Five decades ago, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedakar noted: "Political power cannot be a panacea for the ills of the depressed classes. Their salvation lies in their social elevation".
Today, when Dalit fury is raging, these words, weigh heavy on the the political conscience of this class of people.
Says Member,Planning Commission, Balchandra Mungekar, "I don't approve of this violence but what can one do?"
Ambedkar contested as an independent to the Lok Sabha in 1952 but was defeated. No wonder, today's Dalit leaders, keen on winning, don't take his words seriously. Experts say the need of the hour is to see the bigger picture.
According to political analyst, CSDS, Yogendra Yadav, "Don't pin a man down to his words, look at the what Ambedakar was."
Today the Dalit political movement is pulling in another direction, not the one shown by the US-educated founding father but the Jat-Sikh who inherited that legacy.
Kanshiram's experiments with real-politik might fail the litmus test of Ambedkarite idealism but they delivered in India's caste ridden electoral politics.
In 1995, Mayawati, a Jatav by caste and a self-proclaimed disciple of Kanshiram school of politics became India's first Dalit chief minister. On her agenda was giving the Dalit image a political face-lift:
The elephant is the political symbol of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party - usually this animal is peace-loving and many would like to befriend, but if it goes berserk, not even its own mahout (trainer) can control it.
Last week's Mumbai fury is a case in point.
However, politicians insist on playing with fire. In a recent editorial in Shiv Sena's mouthpiece, Saamna, party supremo Bal Thackeray waxed eloquent about Bhim-shakti aligning its forces with the Shiv -Shakti.
Only time will tell where Dalit politics is headed, but Ambedakar's words definitely don't provide the answer.
Source: IBN LiVE