PM Narendra Modi seeks to wrap dalits into saffron fold

NEW DELHI: While BJP president Amit Shah last weekend issued a diktat to party cadres to celebrate Dalit icon BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary every year, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has personally steered the efforts to make Hindu iconoclast Ambedkar a toast of Hindutva nationalist championing BJP.

Modi will be capping his yearlong intensive drive on this with a function to mark Babasaheb’s birth anniversary at his birthplace Mhow (Madhya Pradesh) on April 14.

Since April last year, this will be the PM’s 10th crafted appearance with ‘Ambedkar’ to widen the saffron party’s social appeal among the most depressed classes in the Hindu fold. This is arguably an unprecedented high number of appearances for a PM for any national icon in a single year.

Two of these 10 ‘Ambedkar’ functions was spent clarifying RSS’ remarks over the initiative to leverage Ambedkar to widen the social appeal of saffron politics. RSS took the lead with a special edition of its affiliated magazines — Organiser and Panchjanya — publishing special editions on Ambedkar to commemorate his birth anniversary last year.

The RSS capped its initiative to woo Dalits with a resolution calling for war against untouchability at the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha at a venue named after Ambedkar.

However, two of Modi’s outreaches — laying the foundation stone of Ambedkar International Memorial at Indu Mills (Mumbai) last October, laying the foundation stone of Ambedkar National Memorial at 26 Alipur Road (Delhi) early this week — were spent clearing the air over the RSS leadership’s position over caste-based reservations.