The clash between Dalits and Thakurs in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur is snowballing into a major controversy. Thousands of people held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar on Sunday to protest the alleged anti-Dalit violence.

The protestors were not only from Uttar Pradesh but also from states such as Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand and Punjab. They had gathered to express solidarity with Bhim Army and its chief Chandrashekhar Azad who has been booked by the UP Police in the Saharanpur caste violence case.

Such a unity among the Dalits, which has been witnessed after a long time, indeed poses threat to the parties in power. But more than them, they have sounded a death knell for the established Dalit leaders, primarily BSP supremo Mayawati.

Besides Chandrashekhar Azad, Dalit leader from Gujarat Jignesh Mevani was also present at Jantar Mantar. Mevnani was in the forefront of the massive protests in Gujarat against the flogging of four Dalit youths for skinning a dead cow in Una.

DOMINANCE OF MAYAWATI UNDER THREAT

According to some estimates, more than 50,000 protestors had gathered at Jantar Mantar. With such an attendance of Dalits from at least five states and under the joint leadership of young and new faces such as Chandrashekhar Azad and Jignesh Mevnani, the dominance of Mayawati and other Dalit leaders such as Union ministers Ramvilas Paswan and Ramdas Athawale.

Mayawati's BSP has been continuously suffering humiliating electoral losses and witnessing a dip in its popularity, even among the Dalits. BSP, which was one of the significant parties to prop up Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for 10 years, failed to even open its account in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

BSP received the second major jolt when it won just 19 of the 403 seats in the recently-held Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. It was out of power for the last five years and now has even failed to have its leader of opposition in the UP Assembly.

Mayawati's role in the Dalit-Thakur clash was confined to slamming the Yogi Adityanath government. She issued a statement saying the BJP government in the state had failed to ensure peace.

As far as Paswan and Athawale are concerned, their influence is limited only to Bihar and Maharashtra, that too in pockets. Moreover, they have mainly played second fiddle to national parties, be it Congress or BJP. Hence, neither Paswan nor Athawale are capable of uniting the Dalits under one umbrella.

NEW DALIT ICONS

Mayawati seems to have created a vacuum for Dalit politics in the country. Taking advantage of this phenomenon, Dalit leaders like Chandrashekhar Azad and Jignesh Mevnani have stepped in to fill that vacuum. They are getting encouraging response from the Dalits.

The protest at Jantar Mantar was called by Bhim Army which is led by Azad. The whole area was covered in a sea of blue caps and placards. The protesters chanted slogans and got their sacred wrist threads cut as a mark of protest.

The protesters have made three demands: A judicial probe into the May 5 Saharanpur violence; compensation for the Dalits whose homes were torched in the clashes; and action against Thakurs involved in the rally commemorating Maharana Pratap and the violence that ensued.

The UP police issued an arrest warrant against Azad, a qualified lawyer, for the violence which ensued after the Dalit mahapanchayat on May 9 in Saharanpur was cancelled.

Azad has been quickly gaining popularity among the Dalits of UP. In 2015, he formed the Bheem Army Ekta Mission, which claims to have over 40,000 members across seven states. It boasts of having considerable number of members in UP, Haryana and Rajasthan and has assumed the title of 'the great chamar'.

The protest at Jantar Mantar is just a beginning of a pan-Indian unity of Dalits. If the governments in the respective states and at the Centre fail to address their issues, the Dalits are likely to unite under one umbrella and become a force to reckon with.

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