One of the most effective ways of leveraging caste in Indian politics is by appealing to community identity and pride. Community identity and pride, in turn, are consolidated by the invocation of icons, symbols, heroes, and histories.
Recently, Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, unveiled a statue of Dalit icon Veera Pasi in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh (UP). Pasi was a hero of the 1857 uprising against the British. Many see Gandhi’s move as an attempt to mobilise Dalit pride in his parliamentary constituency, for electoral gains in next year’s assembly elections in the state.
Pasi, who served as the commander of Rana Beni Madhav Singh of the Shankarpur estate in Raebareli, is celebrated across the Awadh region and beyond for freeing the Rana from British captivity through his remarkable bravery. The Pasis — the second-largest Dalit group in UP (nearly 16% of the total Scheduled Caste population and 3.2% of the population) — are spread across the state and constitute a sizeable population in Sitapur, Raebareli, Unnao, and Prayagraj, among other districts. Dalits constitute around 20.7% of UP’s total population and are divided into nearly 66 castes. Given this heterogeneity, political parties often mobilise Dalits through micro-level, identity-based social and political engineering. Many of these icons of marginalised communities exist in the wider memory of the Dalits, through folklore and folk songs. Some of them acquired political prominence through the Bahujan socio-political movement of the late 1980s. Kanshi Ram, the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and leader of the Bahujan movement, explored, collected, and reconstructed these memories within the Bahujan political discourse in order to frame a broader Bahujan identity. Around the same period, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was also engaging with these memories and icons at the grassroots level through various social campaigns.
The 1857 uprising occupies a foundational position in Dalit assertion. Dalit communities frequently emphasise their role in the revolt through various narratives. Through these, they seek to establish their pioneering role in the making of the Indian nation and claim a rightful share in democratic politics and State-sponsored welfare programmes. Consequently, in Dalit memory and consciousness, the 1857 uprising and its Dalit heroes occupy an important place. These icons carry immense symbolic and emotional significance within the larger community and can therefore become effective tools for mobilisation in democratic politics.
Gandhi appears to be taking this route, connecting his politics to those icons through the unveiling of statues such as Veera Pasi’s. He is trying to reinvent the political methods and idioms pioneered by Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. In line with this approach, the Congress Party also organised a “Bahujan Swabhiman Sabha”. However, if the party seeks sustained political benefits from this approach, it will have to develop grassroots strategies, organisational rigour, and continuous cultural engagement — similar to the efforts undertaken by Kanshi Ram, Mayawati, and the BSP between 1985 and 2005. Only a party with deep-rooted connections with these communities can successfully transform the symbolic power of the latter’s icons into durable political power.
The politics surrounding Dalit symbols/icons has become a highly contested terrain in UP politics. Various political parties — including the BSP, BJP, Samajwadi Party, and Congress — are competing to reinterpret these in their own ways and forge political connections with Dalit communities. Within the BJP’s politics, the Pasis have long remained a crucial group for the consolidation of non-Jatav Dalits as a counter to the BSP’s political core. Similarly, in the BSP’s social-engineering-based politics, Pasi icons occupy an important symbolic space. Under the Samajwadi Party’s PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) politics, the party is also making significant efforts to mobilise the Pasi community.
It is also important to recognise that alongside identity consciousness, a deep-rooted sense of beneficiary consciousness has also emerged among Dalit and marginal communities in recent times. The BJP’s welfare-oriented politics has significantly transformed the psyche of marginal communities at the grassroots level. Sometimes, there are competing claims among several Dalit communities regarding the origins of these icons. This was visible in the case of Suhaldeo, where sections of the Pasi and Rajbhar communities advanced conflicting claims regarding his caste identity through social media and other platforms. Thus, while the politics of symbols can be effective, it can also become contested, requiring constant vigilance and careful negotiation in the process of political mobilisation.
Badri Narayan is vice chancellor of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.The views expressed are personal
