Droupadi Murmu: New icon of subaltern Hindutva

Uplifted, Symbolically

Till the very recent past, parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in Jharkhand had played an impressive role in mobilising the marginalised communities as independent political agents and elevated their stature in the democratic deliberations. These parties represented a bold aspiration that the socially marginalised communities, especially the Dalits and Adivasis, shall play an advance vanguard role in the democratic polity and shall emerge as the alternative ruling class. However, the electoral success of these parties has been limited and in the contemporary political battles, it has failed to halt the assertive right-wing assertion at the national level.

Interestingly, it is the right-wing political organisation, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that claims to represent the interests of the subaltern social groups more effectively and has thus disturbed the legitimacy of social justice politics. The BJP offers a new political agenda based on Dalit-Adivasi cultural symbols, exploits the emerging political aspirations of the worst-off social groups and mobilises them by raising emotive communal issues.

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BJP highlights that a large number of legislators from the reserved constituencies are elected under its symbol and the party has provided effective Dalit-Adivasi leadership at the local and regional levels. On similar grounds, the elevation of Droupadi Murmu as NDA’s candidate for India’s prestigious President’s post is BJP’s impressive political move to attract the socially marginalised sections into its camp and further relegate the Independent Dalit-Adivasi politics.

The right-wing’s interest in the Dalit-Adivasi questions is populist and pragmatic. Especially in the runup to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, effective socio-cultural programmes were designed by the BJP to form an effective bonding with the subaltern castes and Adivasi communities. It helped the party expand its social base and improve its identity as the party of the diverse Hindu population. Behind such hyper construction of ‘Subaltern Hindutva’ lies a persuasive political claim that the Dalits and Adivasis are not only benefiting immensely under the Modi regime on the political front but that their social and class conditions are also improving.

Importantly, certain sections within the Dalits and Adivasis are also welcoming the changed avatar of Hindutva politics, as it recognises them as a crucial pressure group and on occasions offers them material benefits.

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These ‘subaltern’ sections within the Dalits and Adivasis are bewitched by the Hindutva’s politics of accommodation and fascinating welfare policy rhetoric. The emerging Dalit-Adivasi leadership are accented by the new promise of capitalist development and Hindu unity. Further, the elevation of Dalit-Adivasi leaders to important political positions helps the ruling classes construct a belief that the conventional tensions between the ruling elites and the subaltern castes cease to operate. Particularly, Droupadi Murmu’s candidature substantiates such a belief firmly and would further help the right-wing party consolidate the Hindutva hegemony over the moderate Dalit-Adivasi sections.

Such political development offers two contradictory tendencies in the current democratic processes. On the one hand, there is a visible survival of the Dalit-Adivasi leaders and political parties that vouch to bring radical transformation in the polity and herald its ideological challenge against the right-wing hegemony without much compromise. Though the Dalit- Adivasi political movement is facing overt marginalisation in electoral politics today, it still remains a powerful ideological force that impresses and engages a lot many people to build struggles to bring radical socio-political changes.

On the other side are the passive, moderate and aspirational Dalit-Adivasi classes that locate the changing political process rationally and are progressively shifting into the barracks of Hindutva politics, deserting the social justice camp. They hold the flag of cultural symbols high while avoiding sincere deliberations about the absence of powerful and independent Dalit-Adivasi leadership at the regional and national levels. It is also visible that some Dalit-Adivasi leaders are comfortable in playing second fiddle to the social elites, hesitate to raise the demand for the effective representation of socially marginalised communities in the institutions of power and remain silent when the incidents of atrocities, violence and murders take place against the Dalit and Adivasis. Such passive and comprador Dalit-Adivasi political elites have provided legitimacy to BJP’s ‘subaltern Hindutva’ avatar.

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Any cursory reading of the post-independence history of India’s democracy would showcase that the Dalit-Adivasi communities have remained peripheral, powerless and even invisible in mainstream political deliberations. There are unending cases of atrocities, police brutalities, corporate exploitation of labour and land and an overt relegation of their demands for social justice and dignity. Even a bird’s eye view over the socio-economic conditions of the Dalits and Adivasis would demonstrate that a large population amongst them survive under precarious class and wretched social conditions. Their participation in the mainstream institutions of power like the judiciary, academic institutes, media, and top bureaucracy is the bare minimum.

It is only after the arrival of massive and popular socio-political struggles by the Dalit-Adivasi leaders and intellectuals in the mid-1970s (with parties like the Republican Party of India, JMM, BSP, and Lok Janshakti Party) that the issues and concerns of the Dalits and Adivasis found recognisable space in the national politics. Only after their powerful social movements and political mobilisation, did the ruling elites acknowledge that without addressing the crucial demands of the subaltern groups, governing India would be a difficult task. It appears that the new Dalit-Adivasi generation associated with right-wing politics has missed the class when this part of history was taught in the school.

For the Dalit-Adivasi mass, welcoming Murmu as the new president of India is like sentimental solace that warms their crunched souls. It showcases that their identities still have a meaningful impact on the democratic polity. However, such celebrations often avoid sincere deliberation on the existing class tensions and social inequalities that make the quotidian Dalits-Adivasis lives perpetually miserable.

Ironically, the right-wing resists any sincere deliberation on substantive issues of social justice but readily executes innovative cultural tactics to retain their hegemony over the Dalit and Adivasi minds. Presenting Droupadi Murmu’s candidature for the highest constitutional post is an effective strategy to further improve BJP’s ‘Subaltern Hindutva’ image. It is also predictable that such symbolism will mean very little to the struggling, poor Adivasis of Jharkhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

(The writer teaches at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU)