Standing outdoors Gate No. 2 of the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan, a sprawling conference centre in Lucknow, 66-365 days-worn Vinay Gautam on March 13 suggested a exiguous group of younger men to step interior and listen to to the audio system at a political gathering.
“How again and again will you win the different to listen to in regards to the broad Kanshi Ram? These folks are now not handiest looking at his birth anniversary, but additionally discussing his agenda and political tips,” he urged the boys.
“You are here handiest thanks to him [Kanshi Ram] and [B.R.] Ambedkar,” Gautam added, chiding them for what he described as a lack of technology. “For the time being, you folks fail to take care of these main issues,” he talked about.
A Dalit activist who worked with Kanshi Ram within the Nineties, Gautam became as soon as amongst hundreds of oldsters attending the Samvidhan Sammelan (Constitutional conference) organised by the Congress occasion at Lucknow’s Indira Gandhi Pratishthan, a venue that holds occasions comparable to political gatherings, art exhibitions, and weddings.
Kanshi Ram, the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Occasion (BSP), would absorb grew to become 92 years worn this 365 days on March 15. Now not a landmark birthday, but his legacy has dominated political discourse in Uttar Pradesh over the final two weeks. Leaders across the political spectrum invoked his title, describing him as an “icon of downtrodden social and caste groups”.
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition within the Lok Sabha, wrote to Top Minister Narendra Modi, urging that Kanshi Ram be conferred the Bharat Ratna posthumously.
The Samajwadi Occasion (SP), as soon as the bête noire of the BSP in U.P., additionally marked Kanshi Ram’s birth anniversary across district workplaces and at the headquarters.
“Kanshi Ram is a correct icon of marginalised social groups. We’re going to raise ahead the mission initiated by him,” SP chief Akhilesh Yadav talked about on March 4, adding the proposal of looking at March 15 as PDA Diwas, which is dedicated to the cause for the broader team spirit of the Pichhda (backward), Dalit, and Alpsankhyak (minorities) folks.
Gautam, alternatively, is elated, no topic political occasions’ agendas. “It presentations the affect of the person and his relevance. That even two decades after his loss of life, over 4,000 folks absorb method to listen to his phrases,” he talked about.
At the Samvidhan Sammelan, Gandhi described the unhurried chief as a fighter who had struggled all his life for social justice. Had India’s first Top Minister Jawaharlal Nehru been alive at some stage within the time of Kanshi Ram, the Congress would absorb made him the Chief Minister, Gandhi talked about.
“He [Rahul Gandhi] is the utilization of Kanshi Ram’s title to reach out to Dalits,” talked about Gautam. “However no now not up to Rahul Gandhi is making an strive to win a bridge with the group by acknowledging the shortcomings of his occasion,” he added within the identical breath.
The Congress, when Nehru served as the Top Minister, saw four CMs of U.P., all from upper castes.
By the purpose of his loss of life in 2006, Kanshi Ram’s title had method to be connected with mobilising the Bahujan (marginalised majority), including Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Castes (OBCs), and minorities.
In Uttar Pradesh, SCs enhance around 21% of the population, minorities about 20% and OBCs are estimated by political occasions to constitute up to 40%. “Kanshi Ramji’s belief became as soon as to remodel the Bahujan Samaj from a vote-giver to an affect getter,” talked about Gautam.
Mobilisation on identification
Born into a Ramdasia Sikh family in Rupnagar district of Punjab, Kanshi Ram joined a authorities job in Pune within the unhurried Fifties, where he later claimed that he witnessed discrimination against Dalit staff. All over this time, he began to study attorney-cum-activist-cum-social reformer B.R. Ambedkar, with his e book, Annihilation of Caste, making a particular affect. Influenced deeply by Ambedkar’s writing, he adopted the possibility to “educate, agitate, and organise”.
Across the mid-1960s, he experienced a sense of disenchantment with the leadership of the Republican Occasion of India, which represented marginalised castes and went on to connect the All India Backward and Minorities Communities’ Staff Federation (BAMCEF) in 1978. It is an organisation representing authorities staff from marginalised castes, geared toward growing a team spirit community amongst a extensive range of of oppressed castes, spanning religions.
In 1981, he fashioned one other social organisation known as the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti or DS4, aiming to consolidate the Dalit vote. When he founded the BSP, he talked about that if 50% of Bahujans would possibly perhaps unite and win an alliance, organising a authorities would possibly perhaps well be feasible.
BSP founder Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, now its nationwide president, at a rally in Lucknow in 2002
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The Hindu
MP and founder of the social group Bhim Navy, Chandra Shekhar Azad, whose political occasion is believed as Aazad Samaj Occasion (Kanshi Ram), reiterates Kanshi Ram’s slogan: “Jiski jitni sankhya bhari, uski utni bhagidari”, an announcement in favour of proportional representation, which would possibly perhaps neatly be essentially the most neatly-most neatly-liked slogan aged by political leaders from all occasions even this day.
“It has become the sine qua non of representational politics, mirroring up-to-the-minute demands for a caste census and proportional representation in elections,” talked about Ajit Kumar Jha, an Oxford University researcher, who followed Kanshi Ram’s politics closely within the Nineties.
On the other hand, the BSP didn’t save traction in assorted States. In 1989, the occasion received 13 out of 425 seats within the U.P. Meeting and four out of 543 seats within the Lok Sabha poll (three in U.P. and one in Punjab) that 365 days. In the 1992 Punjab Meeting poll, the occasion received 9 out of 117 seats, polling over 16% of the votes, but would possibly perhaps accumulate handiest one seat within the next election. The BSP’s appeal became as soon as to the Dalits in U.P.
“The verbalize legacy of Kanshi Ramji is in building a new India on the ideology of the Constitution and social justice. He lived by the guidelines of Buddha, Kabir, Ravidas, Phule, and Ambedkar,” talked about Laxman Yadav, an activist.
It is that this legacy that assorted occasions are in actuality in search of to advise. “Our occasion’s PDA is the identical as the Bahujan Samaj that Kanshi Ram referred to. We keep up a correspondence for the oppressed and the marginalised,” talked about Umesh Choudhary, an SP employee essentially essentially based in Lucknow.
One other SP chief, Ameeque Jamei, talked about, “At a time when atrocities on Dalits, OBCs, and minorities are at their top below the BJP rule, the guidelines and struggle of Kanshi Ram become more connected.”
The BSP and SP discovered a fit within the post-Babri Masjid U.P., with an alliance within the 1993 Meeting elections. “Mile Mulayam-Kanshi Ram, hawa mein ud gaye Jai Shree Ram,” signified the arrival collectively of the Bahujan.
Under the steerage of Kanshi Ram, the BSP fashioned governments with the pork up of the Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) thrice in U.P. with Mayawati as Chief Minister. Easiest in 2007 became as soon as the BSP able to win the authorities with out the BJP’s pork up, after which it saw a rapid decline. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the BSP polled 27.42% votes, worthwhile 20 seats, while in 2024 its vote portion dipped to 9.39%.
The symbolism and pushback
In symbolic moves, the BSP authorities constructed parks, memorials, and universities dedicated to icons love Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram. “These statues resulted in a sense that folk from our social group contributed equally within the making of the Indian republic,” says 62-365 days-worn Mohan Ram, a BSP voter, who attended most of Kanshi Ram’s rallies in Lucknow.
Over the old few years, many of these statues absorb been vandalised, with activists announcing that breaking the statues symbolises the discomfort and apprehension of feudal forces. The BJP has been in energy since 2017.
“Baba Saheb and Kanshi Ramji are now not pretty historical personalities. They are symbols of equality, justice, and self-appreciate. These incidents can now not be brushed apart as mere acts of anti-social ingredients, but must always be seen as social justice taking a success,” says Laxman.
“The project for any occasion is whether or now not or now not it will prolong its social outrageous. The BSP failed in this. I travelled with Kanshi Ram in Madhya Pradesh at some stage within the 1993 Meeting election. He would luxuriate in at occasion staff’ homes love a family member,” says Manindra Nath Thakur, a political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He provides that within the latter fragment of his life, Kanshi Ram moved “from the identification-essentially essentially based politics of the Nineties” to “tradition-centric politics within the early 2000s”.
On October 9, 2025, the Congress began a forty five-day Dalit Gaurav Samvad (Dalit pleasure dialog), on the loss of life anniversary of Kanshi Ram, retaining conferences and conferences in localities with a excessive SC population. Over 500 such conferences took design across U.P.
On March 15, the Congress additionally organised Utter-extensive occasions to peek the birth anniversary of the Dalit icon. “From the initiating, our occasion has been very determined that we desire an egalitarian, democratic society. To reach this, Kanshi Ram’s tips fit, therefore we absorb a great time and apply him,” says Anil Yadav, a Congress chief.
Asad Rizvi, a Lucknow-essentially essentially based journalist, says that every and each these moves are to bring the Dalits below the Congress umbrella.
On November 4, 2025, at a public rally, Gandhi spoke about how “10%” of the population controls major establishments, and that tribals, SCs, OBCs, and minorities absorb slight representation in non-public companies, the judiciary, the forms, and the military. “This became as soon as what Kanshi Ram talked about all his life, aiming to unite the marginalised,” says Rizvi.
In the meantime, Mayawati talked about on X that she is the “sole successor” and that the SP and Congress are anti-Dalit.
Under the INDIA alliance within the 2024 Parliamentary polls, a allotment of Bahujan voters supported the coalition to build up 43 out of 80 seats.
mayank.kumar@thehindu.co.in
