In his last days, B.R. Ambedkar wanted to wind up the Scheduled Caste Federation and form a broadbased political party that would include the poor and the oppressed across religions and castes. He had written a letter to his socialist and communist contemporaries stating his plan to float the Republican Party of India (RPI). He died on December 6, 1956 before fulfilling his dream.

His death created a vacuum, causing a leadership crisis. Dalit leaders sought to sideline his widow, Savita alias Maisaheb and son Yeshwantrao. They refused to accept the leadership of Dr Ambedkar’s trusted lieutenant Dadasaheb Gaikwad.

The RPI was formed on October 3 1957, by leaders eager to masquerade as messiahs of dalits. Within a year, the party broke into factions. The RPI leaders were from the mahar caste (to which Dr Ambedkar belonged and which converted to Buddhism en masse alongwith him in 1956). They sought to garner maximum support from the Buddhists rather than broadbasing the party. After Gaikwad’s death, most of the leaders who came into prominence allied with Congress for crumbs of power in return for the dalit votebank.

In 1972 the RPI leadership faced its toughest challenge in the form of the Dalit Panthers formed by poets, writers and activists. But the Panthers, too, ended up fragmented. Intermittently, the RPI factions have been forced to unite, but unity has proved shortlived.

These occasions included the riots and arson that followed the state’s decision to rename Marathwada University after Dr Ambedkar in 1978; and the controversy over the publication of Dr Ambedkar’s Riddles in Hinduism in 1988. The struggle for renaming the university created leaders like Ramdas Athavale. In 1990 Athavale became an ally of Sharad Pawar while Prakash Ambedkar’s politics remains unpredictable — forming alliances with Left parties or the Congress.

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