Day celebrations, terming it a “Black Independence Day.”
  • The movement was conceived as a radical departure from earlier Dalit movements, emphasising militancy and revolutionary attitudes akin to their Black American counterparts.
• There were material reasons for the emergence of the Dalit Panthers:
  • Children of the Ambedkarian movement had begun graduating from universities in large numbers in the late 1960s, only to face a bleak and uncertain future.
  • The much-publicised constitutional provisions for their upliftment had turned out to be little more than a mirage, while their political vehicle — the RPI — sank ever deeper into parliamentarism, losing sight of the real problems facing the people.
  • The global atmosphere of militant insurgency at the time also provided source material for articulating their anger.
• Moving beyond purely emotive politics, the Dalit Panthers focused on economic issues and social justice; the members themselves were working-class people.
  • The organisation was directly modelled on the Black Panthers, with members drawn largely from Neo-Buddhists and Scheduled Castes, many of its leaders being literary figures.
• The controversy over Dhale’s article “Kala Swatantrata Din” (“Black Independence Day”), published in Sadhana in 1972, created a sensation and publicised the Dalit Panthers across Maharashtra.
  • The Panthers’ full support for Dhale during this controversy brought him into the movement and established him as a prominent leader; branches sprang up spontaneously across Maharashtra as media coverage spread.

Ideological Significance and Critique

• The Dalit Panther movement marked a radical departure from earlier Dalit movements — its initial thrust on militancy, including the use of rustic arms and threats, gave it a distinctly revolutionary colour.
  • Its manifesto broke new ground in radicalising the political space for the Dalit movement, imparting Dalits a proletarian-radical class identity and linking their struggles to the struggles of oppressed peoples worldwide.
  • This clearly leftist stance ran counter to the more accepted, moderate legacy of Ambedkar as commonly projected — though it was framed, somewhat awkwardly, in his name.
• While Ambedkar’s framework remained the only articulate one that acknowledged the specifically casteist dimension of Dalit oppression, Marxism offered a scientific framework for confronting the broader deprivations Dalits shared with other oppressed groups.
  • Both Dalits and non-Dalits among the “have-nots” craved fundamental change — the former largely through Ambedkarian methods, the latter through Marxian methods that treated every social process as a reflection of material reality — and both approaches carried the risk of erroneous interpretation.
• It is to the Panthers’ credit that they attempted, for the first time in the country, to assimilate these two ideologies — but the attempt proved abortive in the absence of any real effort to reconcile them or draw out their non-contradictory essence.
  • There was neither theoretical work to integrate the two ideologies, nor practical work combining the social dimension of caste with, say, the land question in rural settings.
  • This ideological amalgam proved unacceptable to those still under the spell of the prevailing Ambedkar icon, and the revolutionary seedling within the Dalit movement withered.
• Reactionaries objected to the manifesto’s radical content, alleging it had been “doctored” by radical Naxalites.
  • The Naxalite movement, which had erupted around the same time as a similar disenchantment with established politics, saw a potential ally in the Panthers and attempted to forge policy links with them.
  • Even had the Panthers patterned their programme entirely on the ten-point programme of the Black Panther Party (BPP) — their basic inspiration — it would have been no less radical, and its material emphasis would still have proven uncomfortable for the established Ambedkar icon.
  • Radicalism was the very premise of the Dalit Panthers’ existence, and the quarrel over its programme essentially reflected the clash between the established Ambedkar icon and the radical version proposed by the Panthers.
• The Dalit Panthers’ lasting positive contribution was that they, for the first time, exposed Dalits to a radical Ambedkar and brought a section of Dalit youth closer to accepting this reading.

Criticism and Decline

• Like the BPP, the Panthers lacked a suitable ideology to effectively channel their anger towards their goals.
  • They reflected both the positive contributions of the BPP — self-defence, mass organising, propaganda techniques, radical orientation — and its negative traits, including a “TV mentality” (treating revolutionary struggle like a fast-paced television programme), dogmatism, neglect of the economic foundations needed for organisation, lumpen tendencies, rhetoric outstripping capability, lack of clarity about the form of struggle, and eventual corruptibility of leadership.
  • The Panthers’ militancy remained largely confined to speeches and writings, and its stagnation owed much to its inability to escape the petit-bourgeois ideological trap represented by the established Ambedkar icon.
• The Dalit Panther phase came to represent a clash between two icons: a radical “Ambedkar” — a committed rationalist perpetually striving for the deliverance of the world’s most oppressed, granting his followers full freedom to search for truth using rationalist methodology — and the more familiar “Ambedkar” who forbade violent methods, advocated constitutional means, and was a staunch anti-Communist and ardent Buddhist.
  • The radical icon was ultimately projected without adequate conviction, with no one — neither communists nor Dalits — fully committed to propagating it, leaving it a veritable hodgepodge.
• During the Emergency, Dhasal supported Indira Gandhi, precipitating a crisis within the Panthers.
  • After the Nagpur conference of 1976, Dhale and J. V. Pawar left to form their own organisation, Mass Movement, marking the beginning of the “second stage” of the Panthers.
  • As Dhasal lost influence after 1977, a new generation of leaders — including Professor Arun Kamble and Ramdas Athawale — took charge, renaming the organisation the Bharatiya Dalit Panthers.

Kanshi Ram’s Movement and the Bahujan Samaj Party (Mayawati)

• In North India, a new political formation, the BSP, emerged in the 1980s under Kanshi Ram, and later under Mayawati, who went on to become Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
• In 1971, Kanshi Ram quit his job at the DRDO and, with his colleagues, established the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Classes and Minorities Employees Welfare Association.
  • This association addressed the problems and harassment faced by such employees, while also seeking to educate members and raise awareness of the caste system.
• In 1973, Kanshi Ram established BAMCEF (the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation), with its first operating office opening in Delhi in 1976 under the motto “Educate, Organize and Agitate.”
  • BAMCEF served as a base to spread Ambedkar’s ideas and beliefs, and Kanshi Ram continued building his network, raising awareness of how the caste system functioned in India.
• In 1980, he created a road show called “Ambedkar Mela,” depicting Ambedkar’s life and views through pictures and narration.
• In 1981, he formed the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) as a parallel organisation to BAMCEF, aimed at resisting attacks on activists spreading caste awareness and demonstrating that workers could unite and fight — though not a registered political party, it was political in nature.
• In 1984, having begun consolidating the Dalit vote, Kanshi Ram founded the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as a full-fledged political party — later achieving significant success in Uttar Pradesh under Mayawati.
  • It was only in 1986 that he formally declared his transition from social worker to politician, committing himself exclusively to the BSP; he later converted to Buddhism.
• Kanshi Ram’s movement reflected a markedly different strategy — coining the “Bahujan” identity, encompassing SCs, STs, BCs/OBCs, and religious minorities, in contrast to the narrower “Dalit” identity, which practically represented only Scheduled Castes.
  • He began with an ostensibly apolitical organisation of Bahujan government employees, identifying them as the community’s key resource, which later catalysed the formation of the agitating DS4 group and eventually the BSP.
• In purely electoral terms, Kanshi Ram’s strategy proved effective in certain parts of the country, giving fresh, qualitative impetus to what had become a moribund Dalit politics — locating it within a wider space encompassing all of India’s downtrodden, even as he continued to identify these groups primarily in caste and community terms.
  • He shrewdly grasped the political efficacy of the Ambedkar icon that sanctioned the pursuit of power in the name of downtrodden castes, adding religious minorities — who carried their own sense of marginalisation — to build a formidable electoral constituency.
• However, the BSP’s politics were notably devoid of any coherent class agenda, with the pursuit of political power becoming an end in itself.
  • Critics argue this cannot genuinely be read as a process of empowerment of the subject people, given the continuing statistical evidence of atrocities and the overall condition of the poor under BSP rule.
  • This strategy has, in practice, drawn the movement into alliance with the ruling classes — reflected in the BSP’s electoral arrangements with the Congress, BJP, and Akali Dal (Mann), including direct power-sharing arrangements in Uttar Pradesh.
• Kanshi Ram’s reading of Ambedkar has been criticised for overlooking the fact that Ambedkar had to carve out space for his movement in the crevices between competing Indian political forces and the colonial power, seeking maximum space between the Muslim League and Congress, and eventually bringing the Dalit issue onto the national political agenda.
  • By contrast, Kanshi Ram’s obsession appears to have been the maximisation of power by whatever means, without any real utility placed on programme or manifesto, and without clarity about what “empowering Bahujans” actually meant in substantive terms.
  • His non-democratic, unitary command over the party structure reflected the compulsions of holding it together against rivals, but also stood in contrast to the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity that underpinned Ambedkar’s own movement — for Ambedkar, political power was a means; for Kanshi Ram, it appeared to be the end itself.
• Kanshi Ram’s approach can be traced to a superfluous attempt to replicate Ambedkar’s 1920s movement:
  • When Ambedkar recognised the potency of political power, he launched the Indian Labour Party, seeking to unite the working class across caste lines; it was only when political polarisation took a communal turn that he abandoned this project and launched the Scheduled Castes Federation.
  • Ambedkar himself joined hands with a few political parties — the communists (during the mill workers’ strike) and the Praja Samajwadi Party of Ashok Mehta in the 1952 elections — while accepting Congress support without ever tying his political outfit directly to the Congress.
  • The BSP’s record, by contrast, shows a readiness to join hands with any party promising a share of power. Where Ambedkar identified capitalism and Brahmanism as the twin enemies of his movement, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati embraced them enthusiastically.
• Apart from these broad political trends, several regional outfits also emerged — including the Dalit Mahasabha (Andhra Pradesh), Mass Movement (Maharashtra), and Dalit Sena (Bihar), among others — some engaging directly in electoral politics, though none, so far, offering a radically different icon of Ambedkar from those already described.

Did the State Really Help?

• The post-1947 State, which has consistently propagandised its concern for Dalits and the poor, has in practice been significantly instrumental in aggravating the caste problem through several of its own policies.
• Even apparently progressive measures — the Land Ceiling Act, the Green Revolution, poverty-removal programmes, reservations for Dalits in services, and the Mandal Commission — have, in certain respects, worked against their own stated objectives.
  • The Land Ceiling Act created a layer of middle-caste farmers who consolidated in caste terms into a formidable constituency; this group — traditionally the immediate upper-caste layer above Dalits — assumed virtual custody of Brahmanism in order to coerce Dalit landless labourers into serving their socio-economic interests and to suppress assertive Dalit expression at the outset.
  • The Green Revolution, the main instrument for introducing capitalisation in agriculture, reinforced the appetite of landlords and big farmers for land, given the huge surplus this State-sponsored revolution produced for them.
    • It resulted in geographical imbalance and unequal terms of trade favouring urban areas, with an impact on Dalits far more excruciating than that of the Land Ceiling Act.
  • The much-publicised Poverty Removal Programme aggravated the gap between the heightened hopes and aspirations of Dalits, on one hand, and feelings of deprivation among poorer non-Dalit sections in the context of programmes specifically targeted at Dalit upliftment, on the other — tension that further strengthened caste-based demands and deepened the caste divide.
  • Reservations in services, notwithstanding their benefits, caused significant political damage — creating hope and a notional stake in the system that dampened alienation, while those who benefited became politically emasculated, consciously or unconsciously serving as props of the existing system.
    • The context of job scarcity provided reactionary forces ample opportunity to divide youth along caste lines.
  • The Mandal Commission, which enthused many progressive parties and individuals for extending reservations to backward castes, has significantly strengthened caste identities — even as it empowers backward castes (in practice, mainly their richer sections), it is likely to worsen the relative standing of Dalits in villages.

Dalits and Contemporary Indian Politics

• While the Indian Constitution has made special provisions for the social and economic uplift of Dalits (comprising Scheduled Castes and Tribes) to enable upward social mobility, these concessions remain limited to Dalits who continue as Hindus (or Buddhists, Sikhs).
  • There is an ongoing demand among Dalits who have converted to other religions that statutory benefits be extended to them as well, to bring closure to historical injustices.
• Another politically charged issue, linked to the rise of Hindu nationalism, concerns religious conversion.
  • This political current alleges that Dalit conversions stem not from genuine social or theological motivation but from material allurements such as education and jobs.
  • Critics counter that laws banning conversion, and the withdrawal of social relief for those who convert, better explain the inverse pattern — and note that many Dalits are simultaneously becoming part of Hindutva ideology.
• A further political issue concerns affirmative-action measures for Dalit upliftment — quotas in government jobs and university admissions.
  • Seats in the National and State Legislatures are reserved for Scheduled Caste and Tribe candidates, a measure championed by B. R. Ambedkar and other Dalit activists to ensure Dalits obtain a proportionate political voice.
• Anti-Dalit prejudice persists in fringe groups, such as the extremist caste-based militia Ranvir Sena, largely run by upper-caste landlords in parts of Bihar, which opposes equal or special treatment for Dalits and has resorted to violent means to suppress them.

Dalits in Prominent Political Positions

• Some Dalits have achieved notable success in business and politics in modern India:
  • Babu Jagjivan Ram became Deputy Prime Minister of India.
  • In 1997, K. R. Narayanan was elected as the first Dalit President of India; K. G. Balakrishnan became the first Dalit Chief Justice of India.
  • In 2007, Mayawati, a Dalit, was elected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
    • While some attribute her 2007 victory to her ability to win support from both Dalits and Brahmins, caste loyalties were not necessarily voters’ primary concern — inflation and other economic and social development issues were the top priorities of the electorate, regardless of caste.
  • Other Dalits who became Chief Ministers include Damodaram Sanjivayya (Andhra Pradesh), Mayawati (four-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh), and Jitan Ram Manjhi (Bihar).
• Despite anti-discrimination laws, many Dalits continue to suffer social stigma and discrimination, with continuing ethnic tensions and caste-related violence between Dalits and non-Dalits — often attributed to a combination of economically rising Dalits and persisting upper-caste prejudice.

The Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI)

• DICCI is an Indian association promoting business enterprise among Dalits, established in Pune in 2005 by Milind Kamble, a civil engineer and entrepreneur.
  • It is responsible for fostering entrepreneurship among Dalit youth; key members include Kalpana Saroj, Chandra Bhan Prasad, and Rajesh Saraiya.
  • Its membership base continues to expand as more Dalit entrepreneurs become aware of its activities.
• DICCI’s guiding philosophy is captured in its tagline: “Be Job Givers – Not Job Seekers.”
• The Chamber operates with a three-fold mandate:
  1. Bring together all Dalit entrepreneurs under one umbrella.
  2. Become a one-stop resource centre for existing and aspiring Dalit entrepreneurs.
  3. Promote entrepreneurship among Dalits as a solution to their socio-economic problems.

Challenges for DICCI

• Several challenges confront the effort to foster entrepreneurship within the community:
  • The availability of early-stage funding.
  • Creating professional Entrepreneurship Development Programs (EDPs) tailored to Dalit needs without disregarding their social context.
  • Helping existing Dalit entrepreneurs scale up their operations.
• The legacy model of collateral-based lending, preferred by traditional financial institutions, creates an entry barrier for aspiring Dalit entrepreneurs, who rarely possess assets that can be collateralised.
  • A major challenge is finding appropriate sources for advice and mentoring, with DICCI and its members facing a considerable knowledge gap regarding the complexities, opportunities, and risks of the financial sector.

DICCI’s Vision, Mission, and Aim:

• Vision: “Developing Business Leadership”
• Mission: “Be job givers – Not job seekers”
• Aim: “Fight Caste With Capital”

Note: Tracking Recent Dalit Assertions

Aspirants should keep track of recent developments in Dalit movements and assertions, such as:

• Chandrashekhar Azad of Uttar Pradesh and his newly formed political party.
• The rise of “Chamar pop” and “Ambedkar folk” music, with 17-year-old Ginni Mahi emerging as a new star in this genre.
• The Dalit Asmita Yatra, from Ahmedabad to Una, organised for justice — “not revenge.”
• A 21-year-old Dalit man, Pradip Rathod, was hacked to death in Gujarat, apparently for owning and riding a horse; as a symbol of Dalit defiance, his funeral procession was led by his own horse, Raju.
• In UP’s Kasganj district, Dalit man Sanjay Jatav, in the presence of 150 policemen, fulfilled his five-month-long desire to ride a horse in his own wedding procession, breaking years-old caste barriers.

Owing to the efforts of the reformers and movements discussed above, various provisions were laid down in the Constitution of India and in subsequent legislation for the upliftment of Dalits, so that they could live with dignity and security of person. It remains, however, a matter of continuing concern that Indian society has still not been able to fully eradicate untouchability in its true form.

Practice Answer 1: The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955

Q. “In exercising its exclusive power, the Parliament additionally enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act in 1955.” Comment.

• One of the vital steps independent India took was the effort towards the eradication of untouchability.
  • The Indian Constitution abolished the practice of untouchability in 1950, with lawmakers including provisions enabling positive discrimination in educational institutions and public services for socially backward groups.
• Article 17 of the Constitution abolishes the practice of untouchability in any form.
  • Under Article 17, the “enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability” is a punishable offence in accordance with law. This is a fundamental right, enforceable against both individuals and the State.
  • By enacting this Article, the government of independent India acted earnestly to abolish the scourge of caste discrimination, aiming to liberate society from orthodox beliefs and rituals that had lost both legal and moral standing.
  • The Constitution-makers not only criminalised social discrimination but also provided for punishing those who practised it, with the objective of ending the humiliation and harassment faced by Dalits and backward classes, and of ensuring their fundamental rights were preserved.
• Although Article 17 does not define “untouchability,” it is generally understood to mean the social restrictions imposed on certain sections of society regarding access to public places, offering prayers, performing religious services, and enjoying fundamental rights.
  • The Supreme Court has clarified that untouchability should not be understood in its literal grammatical sense, but rather as the practice as it developed historically.
• The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 was passed by Parliament to give concrete content to Article 17, in furtherance of the ideals of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity enshrined in the Preamble, with the aim of removing untouchability in all its forms.
  • The Act penalises manifestations of untouchability including enforcing religious and social disabilities, refusing to admit persons to hospitals, and unlawful compulsory labour.
  • It provides penalties for offences such as:
    • Preventing a person from entering public temples or places of worship, or from drawing water from sacred lakes, tanks, or wells.
    • Enforcing social disabilities such as denying the use of a dharamshala, shop, public restaurant, public hospital, hotel, educational institution, or place of public entertainment, or denying use of any road, river, well, water source, riverbank, or cremation ground.
    • Enforcing occupational, professional, or trade disabilities — including in the enjoyment of benefits under a charitable trust, or in pursuing any general occupation.
    • Refusing to sell goods or render services to a Scheduled Caste person, molesting, injuring, or annoying a person, or organising a boycott or excommunication of a person on grounds of untouchability.
  • Under the Act, the offender “shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of not less than one month and not more than six months or a fine of Rs 500”; subsequent offences attract both imprisonment and fine, with punishment enhanced where considered necessary.
• The Act was subsequently amended and made more stringent by the Untouchability (Offences) Amendment Act, 1976, which also renamed the original Act as the Civil Rights (Protection) Act, 1976.
  • The Act also imposes a duty on public servants to investigate such offences.
• In addition to legislative measures, the Government of India also instituted propaganda against untouchability across the country, observing “Harijan Weeks” and “Harijan Day” nationwide, and forming Advisory Committees at the State and District levels to encourage close contact between untouchables and the upper castes.

Practice Answer 2: Ambedkar’s Political Approach vs. Gandhi’s Reformative Approach

Q. “Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s approach of solving the problem of the downtrodden in India differed from Gandhiji, and his solution to this problem was political.” Explain.

Both Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar were visionary leaders who envisaged the upliftment of India’s downtrodden, but they pursued divergent approaches and strategies towards this common goal — Ambedkar’s approach was fundamentally revolutionary, while Gandhi’s was reformative.

On the Varna System

• Ambedkar viewed the Varna system as inherently discriminatory, opposing it as the root cause of the caste system’s emergence.
• Gandhi, by contrast, supported the Varna system, interpreting it in terms of “duty” — holding that everyone performed their own duty, and that no particular status should be attached to any duty. For Gandhi, Varna represented a non-conflicting social division of labour.

On the Caste System

• Ambedkar sought to remove caste discrimination by eliminating the caste system itself, a position he expressed in his work Annihilation of Caste — for him, discrimination would persist as long as the caste system endured.
• Gandhi, while equally committed to eliminating caste discrimination, sought to retain the caste system itself.

The Role of Upper Castes

• Gandhi urged the middle and upper classes to support and work actively for the upliftment of the depressed sections, spreading this message through his weekly publication Harijan, and appealing to Congressmen to work in villages to serve untouchables and integrate them with the mainstream.
• Ambedkar, by contrast, placed little faith in the help or support of the upper classes, instead encouraging Dalits to educate themselves and fight for their own rights.
  • When it became evident that Dalits would never secure their demanded rights while remaining within the existing social hierarchy, Ambedkar advocated a fundamental change in Dalit identity, placing Dalit demands outside the fold of Hinduism through his conversion to Buddhism — a path followed by a mass conversion of his supporters.
• While Ambedkar focused on both the social dignity and empowerment of Dalits, Gandhi’s focus remained primarily on social dignity alone.

Ambedkar’s Predominantly Political Solution

Ambedkar’s preference for a largely political solution is manifest in his body of work:

• He established the Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha on 20 July 1924 in Bombay, to foster new socio-political awareness among untouchables, founded on the principles of “Educate, Agitate and Organize.”
• He launched Satyagrahas to establish untouchables’ civic rights to enter Hindu temples and draw water from public wells.
• He saw a separate electorate as the only genuine hope for securing political representation for untouchables, and accordingly demanded one in 1928.
• He formed the Independent Labour Party (1936), which argued for the interests of the Indian labour class while also stressing the need for the annihilation of the caste system.
• He formed the Scheduled Castes Federation (1942) to fight for Dalit rights — the successor organisation to the Independent Labour Party, which later evolved into the Republican Party of India.
• After independence, Ambedkar ensured the abolition of untouchability under Article 17, and reservation for Dalits under Articles 15 and 16.

Beyond his political strategy, Ambedkar also proposed non-political socio-economic solutions — such as inter-caste marriage, inter-caste dining, and educational and job reservations.

Gandhi, in contrast, prescribed a moral-spiritual solution to the problem — holding that everyone performs their own duties, none superior or inferior, and that all deserve equal respect. He offered the concept of “bread labour,” and believed the focus should be on changing the hearts of people to eliminate discrimination at its root.