Modi strikes a chord but further efforts are vital
BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's participation in the Pulayar Mahasammelanam, a massive conference organised by the Dalit outfit, Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha, in Kochi on Sunday, and the speech he delivered at it have shocked and confused the two main political fronts — the Congress-led ruling UDF and the CPI(M)-led lDF, which have so far been parading as messiahs of the Dalits, Adivasis and other backward sections of society. The meet was organised to commemorate the Kayal Sammelanam (backwaters meet) of 1913, which was held on a platform built over hundreds of country boats kept together on the Kochi backwaters because the upper caste authorities would not allow the event to take place on terra firma to which every human being has a right, to declare the Dalits' rights. A century has gone by but Kerala's Dalits and Adivasis and many other backward classes, are still where they had been a century ago. What is worse is that efforts are on to keep them weak. There have been several historic legislations aimed at social development in the 58-year-old Kerala State, but these have not brought any progress worth mentioning to the marginalised people. Tens of thousands of Dalit and Adivasi families are still on agitation for land to live on and to cultivate. The four-year-long Dalit agitation in Chengara, Pathanamthitta, and the one-year-old struggle at Arippa in Kollam to which the power-sharing fronts have taken an apathetic attitude, are telling examples of what the policy of neglect has done to the Dalits and the Adivasis. It may look strange how the mainstream political parties could so far refuse to view with seriousness the lives and problems of these sections which constitute the majority of Hindus who form 56 per cent of Kerala's population, but that is the reality. It was before this section that Mr Modi took the pledge that the BJP would not allow “poison-farming”, the practice of divide-and-rule policy, if it was voted to power. That may have struck a chord with the downtrodden but neither the BJP nor Mr Modi himself can afford to leave it at that — in Kerala or elsewhere.
For the Kerala BJP, which has been struggling hard for all these decades to make the lotus bloom in God's Own Country, the door Mr Modi has opened to the Dalit-Adivasi-backward classes front provides an opportunity, especially when organisations like the SNDP Yogam, the umbrella outfit of the Ezhavas, have expressed their readiness to provide support. This prospect has already alarmed the two main political fronts, especially as Mr Modi has been in the forefront of this bridging process. At the meet, the Gujarat Chief Minister did speak of spreading the teachings of Kerala's Dalit and backward community gurus beyond that State's borders and of founding a fitting memorial for them, but that alone would not suffice. He promised the meet of the Pulayas at Kochi that the coming decade belonged to the marginalised people. looking at Mr Modi's track record and judging by the enthusiastic support he has been getting from various quarters, the marginalised may well believe him to an extent. It is now up to him and his party to live up to the promise and win over the Dalits and other backward communities to their side. It is not going to be a cakewalk, though.