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India Retold: DALIT EMPOWERMENT: THE MAYAWATI EFFECT
- It is not just the Congress that has been exposed by Mayawati. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that has been speaking of and for Hindus for many decades, had also similarly forgotten about dalits and become an organisation primarily of upper caste Hindus, as had the BJP that is closely affiliated to it. Thanks to Mayawati, Mohan Bhagwat, the present Sarsangchalak (head) of the RSS, also chose Gandhiji's birthday to virtually write off politics as a means of doing nation building, saying that the nation can be strengthened only by making it 'Sanghmay'
and understanding those who play opportunistic politics using caste, ideology, language and community.
A day after Bhagwat's speech, the RSS invited representatives of 32 castes, including various dalit sub-castes, to a meeting and sahbhoj (eating together). This was the first ever social engineering initiative by the RSS chief on this scale. 62 years after Independence, the RSS has also been made to wake up to the fact that Mayawati-awakened dalits have spurned Hindutva politics. That the RSS has also realised that the process of empowerment set in motion by Mayawati is too serious to be ignored is evident from the fact that Bhagwat has called for organising such meetings across the country for population clusters of just 10,000 each.
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Monday, October 5, 2009
India Retold: DALIT EMPOWERMENT: THE MAYAWATI EFFECT
