Summarized by Ravikant

The talk handles two broad arcs:

1. ‘Leadership’ theories and Indian traditions, and comments on the Dalit Movement and its Leadership
2. History of Dalit movement and its leadership after Dr. Ambedkar

 ‘LEADERSHIP’ THEORIES and INDIAN TRADITIONS, and COMMENTS ON DALIT MOVEMENT and ITS LEADERSHIP

Great Man Theory

• Original literature on ‘leadership theories’ in the context of social movements is was heavily oriented around “great man theory”. It is about “great man’s” charisma. A leader is represented as fair, tall, can mobilize masses, speak well. 

But these are very white-centric theories. Hardly any literature in the early days on black leadership.

• The idea of Weber that a charismatic leadership takes away agency from followers—after he is gone, followers are lost. Many academic scholars suggest this is also the case with the Dalit movement in India.
  That is after Dr. Ambedkar, the movement became leaderless.

But, this is a very normative understanding and doesn’t explain the Dalit Movement. 

Indian context – Leadership theories 

India is a uniquely stratified society basis of caste, ethnicity and religion. 

• [Gandhi and Kejriwal vs Mayawati] After Gandhi, template of Upper-caste leadership is oriented around the idea of “sewa”, where the leader is supposed to living a simple life and working for the community. A good example of this in modern times is Arvind Kejriwal. He always poses with muffler and postures as an ordinary man— but he comes from a community which has traditionally been allowed to do business and monopolize property. This is misleading. He projects himself as a “simple” person who is the leader of the proletariat, but that belies his community’s position. In contrast- Mayawati will always be questioned about her lavish lifestyle. Somehow her personal wealth and style are always framed by liberal media and academics, as ethical proof of her not being true to her community. 
• Perry Anderson has questioned such lens—it is very upper-caste in the lens, oriented around a larger nationalist leader, and the Gandhian yardstick of “sewa” and renunciation is standard to judge leadership. Dr. Ambedkar also criticized this as nothing but upper-caste guilt and rejected this as a basis of analysis. 
• Dalits suffer daily humiliation, ‘sewa’ and renunciation is a bogus concept in that context. Analysis of Dalit movement and leadership needs new lens. Example, NDTV once tried to ask a Dalit family, Mayawati lives in such luxury and big house, you don’t have anything, don’t you feel she has betrayed you… their reply was “we like this, we hope she gets even more luxurious conditions”—within Dalit community, there is a rejection of this idea of a leader who is doing “sewa”. 

Criticism of Dalit Leadership

Upper Caste/Left academic critique is that Dalit leadership hasn’t talked about economic issues, ethical and real problems. Saha says Dalit leadership is middle-class, they have abandoned poor Dalits, they are the more concerned idea of identity issues and assert Buddhism etc.

• But this is a very western and normative lens because when a claim on Buddhism is made it’s not identity assertion, it’s a historical claim

On similar lines, another Upper Caste/Left academic critique of Ambedkarite leadership is the conversion to Buddhism. They keep saying it split the solidarity, it de-radicalized the Dalits, as it created a faction between Dalit community rather than unite

• But this fracture is because of caste system. Even Dalit castes are historically split. That is not because of Buddhism
• Marxists analysis have been very narrow. Identity is not devoid of structure, it was integral to breaking down the caste structure—so identity assertion is not just reformist, but radical attempt to break down structures. Hence focus on reservations and Buddhism, are not just identity-politics… but these are radical strategies.

No ‘one great leader’, instead community leadership

After Babasaheb, especially after Dalit Panther movement—the idea of ‘heroic leadership’ of community morphs into a community collective understanding. This challenges the ‘great man’ theory. The followers have taken charge of leadership. To be now a leader, the person has to adopt some characteristics laid by followers. These arE:

• The leader has to be a good Buddhist and be a good honest person towards community
• Analysis by Dipankar Gupta, that people convert to Buddhists but remain Hindus, is half baked analysis… because the community has a sense of check and balance. If a Buddhist keeps Hindu gods in their home, the community doesn’t necessarily accept them

BAMCEF restored faith of Dalits about being a social leadership which still rejects self-seeking leadership

• Budh Vihar infrastructure by local communities which donated them
• The decline of RPI and the rise of BSP in Maharashtra have to be seen in that context
• RPI—many followers have forced leaders to unite, changes dynamic of leader-follower dynamic
• 2009 fast onto death by followers, many factions of RPI were forced to come together, leaders assured followers they will set difference aside and come together in one organization. This shows the dynamic of alternative politics and the role of followers in the movement challenges the normative understanding of leadership
• Also brings mainstream UC scrutiny of Dalit leadership into question—which is predominantly based on comparative analysis. Which doesn’t work, because Dalit movement followers are not passive—something upper-caste scholars don’t understand

In the contemporary moment—the leadership of the Dalit movement must be seen as a diffuse, decentralized one where followers are highly active in local networks and mobilize themselves to influence the leaders. They are not passive recipients. 

Today, Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, when it comes to untouchability, to human rights, you have to talk about Dr. Ambedkar. Because of this nature of diffuse leadership—today even RSS has to talk about Dr. Ambedkar. 

We need to understand only Bahujan movement can liberate us from RSS. 

HISTORY OF DALIT MOVEMENT AFTER BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR

Dr. Ambedkar basically transitions from Scheduled Caste Federation to RPI—to broaden the base. RPI’s footprint has been underestimated by contemporary upper-caste academics. It existed in UP, Karnataka etc.… and originally it came in opposition to Congress, should not be seen as present narrow context.

• It is the origin of grassroots Dalit movement because before RPI and Dr. Ambedkar, there was very low political consciousness/mobilization among Dalits
• But RPI is also “not talked about”/criticized by Left since they don’t like talking about the fact that RPI led a long movement on land rights

After larger-than-life leadership of Dr. Ambedkar ends with his death, RPI during Gaikwad time gets split and leadership fractured. This is where upper-caste and Left academics say that movement became directionless

• But this is very narrow understanding, it is leader-centric in the analysis. While it is true, Dalit leaders got co-opted and corrupt, so in a sense is directionless is a fair term
• But there were young people and educated community, young Dhasal etc., who become frustrated with their own leaders… read about global resistances (black literature on resistance). 

They say we need a new kind of leadership, a new movement, new strategy—borrowing from the world. Hence, they form Dalit Panther (DP).

• DP expands the “idea” of Dalit… Dalit is not just untouchable but extended to other oppressed masses. They also start including women into this idea. 
• Attempt to make, as Gail Omvedt argues, “Dalit as a universal category”.. the proletariat group of caste-based on the unity of oppressed
• But Dhasal and Dhale split again, though inevitable, movement gets fractured

After DP split, coming of BAMCEF

• Congress played an important role in organizing RPI and DP splits, along with Left. 
• BUT, Dalit movement is unique across Asia, in post-colonial times, is the only movement which has come from the educated middle class. (Who is a middle class here: some educated govt officials, some bureaucrats, etc.… these are the folks gave leadership)
• This took the form of BAMCEF (basically union of such Middle class educated folks)
• Now shift away from charismatic leaders, like DP leaders like Dhale-Dhasal, to a more organized structure. Leadership gets decentralized with the cadres
• Cadre goes around everyday life, everyone has a theory and is a unit of action. BAMCEF is organized, bloc upwards to district and so on
• Not just Kanshi Ram, but Khaparde gave the basis for this—he said without a centralized cadre, without organization you cannot challenge Brahmanism. This goes against Heroic leadership. 
• Ultimately, Khaparde and Jhalli split with Kanshi Ram because they felt the political party should not be launched immediately since movement needed more time. With Ambedkarite idea that social, cultural movement first needs to take root before political dimension can come. So, he remained with BAMCEF while Kanshi Ram went onto form BSP
• Khaparde revived BAMCEF and led it to being active in 18 states of India

The emergence of TGMSG—Buddhism has been redefined, paid volunteers are organizers. You don’t need to become a monk. An entirely new aspect of Buddhist life—who is equipped with Buddhist literature and theory, and can build community

• Personal role—slum from where education class was set up by TGMSG. Someone who runs it was a Govt employee, but see him as an evil to masses by Leftists, but that’s not how the community see it
• Many volunteers come from the poor and lower-middle-class 
• Pune is a big centre—in slums, you can see it work
• Buddhist identity is an assertion against Hinduism, this has spread beyond Dalits. E.g. Hanumant Upare and his OBCs converted to Buddhism in face of Ghar Wapasi
• This is a ground-level challenge to RSS and fascism, unlike Left and others

Thus, this history shows that the movement has remained very much alive after Dr. Ambedkar. It has moved on from being in the custody of some ‘Great Man’… instead, Dalit and Bahujan society has created a diffused leadership structure, unique to itself. 

Image credit – TheWeek