Ram Nath Kovind, 71, is the hot favourite to
be elected Monday by national and state lawmakers to become titular
head-of-state as the candidate of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
It will be only the second time, after
President K.R Narayanan, who served from 1997 to 2002, that a member of the
downtrodden caste has assumed the post.
The result will be announced Thursday. And for
Modi, with one eye on re-election in 2019, it will send an important message to
a key, long disdained electoral group.
Dalits, who number around 200 million, are
among the poorest communities in India and have traditionally been relegated to
activities on the margins of society.
Despite legal protection, discrimination is
rife and Dalits are routinely denied access to education and other
opportunities for advancement.
Analysts say Modi can win political capital by
helping BJP politician Kovind — a former Supreme Court lawyer and ex-governor
of the eastern state of Bihar — to win the contest against opposition nominee
Meira Kumar, also a Dalit.
Modi has used Twitter to hail the rise of
Kovind, the son of a farmer, from “a humble background”.
Kumar, the daughter of freedom fighter Babu
Jagjivan Ram, was a diplomat before entering politics in 1985 and became
India’s first woman speaker in 2009, but the electoral college numbers are
heavily tilted against her.
Her nomination, which followed Kovind’s, was
seen by many as the opposition’s attempt to counter Modi’s move to woo Dalits.
– Poor but powerful –
Votes from the Dalits and the BJP’s
traditional Hindu base propelled Modi to his 2014 landslide, especially in the
battleground states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“Every (Indian) politician would want support
from this 16 percent voting bloc for any election,” Vimal Thorat, an activist
and convenor of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, told AFP.
Dalit support is even more important for the
BJP as it has mostly been shunned by Muslims, who make up about 14 percent of
the 1.3 billion population.
Dalit votes supplemented by support from the
BJP’s right wing Hindu nationalist followers “will, for once and all, defeat
the ‘Muslim veto’ in this country”, Nistula Hebbar, political editor of The
Hindu newspaper, told AFP.
“Dalits as a community or a base are spread
across the country, especially in all electorally important states. Their vote
is extremely important, especially for the BJP,” Hebbar said.
But reports of clashes and caste
discrimination are routine across the country.
Authorities in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh state
sent riot police to Saharanpur district in May after clashes between Dalits and
upper caste Hindus.
Violent protests erupted in Modi’s home state
Gujarat last year after video footage emerged of an attack on four Dalit
villagers who were taking a dead cow to be skinned.
Cows are considered sacred by Hindus and
attacks by vigilante groups on cow traders and smugglers have increased since
Modi’s election.
Dalits are commonly tasked with jobs such as
skinning cattle carcases for their hides and the incidents have flagged
inherent tensions between the BJP’s traditional base and its bid to reach out
to lower caste voters.
“The increasing friction between upper and
lower castes in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and UP has led to the rise of
a young and oppositional Dalit leadership,” a Times of India editorial said
last month.
It added that Modi and his allies have “sought
to regain advantage in this equation with a Dalit presidential candidate”.
Ashok Malik of the New Delhi based Observer
Research Foundation think-tank told AFP that Kovind’s nomination was “a
milestone” for the BJP, which “is at its strongest ever” and poised to elect
its choice of president even without any support from opposition lawmakers.
But Dalits wonder whether the election of a
president from their community — for the second time in two decades — will
bring real change.
“Change will happen only when the everyday
problems of the community are addressed in line with our constitution. When they
are given justice and the rules are implemented fairly and firmly,” Thorat
said.
India’s prime minister wields most of the
executive power, but the president can send back some parliamentary bills for
reconsideration and also plays a guiding role in the process of forming
governments.
In his three years in power, Modi has shown
himself to be an astute politician. The response to his latest political
gambit, particularly by India’s marginalised groups, will play a key role in
deciding his future after 2019, experts say.
AFP
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