The entry of Bahujan Samaj Party into
the political scenario in
Andhra Pradesh has to be viewed
against the recent resurgence of
backward castes in areas like
northern Telengana and the consistent
involvement of Marxist parties and groups
in this movement. The other factor is the Telugu Desam Party 's
long-nurtured stronghold
among the backward castes, generally resorted to on the sly, never in a
politically explicit manner. What has been
underneath so far in dominant politics, the
UP experimentation has brought to the centre
of political discourse and made it a legitimate
political agenda.
After its initial innings in UP, the caste
spectre has traversed and descended on the
AP political landscape. Given the historical
background of anti-brahmin caste articulation
during the freedom movement through which
the shudra peasant castes like Kamma and
Reddy emerged as the dominant communities
in AP economy and p o l i t i c s and, the
emergence and development of the dalit
movement against this dominant caste
A C A R T O O N in a local daily showing N
T Rama Rap, the Telugu Desam supremo,
and K Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, the Congress
chief minister of Andhra Pradesh as t w o
wrestlers measuring each other's strength
yet to be locked in action, captures the
political mood in the state. The comparison
between wrestling and politics may not
seem too far-fetched since the description
of wrestling as a 'spectacle of excess' a
la Roland Barthes appropriately captures
the political scenario.
The T D P had organised three 'melas' in
a row at Rajamundry, Nalgonda and Kurnool
of coastal A n d h r a , Telengana and
Rayalaseema regions respectively during
October and November last year and Karshaka
Sadassu (Farmers convention) at Guntur on
January 26, obviously keeping in view the
assembly elections due to be held towards
the end of this year. The success of these
melas apparently demonstrated the crowd-
pulling ability of N T R which also boosted
up the sagging enthusiasm of the T D P cadre,
l i t e Congress (I) belatedly responded by
organising public meetings at Elyru, Suryapet
and K u r n o o l in February and March. To
outdo the TDP, the Congress(I) government
announced a hike in the O B C reservations
in the panchayat raj institutions from the
existing 25 per cent (which was introduced
by the T D P government earlier) to 33 per
cent. The clue to the understanding of the
politipal process these melas likened w i t h
'open air spectacles' symbolise lies not so
much in the apparently 'unreserved' emotion
they have generated as in the competition at
the 'appeasement' of the OBCs dictated solely
by the calculations of electoral arithmetic.
The factor that is undoubtedly critical in
the unfolding of political process in Andhra
Pradesh is the entry of Kanshi Ram. Kanshi
enthusiasm and composition: i e, in the
preponderance of the rural youth, middle
class employed section and the party activists
from Telengana and coastal Andhra districts.
This has apparently sent the dominant political
parties and their leadership into jitters as
some sections of the press candidly reported.
What is more significant in the immediate
context is the arousal of BC and SC sections
of different parties from diffidence and
complacency. The organisation of rallies
by major backward communities focuses
the q u e s t i o n o f greater p o l i t i c a l
representation to them in the forthcoming
elections and thereby demand substantial
share in political power. Though there is
not much to speculate as yet about the
electoral fortune of the BSP, its critical role
at this juncture in the polarisation of the
social base and especially the leadership
in the dominant parties that sets the terms
of political process in the coming months
is self-evident. By not including Kanshi
Ram in the comic political spectacle in the
cartoon referred to above it forces us to
visualise his subversive potential in the
state politics.
I
The spectre of caste unleashed by Kanshi
Ram has undoubtedly began a new phase in
the post-independent India's political history.
Central to this is the proposition that only
through the mobilisation of the dalit-bahujan
forces with an explicit objective of caste
annihilation it would be possible to contain
the fast-spreading Hindutva virus in the
country's political and c i v i l society. Though
the erasure of the taboo that is usually attached
to paste in the elite public space .and
'untouchability' of caste in the dominant
structure and the resurgence of political
aspiration among the backward castes during
the last decade, AP provides a unique case
of emergent caste p o l a r i s a t i o n and
politicisation.
K a r a m c h e d u and C h u n d u r are t w o
important events in the history of dalit
movement in AP. Although upper caste
attacks on dalits are common, but these two
events stand out for their unprecedented
politicisation of the dalits in the recent past.
If one were to imagine them to be symptomatic
of pre-capitalist social relations (for in the
received paradigms of understanding caste
riots are taken to be characteristic of backward
feudal social milieu like Bihar), it must be
pointed out that these riots, pre-planned and
meticulously executed had occurred in the
advanced green revolution areas of coastal
Andhra,
In July 1985 Karamchedu a prosperous
tobacco growing village in Prakasham district
seven kilometres away from Chirala town
was the site of the massacre of six persons
and injury to many more, all belonging to
the untouchable caste of Madigas in the
hands of Kammas. In August 1991 it was
Chundur, an equally prosperous village in
Guntur district where nine Males were
murdered in a cold-blooded manner and their
bodies packed in gunny bags were thrown
into a nearby canal. In these two instances
the immediate issue that provoked such
brutality was not the traditional economic
demand for higher wages but their demand
to live w i t h dignity and honour, and the
assertion of their right to be treated as social
equals. These carnages are testimony to the
fact that the formal liberal rights guaranteed
by the Constitution have not been translated
into reality but when trampled by the upper
caste men the state machinery and the
Ram entering into the state after the UP
secular discourse is yet to begin, caste has
; dominant political elite had shown their
electoral success has breathed life into the
BSP organisation by attempting to rally the
dalit-bahujan forces, t h e interest evoked in
the BSP was evident in the spontaneous
gathering of over one lakh people in the
public meeting at Hyderabad on January 23.
Its qualitative difference from the usual ruling
class party melas was visible both in the
been brought to the centre-stage as "never
before and has become a legitimate paradigm
of subaltern political assertion. It is important
to note that caste has been a vehicle of the
political consolidation of the dominant caste/
glasses and an important means of the
mobilisation of the subalternsas 'vote banks'
for the elite politics but this mode had been
caste bias by a c t i v e l y assisting t h e
assailants.
History is a witness to the fact that the
battles of the dominant classes were fought
by the foot-soldiers drawn from the subaltern
classes. But when caste is involved they
would not hesitate but find it safe to fight
their battles w i t h the army drawn from their
own castes . In these two instances, the Kamma
and Reddy landlords closing ranks with their
caste fellows, provoking their caste allegiance
and mobilising them precisely on caste lines
had inflicted violence and unleashed terror
on the Madigas and Malas respectively. It
so happened that the CPI leaders of Prakasham
district, who happened to be Kamma by
caste, though it is not a coincidence as
communist leadership in this part comes
predominantly from this caste, visiting
Karamchedu after the carnage referred to the
rioters as "landlords' using the usual Marxist
category, which was met with protest and
indignation on the part of dalits since it
overlooked the caste identity. It did not require
much of dialectical imagination for the dalits
to realise the caste specificity of the rioting.
The Dalit Mahasabha, an organisation
formed in the coastal districts in response to
Karamchedu is a decade old today. In spite
of its chequered history and leadership
squabbles, the Dalit Mahasabha has done a
fairly commendable j o b in building what can
properly be called the dalit movement. Its
most important contribution lies in the
political polarisation of and the resultant
heightened awareness among the dalit castes
in coastal Andhra. Here, the dalits had
traditionally constituted the support base of
the Congress because of historical reasons
and the populist policies and patronage
politics of Indira Gandhi.The Chundur event
involving the Congress supporting-Reddys
and occurring during the present Congress
regime had dispelled any illusions among the
dalits about the character of the Congress
Party and government. W i t h Chundur the
dalit movement in fact had entered a new
phase by i n f u s i n g h i t h e r t o u n k n o w n
confidence among the dalits and forging a
possibility of new political identity. This is
evident in the fact that while in 1985 the
dalits of Karamchedu who left the village
after the carnage showed reluctance to return
to their homes (instead preferred to stay back
at Chirala), in 1991 the dalits of Chundur
not only went back but built a memorial for
their martyrs and ever since have been
struggling for their rights in the village. Thus
Karamchedu and Chundur have become two
important milestones in the emergence,
development and transformation of the dalit
movement.
In Telengana the articulation of the dalit
question took a qualitatively different form.
It differed from coastal districts, both in
terms of socio-economic specificity and
politico-ideological contours. Here the
agrarian struggles and left student movement
during the last two decades have successfully
radicalised the dalits, especially their youth,
and thereby marked their disenchantment
with the dominant discourse and political
formations. As a part of the anti-feudal
struggle the C P I ( M L ) groups have taken up
the questions of vetti' (forced labour) and
untouchability along with land and wage
question and thereby organised the most
oppressed of the rural poor, i e, the dalits,
Of late, the C P I ( M L ) movement has been
criticised by dalit leadership as 'militant
economism' for not articulating the dalit
question the way they wanted it to be.
However it is important to note that the dalit
assertion being witnessed today, especially
in the northern Telengana districts, would
have been unimaginable w i t h o u t the
background of the C P I ( M L ) movement
The emergence of Ambedkarite organisa-
tions and the rapid spread of the network of
dalit organisations like Dalit Kala Mandali
and Dalit Writers, Artists and Intellectuals
United Forum ( D W A I U F ) in the post-
Chundur period marked the beginning of a
perceptible change in the socio-cultural milieu
and played a catalytic role in the politicisation
of the rural dalit intelligentsia in Telengana
districts. These organisations have been
instrumental in spreading the anti-caste
message of Ambedkar through song, story
and speech in the northern Telengana districts
of Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Warangal.
They had been working till recently as non-
party cultural and social groups, but at the
moment seem to be gravitating towards the
BSP.
The D W A I U F , launched in the post-
Chundur period as a dalit writers forum with
the initiative of a group which came out of
the revolutionary writers movement, is a
unique attempt, therefore deserves attention.
Claiming itself, with an uninhibited frankness,
to be the result of the failure of the
revolutionary writers' movement to articulate
the caste question as the historical specificity
of Indian society (and therefore as a central
strategic question for Indian revolution) it
took upon itself the task of creating poets,
writers and artists from the dalit-bahujans
who are necessary to carry forward the project
of caste annihilation by building an anti-
caste cultural and ideological movement.
The D W A I U F regularly conducts workshops
at mandal headquarters for the dalit young
men and women to identify their inclinations
and talents, and to train them to realise their
potentialities. The theory and practice of this
organisation is so novel that it Would not be
an exaggeration to suggest that the movement
it has been building has not only transcended
the traditional elitist confines of the left
writers' movement but more significantly,
given the ground reality promises to usher
in an unprecedented upsurge of subaltern
literary and cultural creativity,
In ideological terms the discourses
conducted in these workshops in northern
Telengana districts mark a decisive de-
parture from the traditional Ambedkarite
dispensation of dalit articulation of the coastal
region and its confinement to the question
of reservation and share in political power
and display a rare intellectual sensitivity to
the larger questions of political economy and
a political urgency to theoretically renegotiate
the specificity of caste question within the
Marxist discourse.
II
Against this backdrop the emergence of
the Bahujan Samaj Party in the state politics
has to be appreciated. Though the BSP has
made a dent in the state a few years back
by unsuccessfully contesting the last assembly
elections, the immediate context of the Uttar
Pradesh elections and the ascendancy of the
BSP to the corridors of political power has
aroused political excitement and ambition
among the dalit political activists. The visit
of Kanshi Ram to AP and his efforts to bring
together the publicly visible dalit leaders Hke
Kathi Padma Rao and K G Satyamurthi, etc,
working in different organisations around
the BSP marked a decisive turn. The public
rallies held in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam
and Nalgonda in the months of January and
February, though apparently meant to gauge
the public mood, turned out to be perceptible
successes.
In spite of the favourable ground situation
in the state consequent upon the general
disenchantment w i t h the politics and style
of functioning of the Congress(I) and the.
T D P and the euphoria generated by the dalit-
bahujan experimentation in UP, the BSP has
serious l i m i t a t i o n s i n terms o f its
o r g a n i s a t i o n a l structure, leadership
projection, caste and region specific identity
and more significantly in terms of its ideo-
logical specificity that ought to distinguish
it from the dominant political parties.
The organisational network of the BSP
resembles the centralised command structure
of the Congress(I) Party. Thus in the popular
understanding the BSP means Kanshi Ram
and vice versa. This has given scope for the
vernacular press, w h i c h has generally
accorded a hostile reception to the BSP, to
harp on the point of view that it is an outsider's
party and hence rootless. This viewpoint
seems to have gained credence because of
the absence of projected state leaders in sharp
contrast to the skirmishes and ideological
differences among t h e m w h i c h was
d e l i b e r a t e l y g i v e n d i s p r o p o r t i o n a t e
propaganda by the local-press. '
In addition, the fact that the state leadership
is predominantly drawn from coastal Andhra
that too from Malas to the neglect of another
major dalit caste of . M a d i g a s and the
conspicuous absence of OBCs may pose an
organisational hurdle in future. It is necessary
to point out that the regional unevenness
(between backward Telengana and rich
coastal Andhra) in the state is not merely a
historical fact that led to a violent political
movement in the late 1960s for a separate
Telengana state but it has been of continued
political relevance in the subsequent period
as well. The logic of regional unevenness
pervades through and informs not merely
the elite formation of rating classes and
dominant castes but also the dalit-bahujan
intellectual elaboration as well. The dalits of
coastal districts who have been through the
Adi-Andhra, Christian missionary reform,
rationalist and the nationalist movements are
ahead of the dalits of Telengana by a
generation. This relativeadvanceis not merely
region-specific but caste-specific as well.
Within the coastal districts compared to the
Madigas it is the Malas who have benefited
From the educational avenues created by the
missionaries earlier and from the reservation
policy and also from the ruling class politics
of patronage and c o - o p t i o n after
independence, hence the visibility of coastal
Mala elite in politics, bureaucracy and
academia. However, it would be absurd even
to suggest that they have got their due share.
But it would be politically instructive to note
that the conspicuous presence of coastal
Andhra Malas in the BSP leadership in
contrast to the dalits of Telengana may cause
some uneasiness among the latter.
The major challenge before the BSP relates
to the question of electoral strategy, t h e
image of the BSP as the 'party of SCs' is
systematically built and sustained by the
vernacular press and doubts are expressed
about its viability in electoral politics in the
absence of a 'Samajwadi Party' (the press
here as elsewhere understands it essentially
in caste terms as a 'party of the BCs'). A
section of the press had also predicted the
possibility of (read: necessity of) an electoral
understanding with the TOP in the absence
of the SP. But what is blatantly glossed over
is the fact that there is an upsurge in the
backward castes whose youth, especially in
the northern Telengana d i s t r i c t s , are
gravitating towards the BSP. The challenge
before the BSP is to evolve a strategy to
effectively pull together and co-ordinate these
forces and consolidate its constituency.
Whether the BSP would be able to overcome
the numerous hurdles and achieve what at
present seems to be difficult is not a question
of speculation but of concrete practice.
But what is undeniably crucial is the
importance of the Kanshi Ram factor to the
understanding of the political spectacle in
AP, thus far enacted by the Congress(I) and
the TDP. At the moment, they seem to be
attempting to woo the bahujans whose support
is critical to either party especially in the
context of continued exodus of dalits towards
the BSP which has more or less become
synonymous to their interests and aspirations,
III
IN I Kama Rao is known outside AP more
for his dramatics than for his political wisdom,
Recollect how dramatic was the launching
of the Telugu Desam party in 1982 and
equally dramatic was its victory within a
year. Recollect how often and how many
tunes he assumed new 'avataars' and
correspondingly changed his attire each time
in the name of saving the 'besieged' Telugu
nation (but in reality only to boost up his
sagging popularity). The significant avataar
in this series was that of 'Raja rishi'—to
which a person belonging to a shudra peasant
caste but claiming the status of kshatriya is
entitled (attainment of brahmarishi status
according to the Hindu mythology is the
exclusive privilege of a brahmin). In spite
of the inanities from Hindu mythology and
their apparent absurdity to liberal sensibility,
NTR's gestures and actions, seen in the
historical context of caste movements in
general and particularly in relation to the
kamma caste movement led by Tripuraneni
Rama Swamy Choudhari, were symbolic
enough to capture the imagination of the
people with latent aspiration for an upward
m o b i l i t y . T h e mainstream press b y
highlighting these aspects only sought to
portray NTR and his style as a non-serious
l'affaire.
Though NTR in his original version came
to power on the agenda of Telugu nationalism
defined as anti-Congressism and enacted all
those avataars; but once in power he played
intense politics or rather brought intensity
to politics. Motives apart, the consequence
of this was a rapid politicisation of different
social groups. It would be instructive to
examine some of the issues central to this
process.
The Congress(I) Party, in spite of its
populist phraseology and much publicised
land reforms, has been dominated by the
Reddy caste elite from the landed classes and
continues to count them among its panchayat
raj and legislative representatives, party and
government functionaries in the state. The
mode of political mobilisation has been
predominantly based on the traditional vote
bank system which is a confirmation of feudal
dominance pattern. The subaltern politics to
some extent under the impact of the
developmental process and to a greater extent
due to the radical agrarian struggles acquired
anti-feudal sensibility especially in the
Telengana region. The incongruity of the
dominant practice with the subterraneous
radicalism of subaltern politics could not be
felt in the terrain of electoral politics; it may
be said post facto, till the emergence o f the
T D P , because of the abstinence of the anti-
feudal political formations from the electoral
arena,
N T R ' s style of politics, though marked
a decisive, break w i t h i n the dominant
p o l i t i c a l d i s c o u r s e , defies precise
characterisation in terms of its impact and
therefore can neither be equated w i t h the
populism of the Congress(I) variety nor
can be reduced to the constituency he
represented. T h e r i c h peasant and
' c a p i t a l i s t - l a n d l o r d ' class-castes that
emerged in the fertile coastal Andhra region
over a period of time and crystallised into
anouveau riche stratum w i t h multiple
economic interests in the cinema production
and distribution, agro-industry and the
t e r t i a r y sector ( i n s o c i a l terms
predominantly belonging to the kamma
caste) but denied access to the corridors
of political power during the three decades
of Congress rule, found in N T R a general
who could rally the masses in the electoral
battle- field and further the political
interests of this class. The uninhibited anti-
feudal rhetoric deployed by N T R (partly
because of the innocence of a political
novice to distinguishrealpolitik from stage
acting) could catch the popular imagination.
In this context, the abolition of the
institution of village officers (VOs) and the
reorganisation of panchayat raj system, to
take two instances, coalesced w i t h the
substantial popular disenchantment w i t h
dominant feudal interests and provided an
institutional framework for the articulation
and realisation of popular aspirations. The
three hereditary VOs, i e, patwari maintaining
revenue records, mali patel looking after the
revenue collection and the patel in charge
of law and order, together with the landlord
were symbols of feudal dominance and
oppression in the countryside, the reason
why they were targets of peasant straggles
both prior to and after independence. In spite
of such a notorious image of this institution,
the Congress government which abolished
the zamindari and jagirdari systems had
instead retained it and transformed it into a
distinctly pro-Congress institution and used
it for political and electoral purposes. The
T D P government, through the abolition of
VOs had not only struck at the grass roots
institutional base of the Congress but also
politically enhanced its own credibility and
image.
The restructuring of the panchayat raj
system, as part of it the creation of 1,058
mandal parishads in the place of large
panchayat samithis has to be seen in the
context of changing rural social structure
in the state. As a result of the political
economy of development, the expansion of
the tertiary sector, and the new opportunities
we witness the emergence of a 'middle
class' from the backward communities like
Y a d a v a (shepherds), G o u d a ( t o d d y -
tappers), Munnuru Kapu (peasant caste),
Padmashali (weavers) in a significant way
during 1970s. These castes w h i c h t i l l then
played a second fiddle to the dominant
landowing castes began to assert themselves
in village politics because of the latent
political awareness of the power of their
number in electoral politics. N T R ' s mandal
system was specifically meant to draw in
this section and carve out a political base
among these castes. The introduction of 25
per cent reservation to the OBCs in the
local bodies was meant to consolidate this
c o n s t i t u e n c y . T h u s t h r o u g h m a n d a l
panchayat system the TDP could create a
support base among the O B C communities
by providing political berths to the articulate
sections and accommodating them in the
lower positions w i t h i n the dominant power
structure. (The Congress(I), after it came,
to power in 1989, w i t h a view to scuttle
the T D P ' s base, tried, to restore the o l d
panchayat s a m i t h i s b u t g a u g i n g the
resentment it would have had attracted
from these sections it withdrew the move.)
The stronghold the T D P had built and
nurtured among the backward castes during
the first term in office and critical to its
future electoral performance has been
disturbed by the Kanshi Ram phenomenon.
The monolithic character of the T D P ,
largely arising out of the unquestioned
leadership and total control of its el supremo
and the homogeneity of the dominant
kamma caste that is the mainstay of the
p a r t y , pre-empts the p o s s i b i l i t y o f
articulation of the interests of the backward
castes that may disturb the well-defined
framework and spill out of the well-drawn
boundary. It may be recollected that in the
decade-old h i s t o r y of the party, the
i n t o l e r a n c e t o independent o p i n i o n ,
arrogant and humiliating treatment of the
ministers and party functionaries, especially
belonging to the backward castes made
them to leave the T D P . This style of
functioning may prove dear to the T D P in
the new dispensation characterising the
emergent situation.
I V
In contrast to this, the Congress(I) has
become a hub of activity propelled precisely
on caste lines. Given the loose organisational
structure and relatively weak control system
the state committees have acquired as a result
of the reduction of state '^traps' to small
time power brokers during Indira Gandhi's
tenure and continued to remain subsequently,
the stage was well set for dissidence, which
is another name for bargaining of a
rearrangement of the distribution of spoils
preferably under the supervision of a mutually
acceptable power broker. Since this is an
election year, the compulsions are such that
the possibility of yielding to pressures
becomes all the greater, therefore dissidence
galore. Thanks to Kanshi Ram, caste has
become the most sought after candidate for
electoral mobilisation: the leaders belonging
to different caste groups (who does not have
caste?) discover an enhancement in their
bargaining capacity if they could claim
leadership of their castes, Hence press
conferences, conventions and rallies—all held
in the name of 'neglected', 'depressed' and
'exploited' castes to appeal to the SC-OBCs
to vote for a party that reserves 75 par cent
i n the f o r t h c o m i n g elections i n cor-
respondence to their proportion in the
population, Thus somebody like Shivshakar,
who was a member of Indira and Rajiv
Gandhi's cabinet but marginalised in the
present regime has been trying to rally the
likes of him in the Congress in the name of
weaker sections and demanding 75 per cent
assembly seats and the chief ministership to
them. Belonging to the kapu community of
Telengana, which is significant in number
and fairly prosperous in some northern
districts and therefore an advantage which
he wants to cash on.
The kapus of coastal Andhra, concentrated
in the agrarian rich east and west Godavari
and Krishna are a different lot altogether.
They were with the T D P earlier and their
drift away from the T D P began after the exit
of Mudragada Padbhanbham from it and
accomplished dramatically with the and-
kamma riots following the murder of the
Congress(I)MLA Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga
Rao in December 1988. It may be noted that
the heightened anti-kamma feeling among
the kapus was a major cause of the defeat
of the TDP in this part in the 1989 assembly
elections. Now the Kapu Nadu has intensified
the agitation for the inclusion of kapus in
the OBC category, which has been its major
demand for the last half decade, (While the
kapus of Telengana are OBCs, the kapus of
Andhra are not.) As the main actors in this
agitation belong to the Congress(I), the
factional differences in the party get reflected
in the Kapu Nadu as well. Nevertheless the
very fact that not a day passes without a front
page report about the activities of the kapus
in the vernacular press, ever since they
intensified their agitation in the month of
March, is a vindication of their power to keep
the government on its toes, w h i c h no
backward community can ever think of.
If the dissidence within the Congress takes
the form of caste for obvious reasons, the
voicing of the question of power to the
'weaker sections' by the well-placed Congress
leaders like G Venkat Swamy, a member in
the union cabinet, and V Hanumantha Rao,
a former president of the APCC(I) and a
Rajya Sabha member deserves to be
commented upon. If the supposed proximity
of Venkat Swamy to the PM is a factor in
considering his voice as an echo of the High
Command's thinking in the changed context,
the fact that he is the sole visible leader frorti
the SC community in the state makes h i m
a probable check, so it is believed, to the
Kanshi Ram phenomenon in the state. A d d
to this the o f f i c i a l l y - s p o n s o r e d BC
conventions at Suryapet, the convention of
weavers at Rajamundry, of washermen and
shepherds at Hyderabad (of other castes are
announced to be held) participated by the
BC-SC ministers and also addressed by Vijaya
Bhaskar Reddy can be seen as an evidence
of the Congress(i) Party's attempt to come
to grips w i t h the emerging caste aspirations.
In the ongoing political process, thus, two
broad strands of caste articulation can be
identified, f i r s t l y , the strand, represented by
the SC-OBC leaders within the dominant
parties, that bargains for a larger share in the
power structure. The basis of this is the logic
of caste arithmetic rather than any clearly
defined long-term ideological perspective.
As this demand gains currency it may prod
the dominant parties to rethink their strategies
of co-option with a view to accommodate
the emergent caste interest groups in the
dominant structure.
Secondly, the strand that considers the
forging of the unity of dalit-bahujan forces
as a historical necessity for the realisation
of the project of caste annihilation. The
political embodiment of this strand, at the
present, is the BSR It may be said that the
characterisation of the BSP, by some critics,
as a statist party because of its emphasis on
gaining political power through parliamentary
means is overstretched. For, the fact of
gravitation of the social, forces emerging
from the movements of c i v i l society towards
the BSP, as the AP experience shows, may
have a significant impact on its character and
structure cannot be overlooked.
Thus the kaleidoscopic developments in
the state politics are such that it should be
no surprise if in the political script that is
being written, thanks to the spectre of
caste, the d i r e c t i o n o f the p o l i t i c a l
scenario and the actors on the stage would
not be the same.