Soon after being elected as a Member of Parliament, senior Dalit leader RK Chaudhary—a former four-time Uttar Pradesh minister and one of the proteges of Kanshiram— triggered a political stir by writing to the Lok Sabha Speaker demanding that the Sengol be removed from Parliament and be replaced with a copy of the constitution.
It comes as little surprise that among the 37 Samajwadi Party MPs elected in the 2024 election, it was Chaudhary (70) who led the march against the Sengol. One of the founding members of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Chaudhary has spent a lifetime entrenched in Ambedkarite politics. He served as a minister in the SP-BSP coalition government under Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1993, the Mayawati governments in 1995 and 1997, and again in the Mulayam Singh government run from 2003 to 2007, even though he was an independent MLA during that period.
Chaudhary parted ways with the BSP in the early 2000s and formed his own party following differences with Mayawati. He, however, returned to BSP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election and contested the Mohanlalganj Lok seat unsuccessfully. He quit the BSP again in 2016 and a year later merged his outfit, Bahujan Samaj Swabhiman Sangarsh Samiti (BS4) with the SP, and after a brief stint away with the Congress, returned to the party full-fledged.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Chaudhary finally tasted victory in the Lok Sabha elections, defeating union minister and fellow-Pasi Dalit leader Kaushal Kishor, after three failed attempts in general elections. Chaudhary had lost the Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha seat in 2009, 2014 and 2019, as a BSP candidate, an independent and a Congress candidate, respectively.
The senior Dalit leader, one of the last remaining leaders from the Kanshiram era, spoke to The Quint on the significance of the Constitution in the recently-concluded election and the parallels between the Bahujan politics of Kanshiram and the PDA (Pichda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) strategy of Akhilesh Yadav.
You have demanded that the Sengol in Parliament be replaced with the Constitution, describing the former as a symbol of monarchy. How big an issue was the Constitution in the 2024 election?
This is the country where till 20 years back, Kanshiram ji used to talk about the Constitution, reservations and democracy but the society was not prepared for it. Today, in every by-lane you can observe that a worker of every party, big or small, talks about the Constitution and reservations. No neta (leader) talks about it though. Back in the past, the leader used to do it but the people didn't. Now, people are doing it but their leaders are not. It is a matter of joy that Akhilesh Yadav ji is talking about the Constitution, reservations and democracy at a big level, even if it has come late.
And the most important thing is, he says, ‘Jiski jitni sankhya bhari, uski utni hissedari’ (Representation as per population). This is not the same country where people would not speak. The country has changed. Through the constitution, the people of the upper divisions of society have made a lot of progress and moved ahead in life. The depressed and backward communities, those who are weak and helpless, should also get the facilities to move ahead and get an opportunity to live a life of equality and humanity. That’s democracy.
What's the reason for this change among people?
There is growing consciousness among the people towards the Constitution, democracy and the laws of the land. Therefore, they are alert.
But on the other hand, we find that the movement that Kanshiram started has become weak.
The movement never becomes weak. At the end of the day, these issues that are floating today, such as, 'What does the constitution say', 'Save the constitution', and 'Save democracy', why are they floating? These are the earnings of that era (Kanshiram). I say that now there is no neta (leader) to take this forward or to spread it. The Bahujan Samaj Party has become weak. But this movement is spreading...on its own.
In this election, the BJP tried to communalize reservations by pitting OBCs and Dalits against Muslims and saying that their reservations would be snatched and given to the minority community.
The BJP only misleads people. Let there be no ambiguity about this, reservations belong to both the Dalits and backward castes. In UP alone, several Muslim communities are in the OBC category. So, the 52% bracket of OBCs comprises both Hindus and Muslims. They are availing reservations. And they are getting it in the name of OBC, not Hindu or Muslim.
All the BJP wants to do is Hindu-Muslim, while what we believe is that those who are suffering or have suffered in the past, should get the facilities so that in times to come they rise to become equals of the upper divisions of the society. Not forward (caste) or backward (caste), every individual in this country and people of every caste and religion, should get an opportunity to move ahead and live a life of equality and humanity. This is what the Constitution prescribes.
Do you feel that the BJP used the OBC, Dalits versus Muslims narrative because it sensed beforehand that the votes of these marginalised Hindu communities were slipping from its grip?
They did not sense it. These were its mischievous acts. They know nothing else but Hindu-Muslim.
Mayawati has drastically weakened and continuously performed poorly in elections. Is Kanshiram’s politics still alive today?
After Babasaheb Ambedkar, this politics is the gift of Kanshiram ji, not of Mayawati. She is a link in the middle. She got the benefit of being elected the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and the power that comes with that. Kanshiram ji was alive. He would direct her and she would act and things would spread. But after Kanshiram ji, the movement did not move ahead in the way it should have. And this is the reason that today the BSP has no MPs or MLAs in the country. BSP came to power when Kanshiram ji was alive. Even in the early days of the BSP, Kanshiram ji managed to get three MPs from his party elected. Kanshiram was something else!
But is Kanshiram's politics alive in UP? Is the PDA formula of SP a reflection of it?
It is running on its own. Nobody is running it. Because when you create followers, it takes a lot of time before they fade away. Kanshiram had many followers. So many of them have come to the SP now. And you can see, even SP's language has changed. There was no PDA earlier in SP. Now, there is PDA.
Is this PDA of Akhilesh Yadav a current form of or inspired by Kanshiram's politics?
There is a slight shift. Earlier, it was Bahujan Samaj. On its ground were Dalit, Pichda, Alpsankhyak or DPA (Dalits, OBCs and Muslims). PDA has Pichda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak. But they are the same things. Only the sequence of adjustment of the communities has changed--from DPA to PDA.
What do you think about the BJP's politics of 'social engineering' in the coming times?
We will ensure that it fails. They have less social engineering but more nonsense. All they want in the country are conflicts between Hindus and Muslims. We, on the other hand, believe it is a fight between those who want to make and save the constitution versus those who are taking the country back to old times. The country is divided into two. That's why I raised this issue (Sengol). The Sengol is a symbol of rajtantra (monarchy). The constitution is a symbol of loktantra (democracy). I'm fighting this battle so that if those who believe in one ideology are on one side, others who believe in a different ideology should be on the opposite side. Not as Hindus or Muslims.
Are there any comparisons between the Bahujan politics of Kanshiram's era and the current PDA politics of Akhilesh Yadav? Is the PDA a mere slogan restricted to increasing election tickets to candidates of different castes?
I don't know from which angle Akhilesh Yadav is approaching this. But whatever he is doing, it’s great. This is the reason why the BSP voters have now, without asking anything in return, started voting for the SP. This happened across the state. The BSP's base voters and workers themselves contacted the SP's candidates and extended their support. And the SP benefitted from this. We will work further on this.
But is this all about the distribution of election tickets? Of course, the SP has adopted Ambedkar's photos in its banners but...
The Akhilesh Yadav of today is not the same Akhilesh Yadav of 10 years back. He has changed and understands 'Kaun hamara hain aur kaun paraya hain' (Who is our own and who is an alien).
Do you see a future for the BSP? Mayawati has promoted her nephew, Akash Anand.
Why should I be concerned? Behenji should be concerned by that.
But how do you assess the BSP today? You are a product of that same movement.
Mayawati carried out a surgical strike against Akash Anand just because he uttered something against the BJP. Don't people understand this? The surgical strike on Akash after his speech against BJP shows where the keys (of the BSP) are. Who controls whether the lock will be open or closed? People know all this now. I'm not making any allegations. Mayawati ji has been my leader. I have been a minister twice with her. I honour her. But those who ran the social movements in the country, such as Babasaheb Ambedkar and Kanshiram ji, their followers were not born in every little lane.
Not everyone can be a Kanshiram or Babasaheb. Such people are born after many generations. If someone declares themselves as the heir of Kanshiram, this is not some property. It is not registered. If someone from among his followers turns out to be capable...it doesn't necessarily mean someone who was capable only during Kashiram's lifetime...even in the long term, if someone demonstrates that they truly follow Kanshiram's path, and even if they do not themselves declare it so, the people will view them as the true follower of Kanshiram. If the person is doing the right kind of work, the people will automatically support the person.
(Omar Rashid is an independent journalist who writes on politics and life in the Hindi hinterland. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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