The incorrigible campaigner: Modi invoked Buddha at UNGA to woo Dalit voters in Maharashtra

Somehow, a tinge of domestic politics has shone through Prime Minister’s last week’s diplomatic grandstanding. And what made this a bit conspicuous was Narendra Modi’s Buddha remark. It was made on September 27 by him during his keenly watched address to the UN General Assembly. Yet, back home, most political pundits missed the obvious correlation between Lord Buddha and next month’s Maharashtra State Assembly polls.

This has been so despite the fact that the BJP held what looked like a typically poll-related reception for Modi to enable him to speak right outside Delhi airport without losing any time following his return from New York last Saturday evening.

Anyway, now that he’s back from the US, the PM is bound to plunge into electioneering soon in both Maharashtra and Haryana. But he did not take his eyes away from the two-State polls through the days he was so far off from India and more precisely Maharashtrian shores.

The Buddha remark pulled out at New York was not so much to seek support of Myanmar and Sri Lanka as these countries, in any case, are not averse to India; rather it had a domestic purpose to serve: There are about 12 per cent Dalit voters in Maharashtra and most of them look to Buddha as saviour.

This has been so since way back in 1956 when the tallest among Dalit icons Dr BR Ambedkar embraced Buddhism with scores of his mainly Mahar caste-men at Nagpur followed. Today Mahars constitute about 60 per cent of Maharashtra’s Dalit population and a majority of them are Buddhists.

Moreover, love for Buddha is not confined to Mahar sub-clan of Dalits alone but is shared by even those Scheduled Caste men and women who have not converted to Buddhism formally. This again cuts across the confines of Maharashtra and stretches over to other States too.

The BJP has hardly been unaware of this. It has already tried playing the Buddhist card successfully during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls held in 2017. The party used the services of a select team of Buddhist monks by sending them to towns and villages to woo Dalit voters who had otherwise generally been voting for Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party for years.

Asked about the reference to Buddha by the PM in his speech at the UN and its likely effect on Maharashtra’s Dalit electorate, Dalit rights activist Ashok Bharti shot back, “Dalits affinity to Buddha is a known fact. This is more in Maharashtra than other parts of the country. Yet, paying lip service to Buddha doesn’t serve the Dalit cause. The PM as also other parties challenging the BJP should move forward to sort out the issues faced by Dalits. Seldom does any other section of people face the kind of hate and apathy that Dalits are targeted with.

Only recently two poor Dalit children were beaten to death in Madhya Pradesh for no good reason at all. I am yet to hear any announcement by the government for compensating the family. So as things stand Dalits have to fight for their rights, elections or no elections, Buddha or no Buddha.”

Bharti has given a call for a protest in Delhi over the gruesome killing of the two children. It indicates the Dalits’ ire against the established parties. Among the better-informed Dalits, the PM’s invocation of Buddha rings hollow and this is the message that Dalit activists as per Bharti are going to send through the run-up to the polls both in Maharashtra as well as Haryana.

Another issue that is agitating the Dalits is the arrest of over 90 Dalit youth in Delhi during the protests that were held following the demolition of Sant Ravidas Temple at Tughlaqabad in South Delhi. The BJP, as well as other parties, are reportedly in talks with the leaders of the Ravidas Temple restoration committee about the possibility of rebuilding the temple as also the incarceration of the youth, though there have been no results so far.

Thus, it is in this backdrop that the warring political parties are virtually vying each other to catch the attention of Dalits and find feet among Dalit voters. And the PM’s hopping on to Buddha at the UN too may also not be far removed from the race for votes in Assembly polls. It is more so since new Vidhan Sabhas are also scheduled to be elected in Jharkhand and Delhi in near future.