Some Dalit writers have been. arguing for some time that the enmity between Dalits and sudras/OBCs is more bitter than that between Dalits and Brahmins. Hence, they argue, a social coalition among Dalits and Brahmins is possible. In the context of the formation of the coalition government in Uttar Pradesh by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), some sort of credibility for Dalit-Brahmin alliance theory is gaining ground. Within the ranks of the BJP, the Brahmin leaders were more enthusiastic about the coalition than the others. Some right wing elite from the ranks of Sangh Parivar organisations think that there is no scope for a physical conflict between Dalits and Brahmins in the economic realm. Hence they conclude that a coalition can be forged between these communities, though these communities are poles apart in terms of their social status.
BSP-SP COALITION
They believe this to be true particularly in the rural setting, since the Brahmins have moved away from landed property. At the same time, such conflict situation continues to operate between Dalits and sudras/OBCs. They, therefore, think that this conflict should be highlighted and used for political purposes.
This idea began to take shape after the failure of coalition ties between the Samajwadi Party and the BSP on the one hand, and the non-formation of cohesive relations between Dalits and OBCs in socio-political realm even in the pan Indian context. A section of Dalit intelligentsia argue that the oppressive nature of Hindu religion need not be made an issue because a section of Dalits live within Budhist/Christian religious cultures. Hence, a Dalit-Brahmin coalition is possible if friendly relations between the Brahminic Hinduism and Budhist/Christian religions begin to operate.
WHERE IS BAHUJANISM?
in the case of Sudras/OBCs, the allegiance to Hinduism is still primitive and there is hardly any critical assessment of how Brahminism has darkened their Identity. But the Scheduled Caste intelligentsia assessed this and chose an alternative path by carving out a definite identity for themselves. Dr. Ambedkar initiated that process in a big way. Hence, what is upper most in the mind of some SC intelligentsia is that upward mobility in the spheres of economy and politics is possible only when they join hands with Brahmins. Such intelligentsia from both sides meditated between the BJP and the BSP to form a coalition government with a definite understanding. If the Mayavati government works for five years, this thinking may strengthen. Dalit ideology, then, may take-a different direction.
DR. AMBEDKAR FLOUTED
There is, however, a serious misjudgment of the relationships between SC-OBCs and the SC-Brahmins in UP, and in the larger national context. The fundamental question that one needs to ask even in the UP context is, whether the concept of establishing a “Bahujan Samaj by uniting SC-OBCs has undergone a total change? Does Bahujan Samaj also mean Dalit-Dwija unity as well?
The Dalit intellectuals who are talking about Dalit-Brahmin coalition theory do not theorise social relations based on historical experience. They do not base themselves on transformative ideology. They do not discuss the spiritual realm to all. All their arguments flow from the basic concern of economic development of Dalits. Nobody can dismiss these concerns, but economic issues form only part of the problems considered by Dr. Ambedkar, the philosopher of social change in India. The uncritical and crude economic pursuits of sudras/OBCs or failure of political leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav should not mislead the historical vision of Ambedkarites. Such a course will have serious consequences to the process of socio-political change in India
PROBLEM OF SHUDRAS
Dr. Ambedkar wrote two full-length books to examine the relationship between the sudras, Untouchable and Brahminism. These books dealt with two important questions. (1) Who are the Sudras? How did they become the fourth Varna, and (2) Untouchables: Who are they and why did they become untouchables? In the first book he said, “Indeed until the fifth Varna of the untouchables came into being, the sudras were in the eyes of Hindus the lowest of the low. This shows the nature of what might be called the problems of Sudras”. He adds that the “system of pains and penalties was no doubt originally devised by the Brahmins to deal with the Sudras of the Indo-Aryan society, who ceased to exist as distinct, separate, identifiable community.”
If we carefully examine the spiritual and cultural divide between the whole of sudras/OBCs and Dwija society it was not correct to say that sudras, as Dr. Ambedkar believed, did not cease to be distinct from Dwijas. In fact, the common cultural. ground between sudras and Dalits is quite visible than the common. cultural ground between Dalits and Brahmins.
There is a basic difference between development of a section of society and transformation of the whole society. When Dr. Ambedkar targeted Brahminism and Hinduism, he had both the transformation of Dalits and also the rest of society in his scheme. He did not see the OBCs (at that time sudras) as the oppressors. He saw their caste consciousness as an imposed consciousness, not as one that we constructed by their own historical self. Now we can see the productive. cultural ethic between Dalits and OBCs as a common bonding. Such a bonding does not exist between Dalits and Brahmins. Brahmins as a caste operate completely within the sphere of non-productive elite economy. Their intellectuality is only a derived Intellectuality, whereas the Dalit intellectuality is rooted in the processes of production. The OBCs too have that fundamental basis of productivity-centered knowledge system.
Dalits have three great prophetic Images Buddha, Jesus and Dr. Ambedkar to confront the Hindu divine images. As the spread of these images within the Dalit-Adivasi Society increases, the Brahmins have no way but to recognise the socio-spiritual strength of Dalits.
The OBCs neither owned these images nor did they construct their alternative images to improve their transformative abilities. That is the reason why the OBCs as a social category will not be able to challenge the Brahminic social order.
There is no alternative philosophical discourse among the OBCs and that is enough for them to be ignored in every sphere of life. The Mulayam Singh and Laloo Prasad phenomenon would not have a lasting impact on the Indian society. The socio-spiritual Hindu system is not afraid of them. They are still operating on a slightly repositioned number game within the broad electoral system. That itself does not have transformative impact on society.
For example, one of the reasons Why the BJP is afraid of Kanshiram is that, at any point, he may give a call to embrace Buddhism. He has already gone on record that he would embrace Buddhism along with a minimum of 30 million Dalits. The Sangh Parivar is more afraid of that possibility than the spectre of Mayavati forming a govt. in UP. They hope that, if the coalition govt, at Lucknow stops this process and if Kanshiram dies without taking recourse to the conversion route, the Hindu religion would be saved from a great danger. There is no OBC leader worth the name who can give an alternative transformative slogan.
The slogan of secularism is not a transformative one, but rather a status-quoist one.
The reason for non-existence of a transformative agenda among the OBCs is that there is philosophical poverty among the OBCs in particular and the sudras in general. So long as the Brahminic philosophy is not afraid of a community, it need not recognise its existence, leave alone its identity. What happened in UP may be, in a way, a victory for Dalit politics. But that would negate the basis of formation of a Bahujan Samaj under the leadership of Dalits. In order to achieve that goal, Kanshiram propagated the great alliance of Mahatma Phule, Dr.Ambedkar and Periyar. But the OBC society did not respond to this mode of ideology of Bahujanism because, at the religious level the OBCs were strongly hanging on to the Hindu Brahminism even though their status in that religion is only as the feet-born. Though the Dalits were forced to be Untouchables and remained economically poorer than the OBCs, in the it by of recent past, their philosophical basis and identity have staged a comeback.
The OBCs are in the primitive level. When a community is primitive in terms of its consciousness it does not pose any threat to the oppressors, rather it remains a threat to its own self. This is the predicament of sudras/OBCs. But what is the responsibility of the more conscious ideological forces that have come from the most oppressed in the society? They must lead even the less conscious among the other. oppressed, but not join hands with the oppressors and declare that the less conscious oppressed are more dangerous than the historical oppressors themselves. That leads to end of Dalit ideology itself.
