Paswan too wants his share of sectarian politics

The significance of the Ramabai Nagar meeting could not be underscored. Just two hours before Gujral arrived at the Dalit-dominated colony, he was sharing the dais with BJP and Shiv Sena leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee, Manohar Joshi, Gopinath Munde and Sahib Singh Verma. He ended his Mumbai visit by stopping to personally hand over cheques of Rs 1 lakh compensation to the “shaheed” Dalit victims, from a hastily-erected stage which was surrounded by banners demanding that the Joshi Government be sacked for the July 11 incident.

It later transpired that while the suggestion for the Prime Minister’s visit had been made earlier, the issue was clinched only at the behest Paswan.

Intelligence officials present on the spot said earlier they too had expressed reservations about the unscheduled visit to the crowded locality, but it was at the assurance of the Railway Minister and local leaders who said they would organise a quiet meeting — provided members of the state Government were kept away that they agreed.

Thus, while Gujral succeeded in walking the tight-rope and managed the joint Golden Jubilee celebrations with the BJP-Shiv Sena with only muted opposition from the Youth Congress and a faction of the Republican Party of India (RPI), it is Paswan who is now on the offensive.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Paswan said that he would be going ahead with his plan to rename the Dadar Railway terminus before August 15 notwithstanding the snowballing controversy. “Why can’t the name be changed?” he demanded. “The name of the Victoria Terminus was changed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus was’nt it? The Shiv Sena said they would not allow me to come to Mumbai but I have been freely roaming in the markets.”However, such rhetoric appears to have already unnerved a section of the State’s Dalit leadership which wanted to get rid of emotional and symbolic issues.

Several Dalit leaders and thinkers feel that Paswan has derailed their efforts to bring their movement back to Ambedkar’s path of agitating for social and economical justice. Instead, they are now facing an issue similar to the renaming of a university, which had kept the movement occupied for almost 12 years.

“We had just overcome the fatigue and frustration of the prolonged movement for renaming and we are once again at it,” said a Dalit leader.

Dalit leaders fear that renaming of the Dadar station will not take place before the August 15 deadline and that it will only lead to Hindu and neo-Buddhist polarisation.

They even suspect that the Union Minister is eyeing the neo-Buddhist-dominated north-east Mumbai Parliamentary constituency since he no longer feels safe in Hajipur, Bihar, after being openly challenged by former chief minister Laloo Yadav to dare contest from the constituency.

Sources close to Paswan also do not rule out the possibility of the minister contesting from Mumbai in case of a mid-term poll.In fact, the RPI was not too keen on joining Friday’s morcha in which Paswan opened the Pandora’s box.

“However, at the last moment and unaware of Paswan’s gameplan, we decided to join in order to keep party politics away from the larger political struggle of the Ambedkarites,” said an RPI leader. A well-known Dalit thinker blasted Paswan saying that he did not understand the dynamics of the State’s Dalit movement.