When the word Ambedkar is mentioned in popular representations, academic writings, and TV media, he is often spoken about concerning geographies that have experienced decades of Dalit political mobilizations, social protests, cultural changes, and their concomitant ever-growing symbolisms. Maharashtra is usually the foremost region since Baba Saheb Ambedkar came from here and gradually emerged as the leader of the Depressed Classes through his political activities, institutional efforts, and anti-caste mobilizations rooted in the region. Furthermore, Mahars from Maharashtra have made immense efforts to popularize Baba Saheb Ambedkar symbolically and culturally after his demise in 1956 (Zelliot, 2013). He is undisputedly the tallest leader and advocate for the emancipation of Dalits, alongside his immense contribution and efforts for women’s rights, labor rights, and foregrounding upper caste Hindu hegemony as a major impediment towards the progress of Indian society. However, he was excluded for decades from popular representations patronaged by the Indian State, which took special care to proliferate Gandhi and Nehru iconography across India. It was due to relentless efforts made by disparate Ambedkarite political and social outfits across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab, and Andhra Pradesh, that by the end of the 20th century, he came to be the most popular icon for Dalits across slums, villages and towns in most parts of India (Jaoul, 2006; Gorringe, 2017). This process was met with immense hostilities and violence by caste Hindus and continues to face the same in many parts of India. 

With this broad history as the backdrop, I would like to steer the conversation toward geographies that have not witnessed historically influential and popular anti-caste mobilizations.  How do people, especially Dalits associate with and articulate their identity and political concerns through Baba Saheb Ambedkar, when he is being spoken about more than ever by political parties and through widespread social media permeation?  It is largely Dalits who consider him as their own while many lower caste and dominant caste groups actively engage in opposing his iconography, with a long history of physical violence.  Since he has been widely produced as an icon of the Dalit communities, it would be worthwhile to examine how a community without a historical presence of the influential Ambedkarite movement understands him.

Image 1: A Dalit Christian Locality named Dr Ambedkar Nagar

I turn my attention now to one such Dalit community (Doms) in South Odisha, which has been gradually mobilizing around the figure of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in the last two decades. They constitute one of the largest Scheduled Caste communities in Odisha and are concentrated in the four districts of South Odisha, numbering more than 700,000 people. Among them, an estimated 150,000 are considered to be Christians. Those who practice local religions often identify themselves with the terms Harijan, Desia, or SC, and less with an aggressive version of Hinduism marked by Hindutva and Sanskritized Odia culture. Furthermore, this region is one of the poorest in India. It is stigmatized as backward and uncultured due to the majority Tribal and Dalit population. Simultaneously, there has been a gradual process of imposing upper-caste Hinduism from coastal Odisha through Jagganath Temples and schools (Pati, 1990).  

The Desia language spoken here is looked down upon by the Coastal Odia upper caste Hindus, Komatis, and Marwaris who do business, work in local bureaucracy, and work as white-collar employees in the dozens of large-scale industrial projects.  Pfeffer (2014) in his article refers to the region as the highland and discusses the power dynamics between the Desia region and Coastal Odisha. Since the 1960s, the SC and ST communities in the region, have faced land alienation, denial of forest rights, exploitation by Sahukars (Money lenders & traders), corruption by government officials, and large-scale displacement due to industrial projects (Hydroelectric, Mining, Paper Mills, etc). To respond to the exploitation, the SCs, and STs formed several mass organizations (Malkangiri Adivasi Sangha, J K Kagaja Kala Shramika Sangha, Balimela Power Project Shramika Sangha) over the decades, at times together and other times for their specific communities (Behera, 2017). The organizations were however short-lived or limited to a few blocks. Communist movements were consolidated after the 1980s by utilizing some of the already existing mass organizations, however, the internal factional conflicts, high handedness, repression by the State, and serious differences with sections of ST and SC communities gradually led to its decline by 2010.  

Within this political landscape, the need for a specific Ambedkarite mobilization to ask for reservation in education and employment, to envision autonomous electoral politics, and to forge social movements on Dalit dignity could not emerge as primary questions. The other barriers to forming an early Ambedkarite movement can be attributed to the lack of a middle class, the exclusion of Dalits in public discourse, the lack of anti-caste literature, the remoteness of the region, and limited networking with Ambedkarite movements in other parts of India.  Music too plays a crucial role in diffusing social movements and despite having a legacy of cultural production, the Doms have neglected using it as a medium for Ambedkarite movement.

The most prominent icon of the region is Laxman Nayak, an Adivasi freedom fighter who resisted the British in the 1940s, while the history of Koraput in the mainstream is often narrated through the Kshyatria Rajas of Jeypore who held several feudatories in colonial India. The memory of Laxman Nayak is relegated just to an event in history without any narrative building at present. Even generally speaking Odisha does not have a large-scale anti-caste movement to draw upon. There are broadly two significant phases of anti-caste consciousness that Odia intellectual circles talk about. Firstly, the period between the 15th and 17th century, when Sudra Munis (lower caste saint poets) reinterpreted religious scriptures, questioned Brahmin hegemony in religious institutions and wrote in Odia, and then the second half of the nineteenth century when Bhima Bhoi (a Tribal saint poet) led the Mahima movement imagining an alternative religion without idol worship and caste hierarchy (Malik, 2021). However, neither of these phases could galvanize the Dalits and Adivasis at a large scale and their impact has been quite limited. In South Odisha, a section of SCs and STs continue to convert to Christianity and this history goes back to the early twentieth century. Although this led to a process of new community formation, claiming dignity, cultural exchange, and changing lifestyles, except for the two important hospitals and a nursing college, the missionaries did not build as many educational institutions as they did in the nearby Coastal Andhra region. At the same time, the Desia identity and being a Christian are not seen to be mutually exclusive, and thus Christians participate in political mobilizations through the Samajs (Community associations).   

Image 2: A young Dalit man with the Jai Bhim flag

Image 3: An Odia Pamphlet for Bhim Jayanti 2023 in Rayagada District

In the last few years, the Dom Christians in certain pockets of Koraput have been mobilizing around Baba Saheb Ambedkar to resist right-wing attempts to dominate over them in small towns. Despite the lack of an organized social or political movement, Baba Saheb Ambedkar has been present in the cultural memory of the Dom people through glimpses in BSP’s flags, posters of SC/ST railway employee associations, Dom community events, entrances of Dom settlements named Ambedkar Nagars and some houses preserved carefully as posters in their wardrobes. My earliest memory of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was through an Odia magazine named Adhikar (Rights) which my father would get every month during my school days between 2005 and 2009. This magazine covered news about SC/ST communities and regularly featured articles on Baba Saheb Ambedkar in it. Adhikar, I later found out, was a source of information for those Dalit and Adivasi people interested in politics in the early 2000s. Over the past few years, the growing visibility of Dalit politics in social media has evoked curiosity among a section of Dom Youths who have come across Baba Saheb Ambedkar online.

These dispersed sets of visual imageries have been the medium through which many Doms identify themselves with Baba Saheb and preserve him in their memory. During my field study, there were multiple times that I asked all my interlocutors about Baba Saheb. To my surprise, even those Dalit people who had hardly heard about the Ambedkarite movement or even studied beyond primary education, with their eyes beaming with pride, told me ‘He is a great man, one of the most intelligent men’, ‘He has done a lot for us (SC people)’, ‘He was our man, without him, we would not have rights’ and so on. 

Image 4: Baba Saheb pasted next to Shri Ram Poster

Image 5: Dalit and Adivasi women in the rally

In those brief moments, I witnessed them challenging the lowliness and stigma attributed to them by taking refuge in the greatness of Baba Saheb’s legacy. During those conversations, they were also replacing shame associated with their caste identity and material conditions with pride that came from mentioning Baba Saheb. Quite assuringly, they claimed that it was one of their own who gave direction to this country and society by drafting the Constitution. The youths however are more assertive in their cultural representation, with blue flags and images of Baba Saheb during events combined with Desia Baja (Dalit drumming), Dhemsas (a communal dance form), and DJs. In the past few years, due to the efforts of some Ambedkarites from the Dom and Kondh communities, April 14 has become a day for celebration and public rallies in the small towns of South Odisha. These events take place under the banner of organizations such as Dalit Suraksha Samiti, Jai Bhim Manch, Ambedkar Society, BAMCEF, and so on. 

Image 6: Adhikar Magazine Year 2006

Image 7: Dalit Suraksha Samiti Rayagada

Particularly, in the Rayagada District, BSP put efforts to mobilize Dalit and Adivasi communities to come out to the streets in large numbers holding portraits of Birsa Munda and Dr Ambedkar. Leaders like Dhanurjoy Naik and Jitu Jakesika have relentlessly worked to emphasize the concerns of Dalit and Adivasi communities through Ambedkarite mobilizations. However, due to the lack of any autonomous electoral party, some leaders have allied with BJD and Congress during elections at block and district levels. These compromises for immediate individual gains by certain leaders have prevented the emergence of a radical social movement. Although for now, a cohesive agenda of political and social demands has not been formulated under the banner of an Ambedkarite movement, concerns regarding higher education and better employment opportunities for Dalit and Adivasi youths and countering right-wing intimidations have been articulated through various events from time to time.

Image 8: Kuldip Uncle who has been pivotal person in the formation of Baba Saheb Ambedkar society

Image 9: Ambedkarite gathering in Rayagada

The visibility of Ambedkarite mobilization in recent years owes itself to many known and unknown names who, through their conviction and acts of courage, prompted people to come together. I met one such person named Kuldip (a 60-year-old small-time labor contractor) this year before the April 14 celebration in a town named Damanjodi. He came to meet me from his village when he heard that I was the chief guest this year. Despite working for decades in the mining company as a worker, he told me he faced humiliation from time to time by younger upper caste contractors and that since 2009, he had been trying to form an Ambedkar Society to mobilize local Dalit people. He shared with me his intimate knowledge of how the local market spaces were taken over by upper caste people from the outside, and how the local Dalit and Adivasi communities were systematically economically deprived. He was upset that the local OBC communities, rather than joining them, have been enthusiastically participating in upper caste Hindu festivals and processions that have been recently introduced in the region. Although he could not fight back caste humiliation in his case due to lack of support, he desires that Ambedkarite assertion should take place locally to let others know that the Dalits cannot be taken for granted anymore. Similarly, other young Dom Christian people felt they were being intimidated in overt and covert ways through Saffron Rallies and hate messages against Christians. 

The accumulated experiences of being marginalized as Doms and antagonized as Christians led them to actively work towards mobilizing the Dalits and Adivasis for April 14, 2024. Small churches also played a significant role in supporting the April 14 celebration in 2024 in Damanjodi by holding the Sunday service early in the morning and encouraging their congregations (largely Dalit Christians) to go and participate in the rally. On previous nights, to intimidate them, right-wing forces had placed saffron flags all over the town. However, the Dom people in Damanjodi asserted their claim to public space by placing Baba Saheb’s posters and blue flags across the towns, right next to the saffron posters and flags. The event was a successful one, with more than 4000 people gathering for the rally from all the nearby villages who danced to the Desia Baja and the DJs waving blue flags and giving Jai Bhim slogans for more than two kilometers. These are the initial years of such large-scale rallies and the making of Ambedkarite public and it would be crucial to witness what emerges out of these mobilizations in the coming years.

References

Behera, A. (2017). Development as a Source of Conflict: The Sahukars, Displaced People and the Maoists in Koraput. Round Table (London), 106(5), 543–556. https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2017.1368918.

Gorringe, H. (2017). Symbolism Over Substance? In Panthers in Parliament. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199468157.003.0006.

Jaoul, N. (2006). Learning the use of symbolic means: Dalits, Ambedkar statues and the state in Uttar Pradesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 40(2), 175–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/006996670604000202.

Malik, S. K. (2021). Genesis, Historicity and Persistence of Dalit Protest Literature and Movements in Odisha. Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 13(1), 81–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328X20987370

Pati, B. (1990). Koraput: Perceptions in a Changing Society. Economic and Political Weekly, 25(18/19), 986–988.

Pfeffer, G. (2014). Ethnographies of States and Tribes in Highland Odisha. Asian Folklore Studies, 73(1/2), 259-.

Zelliot, E. (2013). Ambedkar’s world : the making of Babasaheb and the dalit movement. Navayana.