The BHIM Thing

The Dalit social movement needed a leader who would demand power. Chandrashekhar stepped up.

- Satish Prakash

WHEN I first heard of Chandrashekhar, his Bhim Army was new in Saharanpur. It wasn’t known from Kashmir to Kanyakumari as it is today. I had heard of a young Dalit man who had enthused the youth with work in the community. Dalits are victims of the aggression of others. They have no money, no assets and no power. They seek in their leaders all that life hasn’t given them. Young Dalits could not but be magnetised by Chandrashekhar’s outspokenness, filled as they are with a longing for power and dignity.

Now isn’t the first time Dalits are being combative. In the 1960s, Republican Party of India leader B.P. Maurya raised the slogan ‘Jai Bhim’. To say Jai Bhim is to say ‘I am Dalit’. It sets them apart, like Sat Sri Akal, Ram-Ram and Salaam Alaikum mark a Sikh, a Hindu and a Muslim respectively. Maurya wrought into north India’s Dalit movement the same strident tendency he saw among Maharashtra’s Dalits. The BSP popularised Jai Bhim and raised other bold cries: ‘Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maaro jootey char’. Mayawati’s tough stance made her a Dalit icon and attracted other social groups to her BSP. That’s how she could lead the politics of Uttar Pradesh repeatedly. Ram Vilas Paswan’s Dalit Sena was provocative too. It told Dalits, ‘TV becho bandook khareedo’—to marshal resources for self-preservation, not entertainment.