Bye bye Nehru, hello Ambedkar: Here’s what Rahul Gandhi was doing in Mhow

New Delhi: In June 1915, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar became a post-graduate of the Columbia University, where he was studying on scholarship instituted by the Gaekwads of Baroda.

Under normal circumstances, the Centenary of Ambedkar’s post-graduation would have passed off unnoticed. But, the Congress has turned it into a major event; it is celebrating the event as a milestone in India’s history.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was in Ambedkar’s birthplace Mhow on Tuesday (2 June), where he participated in a discussion on the iconic leader and addressed a public meeting.

Rahul should be grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modifor helping the Congress discover Ambedkar and many other leaders it had forgotten. For most part of the past six decades, the Congress focussed only on the Nehru-Gandhis, pushing other prominent leaders from pre-Independence India into oblivion.

Modi’s efforts to remember other icons of the freedom movement and revive the debate on Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy have forced the Congress to revisit history and give up the obsession with the dynasty.

By appropriating the legacy of prominent Congress leaders like Sardar Patel, Modi is succeeding in delineating Rahul’s Congress from the freedom movement and labeling it as a party only of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty.

There was a time when the Congress could have survived only by invoking the name of Nehru and his dynasty, but that era of politics is now history. So, the Congress has no option but to remember India’s forgotten idols, retrace its pre-Independence past and reclaim the tag of the party that ‘fought for Independence.’

“It has been sixty years since Independence, yet his dream of ‘annihilation of castes’ has not been achieved; casteism and inequality are still there in India,” he said in Mhow. It sounds self-incriminating when Rahul talks of Ambedkar’s unfulfilled dreams. But, he doesn’t have an option.

Remembering and deifying Ambedkar has many other advantages. From the pantheon of Indian leaders, perhaps Ambedkar is the only one who has managed to remain an icon for a large section of the society and an important vote-bank.

Do the Brahmins have a leader they revere? Do the OBCs swear by a political figure? Is Chaudhary Charan Singh-or his Haryana counterpart Devi Lal-still a hero for farmers? No, in India’s vote-bank politics dominated by castes and class, Ambedkar is the last icon standing.

Historically, dalits and minorities were the staunchest supporters of the Congress. For decades the Congress won elections in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan because it managed to retain hold on these influential voters. But since 1990, it lost the dalits and Muslims to regional parties like BSP and SP.

But, the dalit vote is up for grabs. Till a few years ago, the Bahujan Samaj Party was an important claimant to the dalit vote in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and pockets of Rajasthan. But the BSP drew a blank in UP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, in Delhi assembly elections its share fell to just around a percent in 2015 from 15 percent a year ago. And in Rajasthan it was wiped out in 2013.

Aware of the vacuum, the BJP is making a strong push for dalit votes. In UP, since it won all the 17 seats reserved for SC, the BJP has been trying to consolidate the dalit vote by promoting leaders from the community and attempting to highlight Ambedkar’s ‘Hindutva’ leanings. In Bihar, the BJP is planning a tie-up with former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi to snare a section of dalits.

The Congress has its task cut out. For the party to become a major political force on the national scene, it has to reclaim the dalit vote. Without their support, the Congress can’t even dream of winning in Bihar and UP-the two states that control the outcome of Lok Sabha polls.

Rahul is, thus, focusing on Ambedkar, and, through him, the dalits. According to areport in the Times of India, the Congress VP has spelt out a well-defined policy and ‘uncompromising approach” to reclaim dalit votes.

“The Rahul-driven Dalit agenda would be evident from the monsoon session of Parliament starting in July. Congress would mount pressure on the government to pass contentious laws like ‘promotion quota’ and ‘amendments to prevention of atrocities Act’.

The party will also demand legislations on ‘SC/ST sub-plans’ to mandate by law that the central budget be earmarked for the two communities in proportion to their population, and sub-plan laws in states.

In a radical move, Congress will seek promulgation of ‘Reservation Act’ – a law to codify the executive orders that govern the quota regime.”

In Mhow, Rahul gave a glimpse of his dalit card. “Dalits should get jobs even in the private sector; they should get the opportunity to become CEOs in the private sector.” No points for guessing he is ready to flog back to life the familiar Congress promise of reservation in the private sector.

The battle for dalit votes has begun. Get ready for a new Congress that would talk more of Ambedkar and dalits, and less of the Nehru-Gandhis.

Source: First Post