“Baba Tera Sapna Adhura, Kejriwal Karega Poora (Baba, your dream was unfinished; Kejriwal will complete it)”. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has used this as a slogan in recent months, referring to Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s dream. As the AAP chief inaugurated a grand musical based on the life of the father of the Indian Constitution in the national capital, he was again effusive in his praise of the dalit icon, saying Ambedkar's life was an inspiring lesson and he was blessed to be his devotee.
The musical titled 'Babasaheb', commissioned by the Delhi government, is mounted on a grand scale, with actor Rohit Bose Roy in the lead role. It will go on till March 12 and is open to the public free of cost. The show, which was widely publicised through print and audio-visual ads, is by far the clearest signal from Kejriwal about his intent to appropriate the legacy of Ambedkar.
As the AAP makes attempts to expand beyond Delhi and get its ideological moorings right, Kejriwal has repeatedly talked about the importance that Ambedkar and the revolutionary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh hold for him and his party.
Kejriwal had announced recently that only photographs of Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh would be put up in offices of the Delhi government. It was later clarified that photos of Mahatma Gandhi will continue to remain in the offices.
Last year, on the occasion of Valmiki Jayanti, an occasion celebrated by dalits, Kejriwal had felicitated 22 students belonging to the Scheduled Castes community who had scored more than 90 per cent marks in their Class XII exams, and vowed to fulfil Ambedkar's dream of quality education for all dalit children.
The Delhi government has launched the 'Jai Bheem Mukhyamantri Pratibha Vikas Yojana' to provide financial assistance to take coaching for competitive examinations.
Even in Punjab, which went to polls recently, the AAP had an aggressive outreach towards the dalit community. In the 2017 assembly elections, the party is believed to have eaten up into the dalit vote shares of other parties.
As the AAP grows out of Delhi, besides adopting a nationalistic stance that is similar to that of the BJP and placing itself right of centre, the party's efforts to appropriate Ambedkar as an icon is clear. It is a natural progression for the party since its major support base in the national capital too belongs to the financially disadvantaged sections. Kejriwal has projected himself as a champion of the rights of the downtrodden, a person who hails from outside the political system and is on a mission to transform it.
The welfarist leader image of Kejriwal now appears to be branching out into an aggressive outreach towards the dalits, and the AAP government in Delhi has hit upon an extremely creative way of helping him do so.
