Dalit leaders anguished over Paswan’s detour

MUMBAI, Aug 9: Yet another renaming controversy is all set to engulf Maharashtra's Dalit movement, unnerving a section of state Dalit leade...

MUMBAI, Aug 9: Yet another renaming controversy is all set to engulf Maharashtra’s Dalit movement, unnerving a section of state Dalit leadership which wanted to free the movement from emotional and symbolic issues.

The Union Railways Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan’s move to counter the Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s ban on his entry in Mumbai by raising the emotional issue of renaming Dadar railway station as “Chaityabhoomi” has pushed the State Dalit movement to the wall making it almost compulsory for the State leadership to toe his line.

Several Dalit leaders and thinkers feel that Paswan has derailed their efforts to bring Dalit movement back to Dr Ambedkar’s path of agitating for social and economical justice. Paswan pushed the State Dalit politics into an issue similar to the renaming of the University which had distracted the movement for almost 12 years. “We had just overcome the fatigue and frustration of the prolong movement for renaming and we are once again at it”, said a Dalit leader, on conditions of anonymity.

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The Dalit leaders fear that renaming of Dadar station as “Chaityabhoomi” would be prolonged much beyond the August 15 deadline and would only lead to Hindu and neo-Bhuddhist polarisation. However, Paswan’s announcement has charged up the Dalit sentiments and the Dalit leaders are willing to come on record to express their resentment. “All of us are forced to join the bandwagon”, said a another leader.

They suspect that Paswan is eyeing the neo-Bhuddhist dominated north-east Mumbai parliamentary constituency since he does not feel very safe in Hajipur, Bihar, particularly after being openly challenged by former chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, to dare contest from the constituency. Sources close to Paswan also do not rule out possibility of his intent to contest from Mumbai in case of a mid-term poll.

In fact, the Republican Party of India, was not too keen on joining yesterday’s morcha in which Paswan opened the Pandora’s box.

“Most of us wanted to stay away from the show, however, at the last moment we decided to join with a view to keeping party politics away from the larger political struggle of the Ambedkarites unsuspecting the gameplan of Paswan”, said another Dalit leader.

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Once they decided to join, they had to mobilise people for the morcha which had an impressive turnout. Party sources say that initially Ramdas Athawle was reluctant to join the morcha, but later, continued to be on the centre-stage through out.

On the other hand, the RPI president, Prakash Ambedkar, maintained a low profile.

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