In 1969, a tall and lanky Dalit political activist in his 20s entered the Bihar legislature as a legislator for the Samyukta Socialist Party.
It was a time of political upheaval. Congressional hegemony had been eroded, for the first time, in the 1967 state elections, and alternative governing coalitions, generally led by socialists, had taken over many state capitals in northern India. But this political ferment itself was the result of social rotation. The first cracks in the upper caste domain were visible. The backward communities were making their presence felt in democratic politics. Social justice for the marginalized was becoming a central political pillar. It was in this environment that the young Dalit from northern Bihar joined the socialists.
On Thursday, 51 years after entering public life as an elected representative, the young activist passed away, who became one of the most important politicians in India and possibly the most important Dalit leader in the country.
In life or death, Ram Vilas Paswan represented the possibilities and limitations of social justice policy in India. It symbolized the path that democratic electoral politics offered marginalized communities to reclaim their space and challenge the hierarchies present in the social order. But it also symbolized pragmatism, and what critics would call opportunism, that often marks high politics in India.
It was in how Paswan navigated the twin streams of justice politics and power politics, while remaining eternally relevant, that made him a true survivor of Indian politics.
To understand what Ram Vilas Paswan meant to Dalit politics, long before Mayawati became his face and far surpassed Paswan’s political stature in the community, it is important to understand the social context from which he comes.
In Bihar’s deeply stratified society, he entered the political arena not as a recipient of patronage or generosity, but unapologetically asserting his identity. As he said in an interview with HT two years ago, while his father’s generation would be slapped and abused and could do nothing about it, his generation would resist; This resistance did not bring an absolute change, but it created an opening.
The resistance for Paswan was simple: a space in the dominant political structure. Power, he believed, was key to justice. And it helped that he had an instinctive nose for power, earning him the label of “mausam vaigyanik,” or scientist of the time, in recent decades for his ability to read political winds and change strategies accordingly.
To achieve this, Paswan committed himself to the constitutional and electoral path. After opposing the Emergency, in 1977, he entered the Lok Sabha for the first time, with a record margin from Hajipur. He had to return to the Lower House seven more times and recently he moved to the Upper House. And in this period, he would ally himself with all the political currents of India.
He was a minister in the government of VP Singh and emerged as a key champion of the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations. He was a minister in the United Front governments in the mid-1990s, advocating the need for a Third Front, only to despise it in later years.
He was a minister in the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the grounds that India needed stability before resigning in 2002, citing the Gujarat riots. He was a minister in Manmohan Singh’s government until 2009, arguing that he wanted to defeat the communal forces. And he was a minister for the last six years in the Narendra Modi government, on the table of “sabka saath, sabka vikas,” in what can be termed as a highly ironic turn given why he had resigned from the Vajpayee government. But he was able to make all these changes, almost smoothly and without controversy, because he was clear about what he wanted. He was ambitious and wanted to expand his power and resource base; This was possible thanks to political authority; and this also helped his political constituency make a profit.
Paswan was careful to keep this constituency intact, be it the wider Hajipur belt in northern Bihar geographically or Paswans socially. So he focused on bringing projects to his region, or employing members of his community, or opposing atrocities when it became an emotional issue for Dalits. This base was not enough to win him the position of chief minister of Bihar or to become a Dalit leader of India. But it was enough to make him a key decisive force in Bihar, with a loyal vote base useful to other larger parties, which in turn allowed him to negotiate a slice of power. In his later years, Paswan had only one ambition: to establish his son, Chirag, not only as his political successor, but as a leader destined to accomplish things even greater than himself. He relentlessly promoted his son, whether through political appearances across the spectrum (he had friends in all parties), encouraging media coverage (he was an approachable minister, giving off-the-record interviews and opinions) and, most recently, delivering the responsibility of choosing Bihar.
But he also understood that Dalit politics itself was changing. In the same interview cited above, where he spoke about the difference between his father’s generation and his own, Paswan said: “The Chirag Paswan generation is not ready to accept it (slaps and abuse). People ask, why is there a protest on smaller issues? It’s because young Dalits want a life of respect. “At a time when the Hathras protests have rocked the BJP, his advice to his greatest ally on how to handle Dalit protests may also seem appropriate:” Work without antagonizing There is lava inside; when it comes out slowly, the volcano does not erupt; but if you repress it, it becomes an active volcano. ” It was because of this recognition that Paswan persuaded the Modi government in his first term to reject the Supreme Court’s verdict, which was seen as either diluting the atrocity law or asking him to make public the benefits Dalits received from the plans for social care.
Paswan died just as his party, the Lok Janashakti Party, decided to contest the Bihar elections separately, in opposition to Nitish Kumar, who is the face of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state, but remains part of it. . alliance in the center. While his death is sure to have an impact on the Bihar elections, what many would see as the LJP’s dualism at this time, of enjoying power being the Opposition, is perhaps a symbol of Paswan’s own dualism, of embracing the politics of justice while entangled in the politics of power.
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