According to RPI leaders, the major hurdle in uniting dalits who are Buddhists with their counterparts in Hinduism has been religion. Buddhists are still bitter about the caste system, while those who remained in the Hindu fold do not identify themselves with Dr Ambedkar. Buddhists feel that they alone among the backward castes fight, but other backward castes end up enjoying the fruit. This bitterness has been politically encashed by parties like the Shiv Sena. The Sena organised Hindu-dalits against the Buddhists a few years ago.

While the RPI remained a party of Buddhists, in UP Kanshi Ram and Mayawati built up their multi-caste and multi-religious cadres — first by floating the Backward and Minority Classes Employees’ Federation (to rope in government employees recruited in the quota system); the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (on the lines of Panthers); and finally, the BSP which is now roping in brahmins.

Recently, when Mayawati became UP chief minister, crackers were burst in dalit localities of Maharashtra by youth disillusioned with RPI politics. The leaders do not offer answers to challenges posed by changing circumstances — as government jobs shrink and thereby the benefits of reservations. RPI leaders who dismissed BSP politics as a betrayal of the dalit cause are dumbfounded when followers point out that Mayawati can make others dance to her tune while RPI leaders have to be servile to leaders like Sharad Pawar.

The Khairlanji massacre in Bhandara district, where four members of a dalit family were killed by villagers, has exposed the RPI leadership and Naxal groups are likely to take advantage here. The incident took place on September 29, 2006, and the 50th anniversary of conversion to Buddhism by dalits was celebrated at Nagpur on October 14, 2006, but none of the dalit stalwarts even mentioned Khairlanji, apparently dictated by their friends in the Deshmukh government. It was only after some NGOs posted the information about the massacre on the internet and Leftist and Naxal groups circulated handbills in dalit localities in Nagpur that the RPI leadership swung into action.

... contd.