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Com. Rajat from COLLECTIVE JNU contested and won the post of Councillor for the School of Social Sciences in the JNU Student Union 2024-25. This was the first time COLLECTIVE fielded a candidate in the JNUSU elections. We are reproducing for our readers an open letter that was written by Com. Rajat during the election campaigns in response to various student outfits which use the slogan “Jai Bhim – Lal Salaam”.
Date: 20 April 2025
Friends in the struggle for Caste Annihilation,
JNUSU Elections have brought back discussion on ‘anti-fascism’ on campus, followed mainly by the word ‘alliance’. The starting point of these alliances was to stop the state-backed, criminal organization ABVP in elections, which has the single-largest vote share in JNU today.
With the breakup between dominant Left orgs in this JNUSU Election, that strategic logic has been thrown away, with multiple candidates for the central panel even from a single organisation. All we are left with is tactics. The seat sharing by AISA-DSF shows that the fight was only over the Presidential post all along, hidden behind talk of ‘fascism/neo-fascism’. SFI-BAPSA shouting ‘Tera mera rishta kya? Jai Bhim – Lal Salaam!’ reminds one of that old Ekta Kapoor serial song ‘Rishto ke bhi roop badalte hai’. It is not the coming together of two powerful ideological streams, but a simple arithmetic of votes to which these slogans are being reduced to. Anyone who is not enthusiastically cheering for this kind of narrow sectarianism will be accused of not being ‘anti-fascist’ enough, not ‘nationwide’ enough.
Disheartening is the factionalism that has gripped a consistently Ambedkarite force like BAPSA. The outgoing General Secretary has brought accusations of misogyny, queerphobia, etc. against senior BAPSA activists after their Left-Ambedkarite Unity candidate was expelled. If the allegations are to be believed, it is worrying that action was not taken earlier but after declaring the SFI-BAPSA alliance. It is equally surprising that most of the BAPSA CC have criticised the outgoing Gen. Sec., saying they have become tools of dominant landed castes in BAPSA by allying with SFI. Those of us who believe in revolutionary politics have become used to being called ‘chamchas’ of Savarnas by BAPSA when we pick up the red flag. Now they are saying that there are ‘chamchas’ within BAPSA itself. Can there be an end to this meaningless, self-hurting search for a ‘pure Dalit’? Meanwhile, all talk of ‘Oppressed Unity’ was quietly dropped along with Fraternity to win over SFI. Was this unity so fickle?
This is the splitting logic of caste. No nation, no society can be built up on the edifice of caste. This is the divisive character of ruling class ideology, which preaches that some of us should get ahead in life without wasting time on seeking radical ideologies and joining people’s struggles, stepping on the backs of countless others from marginalised communities who could not reach a JNU or HCU. They have reduced Ambedkarite politics to personal success stories—becoming PM/CM or SP/DM, CEOs of start-ups, or doing PhDs from foreign universities are the entirety of caste annihilation for these forces.
Do we want ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion’ in a caste society? Can caste be ‘sensitised’ away? No, we do not want equality and harmony among castes. We want to annihilate it. Its roots in our social soil and religious scriptures must be burnt. Its branches and leaves that are nourished by today’s socio-economic inequality brought about by privatisation, imperialism and corporate power have to be cut off.
This infighting isn’t new. The RPI, founded by Babasaheb, was split between urban lawyers and leaders of landless Dalits like Dadasaheb Gaikwad. Both factions eventually merged with the Congress. Anti-caste parties became dependent on votes from a single populous jati—Mahar, Jatav, Mala, Madiga—losing any broader vision of cross-caste alliances and working class power. RPI (Athawale) now backs the BJP. Even Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi signalled openness to allying with the BJP post-Maharashtra elections. His tweet—‘We will choose power’—reflects a trend: political opportunism masked as Ambedkarite strategy.
In JNU, BAPSA has consistently told Dalits that their only struggle is to enter the highest positions of power, which Savaranas have captured for centuries. Discriminated against in PhD admissions during Viva Voce, they are told to keep their head low and tail behind a few faculty members to secure a seat. A BAMCEF-linked professor in SSS who is seen sharing a stage with the JNU VC during Bhim Saptah or hosting book launches for Sangh idiots like Sajjan Singh are role models for Bahujans in JNU. Such careerism has been masked in the name of Dr. Ambedkar and the upliftment of the oppressed masses. ‘Let us achieve power today so we can pull you up tomorrow.’ They talk of a place within the saffronised university by leaving the struggle. Be it AISA, SFI or DSF, most Left organisations in JNU have not dared to question this narrow identitarianism. A shade of red, floating by on electoral victories alone, has tried to reproduce some of the ‘identity politics’ within their organisations.
When in power, these parties have implemented neoliberal projects by compromising with foreign MNCs and locally dominant sections—the task of social transformation in education, culture, family and religion was naturally left aside. Opportunists see these slogans as a quick fix to mobilise readymade voter bases, without grasping the essence of Caste Annihilation, Women’s Liberation and Class Struggle that is integrated and must be placed at the core of our struggles.
Anyone sincere about Caste Annihilation must reject such ‘hard-headed practicality’ and ‘power politics’. The real power is in the majority of India’s toiling people, who share a legacy of anti-Brahmanical struggle and materialism stretching from the Lokayata-Charvak philosophers, Jain-Bauddh reformations, Bhakti-Sufi renaissance to the anti-colonial martyrs of the Independence Movement. From the land struggles of Dalit-Adivasis in Tebhaga, Telanga, Musahari, Srikakulam and Naxalbari to the Dalit Panthers’ militant anti-atrocity brigades and literary movements launched by first-generation Dalit educated youth, our success is impossible without the liberation of the majority of our oppressed and exploited people. Shutting down government schools, colleges, hospitals and promoting contractualisation-privatisation is pushing the historically oppressed sections into the most hazardous, undignified and underpaid/unpaid employment in India today. The Fortune 500 billionaires are mostly Brahman-Bania; manual scavengers are Dalit.
That’s why mass resistance, like Dalits in Una (Gujarat) refusing cow disposal jobs, demanding land instead, scares the BJP. Their slogan “Gaaye ki poonch tum hee rakho, hume humari zameen do!” linked assertion of dignity to redistribution of resources. Similar land struggles in Punjab, protests after Rohith Vemula’s death and against dilution SC/ST Atrocities Act show how anti-caste is also anti-fascist. To counter this, the BJP sows division, splintering Dalit unity and redirecting anger toward Muslims and Christians.
Anti-fascism means halting the fascist bulldozers. The bulldozers are real, including those which have left 7.4 lakh Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and other historically oppressed people homeless in India in the last two years.
But fascism also bulldozes reason–our capacity to feel, think and act. In such a time, our age-old slogans remembering the courage of those before us cannot be reduced to electoral arithmetic.
When Jai Bhim and Lal Salam came together in struggles, not just in votes, they yielded rich experiences and breakthroughs in concrete movement strategies. The fascists should indeed fear this kind of unity. Unfortunately, many shouting ‘Jai Bhim’ and others shouting ‘Lal Salaam’ have been insincere to their own slogans. All those questioning or disillusioned by the confusion they see within organisations must work together towards genuine attempts to build mass-based anti-caste struggles.
Inquilab zindabad!
Rajat Mondal, JNUSU SSS Councillor candidate 2024-25
