Political fallouts

The 1980s were not just about coalition politics and the rise of OBC movements. A parallel and equally significant development was the political organisation of Dalits, which permanently changed the landscape of Indian democracy. This was not a sudden event but the result of years of groundwork by leaders who believed that social equality could only be achieved through political power.

The first major organisational step came in 1978 with the formation of the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF). Do not mistake this for an ordinary trade union of government employees. BAMCEF took a strong ideological position: it argued that political power must be transferred to the bahujan — a term that collectively refers to the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and religious minorities. The organisation was a platform for these communities to articulate their demands for a share in power.

From BAMCEF’s ideological base, two more organisations emerged in quick succession: the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (often called DS-4) and, finally, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984. The driving force behind all three was Kanshi Ram (1934–2006). Kanshi Ram was a former central government employee who left his job to dedicate himself to social and political work. He was an astute political strategist who regarded political power as the master key to attaining social equality. He is widely credited with sparking the Dalit resurgence in north Indian states.

In its early years, the BSP was a small party with a support base largely confined to Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. The breakthrough came in the 1989 and 1991 Lok Sabha elections, when the party achieved significant success in Uttar Pradesh. This was a historic moment: for the first time in independent India, a political party supported mainly by Dalit voters had achieved this kind of electoral success.

Kanshi Ram’s BSP was built on the logic of pragmatic politics. The party drew confidence from a simple demographic fact: the Bahujans (SC, ST, OBC, and religious minorities) together constitute the majority of India’s population. On the strength of their numbers alone, they were a formidable political force. Since those early breakthroughs, the BSP has grown into a major political player in Uttar Pradesh and has been in government on more than one occasion. While its strongest support still comes from Dalit voters, the party has expanded its base to include various other social groups over time.

The textbook ends this section by raising a set of critical, open-ended questions — questions that force us to think beyond electoral victories: …