Lajos: Created page with "{{Provisional Entry}} The '''Dalit Panthers''' were a militant Dalit organization founded in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1972 by the Marathi poet Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale (1940–2019), and named after the Black Panther Party in the United States. The movement was a successor to Ambedkar's political legacy and, at the same time, a repudiation of the party that had inherited it. Its foundational document, the ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', defines "dalit" broadly, to in..."

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Created page with "{{Provisional Entry}} The '''Dalit Panthers''' were a militant Dalit organization founded in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1972 by the Marathi poet Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale (1940–2019), and named after the Black Panther Party in the United States. The movement was a successor to Ambedkar's political legacy and, at the same time, a repudiation of the party that had inherited it. Its foundational document, the ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', defines "dalit" broadly, to in..."

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{{Provisional Entry}}
The '''Dalit Panthers''' were a militant Dalit organization founded in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1972 by the Marathi poet [[Namdeo Dhasal]] and Raja Dhale (1940–2019), and named after the Black Panther Party in the United States. The movement was a successor to Ambedkar's political legacy and, at the same time, a repudiation of the party that had inherited it. Its foundational document, the ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', defines "dalit" broadly, to include Neo-Buddhists as one named constituency among several, and presents a programme of land redistribution, anti-capitalism, and opposition to caste and to institutional religion that is not framed in Buddhist terms. The Dalit Panthers are included in the Radical Buddhism Project because of this combination: a militant, left-leaning movement of Dalit emancipation, founded two decades after [[BR Ambedkar|B.R. Ambedkar]]'s death and sixteen years after his conversion, in which Buddhist identity was present but was neither the organizing principle nor, so far as the sources show, a subject of doctrinal argument.

== Founding and Name ==

The Dalit Panthers were founded in Bombay in 1972 by Dhasal and Dhale.<ref name="Hovell1991">Hovell, Laurie (1991). "Namdeo Dhasal: Poet and Panther". ''Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars'' 23(2): 77–83. DOI: 10.1080/14672715.1991.10413153.</ref> According to Hovell, the name was taken from the Black Panthers of the United States "to indicate independence and militancy," and the original organization was active for only a few years, although it retained importance at the local level in Maharashtra at the time she wrote. The manifesto confirms the identification in the organization's own words: it claims a close relationship with the struggle of the Black Panthers and names Vietnam, Cambodia, and Africa as further reference points.<ref name="Manifesto">Dalit Panthers (1973). ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto''. Bombay. 8 pp.</ref> In her study of Hindi Dalit literature, Sarah Beth Hunt adds that the Panthers took the American movement as a model and were influenced by the trade-union protests that shook Bombay in the late 1960s.<ref name="Hunt2014">Hunt, Sarah Beth (2014). ''Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation''.</ref>

== The Manifesto ==

=== Date and Authorship ===

The ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'' is an eight-page document written in the collective voice of the organization.<ref name="Manifesto" /> It opens by marking one year since the founding, which is consistent with 1973, and its title page reads Bombay, 1973. Yet on its second page it describes Congress rule as lasting "from 1947 to 1974," a span that is exact only if the text was finalized in 1974, and it discusses the 1972 general election and its aftermath as settled history.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', pp. 1, 2, 4.</ref> Gopal Guru cites the document as a Mumbai publication of 1974.<ref name="Guru2021">Guru, Gopal (2021). "New-Buddhism, Marxism and the Caste Question in India". In: Gokhale, Pradeep P. (Ed.), ''Classical Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism and the Question of Caste'': 111–126. London: Routledge.</ref> Two explanations are possible: that the text was drafted in 1973 and finalized in early 1974, or that the title page and the arithmetic simply disagree for an unknown reason. The question is unresolved, and this page cites the manifesto as 1973 by its title page. The manifesto names neither Dhasal nor Dhale, so statements in it cannot be assumed to be the personal views of either.

=== Who Is a Dalit? Friends and Enemies ===

The manifesto defines a "dalit" broadly, as members of the scheduled castes and tribes, Neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, women, and all others exploited politically, economically, and in the name of religion.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 6.</ref> Neo-Buddhists are thus one constituency among several, and not the movement's defining identity. Its friends are revolutionary parties committed to ending caste and class rule, described as "Left parties that are left in a true sense"; its enemies are landlords, capitalists, and moneylenders and their allies, together with parties that engage in religious or casteist politics and the government that depends on them.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 6.</ref>

=== Ambedkar, the Republican Party, and the Left ===

The manifesto names Jotiba Phule and Ambedkar as the movement's two great leaders,<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 2.</ref> yet it repudiates the Republican Party, Ambedkar's former political vehicle: the Panthers declare themselves "no blood relatives" of that party and accuse its leaders of trading on Ambedkar's name for personal gain. The manifesto also states that 1,117 Dalits were murdered over a period of one and a half years, a figure that it gives without corroboration.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 5.</ref> The only programme of substance that it credits from the Republican Party era is the satyagraha of the landless led by Dadasaheb Gaekwad.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 5.</ref> The document is severe on Gandhi, in judgments that it largely presents as Ambedkar's, and on the Congress Party, which it treats as a continuation of "old Hindu feudalism."<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 3 (Gandhi).</ref> It also criticizes the Communist Party of India for opportunism in the united-front politics of 1967 and for failing to combine class struggle with the struggle against untouchability.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 4.</ref>

=== Religion and the Eighteen-Point Programme ===

The manifesto presents Ambedkar's later turn to a scientific outlook, class consciousness, and "a completely atheistic approach" as the necessary basis of effective politics.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 5.</ref> Its eighteen-point programme, set out on pages 7 and 8, calls for land redistribution under the Land Ceiling Act, the end of caste bars on employment, wells, and village residence, the abolition of exploitation by private capital, the building of socialism in India, and free education, medical care, and housing.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', pp. 7–8.</ref> It also calls for an end to government grants to religious institutions, for the use of the wealth of religious places for the benefit of Dalits, and for a ban on religious and casteist literature.<ref>Dalit Panthers (1973), ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto'', p. 8.</ref> Nothing in the programme is framed in Buddhist doctrinal terms.

== Buddhism in the Dalit Panthers ==

The evidence for a Buddhist dimension of the Dalit Panthers is limited, and it is of different kinds, which should be kept apart. At the level of the organization, Buddhism appears as a social category: Neo-Buddhists are named once, in the manifesto's definition of "dalit" (p. 6). Its stance toward religion as an institution is hostile. At the level of persons, Hovell reports that Dhasal was among the ex-Untouchables who converted to Buddhism following Ambedkar, which is evidence of a personal Buddhist identity and not of Buddhist political thought.<ref>Hovell (1991), "Namdeo Dhasal".</ref> A personal Buddhist identity on the part of a founder is compatible with co-founding an organization that adopted such a manifesto, but the sources do not show how Dhasal related the two (see [[Namdeo Dhasal]]). For the wider history of Buddhist conversion among Dalits after 1956, and for the other strands that fed into it, see [[Dalit Buddhism]].

== The Manifesto and the Ambedkar–Marx Debate ==

Guru credits the Dalit Panthers' manifesto as the first document to bring Ambedkar and Marx together, and he refers in this connection to Raosaheb Kasbe's Marathi work ''Marx ani Ambedkar'' (1986).<ref>Guru (2021), "New-Buddhism, Marxism and the Caste Question in India," p. 114; Kasbe is cited there at pp. 112 and 126.</ref> That is Guru's characterization and is reported here as such. The manifesto combines praise for Ambedkar with a class-based programme and a call for alliance with a genuinely left politics, while faulting the Communist Party for neglecting untouchability; it does not, on the pages read, discuss Buddhism and Marxism as doctrines. For the scholarly debate on Ambedkar's relation to Marx, see [[BR Ambedkar|B.R. Ambedkar]], and for Marxist readings of Buddhism and their relation to the Ambedkarite movement, see [[Marxist Interpretations of Buddhism in India]].

== Namdeo Dhasal ==

{{Main|Namdeo Dhasal}}

Namdeo Dhasal (1949–2014), born into a Mahar family in the Bombay slums, was a Marathi poet whose first collection, ''Golpitha'' (1973), made his name. Hovell's article, the fullest scholarly account available, shows him moving between socialism, communism, Maoism, and, for a time, support for Indira Gandhi and the Congress Party. By 1982 the Dalit Panthers had split into two factions, and at the time of Hovell's writing he headed one of them, the Bharatiya Dalit Panthers. She also reports that he helped to organize a march of some 500,000 people in Bombay against the proposed government censorship of a book edited by Vasant Moon, in which Ambedkar criticizes Hinduism; the book was published.<ref>Hovell (1991), "Namdeo Dhasal".</ref> In a 1982 interview, as reported by Hovell, Dhasal described "Ambedkarism" not as a single system but as a label for whatever methods end untouchability.

== Raja Dhale ==

Raja Dhale (1940–2019) is named in the sources consulted only as Dhasal's co-founder: Hovell mentions him once, in passing, and the manifesto does not name him.<ref>Hovell (1991), "Namdeo Dhasal".</ref> No source consulted documents his activities, his beliefs, or any Buddhist role.

== Later History and Reception ==

The sources consulted for this entry say little about the Dalit Panthers after the early 1970s. Hovell reports that the original organization was short-lived, that it had split into two factions by 1982, and that Dhasal's fortunes were contested: she records, without endorsing it, a view current in 1989 that his heyday was over. Hunt finds a legacy in literature: the autobiographical writing of the Hindi Dalit field, she argues, took inspiration from the Marathi literature associated with the Panthers.<ref name="Hunt2014" /> In a volume on Neo-Buddhism and caste, Pardeshi observes that neither the Republican Party of India nor the Panthers developed a perspective on women's liberation.<ref>[Given name] Pardeshi, in: Gokhale, Pradeep P. (Ed.) (2021), ''Classical Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism and the Question of Caste'', ch. 7, p. 145. London: Routledge.</ref> A fuller history of the Panthers, including their later factions, is a gap in the research behind this entry.

== Literature in English ==

* Dalit Panthers (1973). ''Dalit Panthers Manifesto''. Bombay. {{annotation|The primary source: an eight-page, collectively authored document stating the movement's definition of "dalit," its friends and enemies, and its eighteen-point programme. Its year of publication is uncertain (see above).}}

* Guru, Gopal (2021). "New-Buddhism, Marxism and the Caste Question in India". In: Gokhale, Pradeep P. (Ed.), ''Classical Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism and the Question of Caste'': 111–126. London: Routledge. {{annotation|A chapter on the relation of Ambedkar's Buddhism to Marxism that credits the Panthers' manifesto as the first to join the two (p. 114).}}

* Hovell, Laurie (1991). "Namdeo Dhasal: Poet and Panther". ''Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars'' 23(2): 77–83. {{annotation|A biographical and literary article on Dhasal that is also the best scholarly source on the Panthers' founding and early splits. Its account ends about 1989.}}

* Hunt, Sarah Beth (2014). ''Hindi Dalit Literature and the Politics of Representation''. [publisher]. {{annotation|A study of Hindi Dalit pamphlet and autobiographical literature that places the Marathi Panthers literature among its influences and notes the American Black Panthers as the movement's model.}}

== Literature in Other Languages ==

(''none identified'')

== How to Cite This Article ==

Brons, Lajos ({{REVISIONYEAR}}). "Dalit Panthers". ''The Radical Buddhism Project''. Version of {{#time: j F Y | {{REVISIONYEAR}}-{{REVISIONMONTH}}-{{REVISIONDAY}} }}. <nowiki>http://radicalbuddhism.net/wiki/Dalit_Panthers</nowiki>.

== Notes ==
<references />

[[category:India]]
[[category:Dalit Panthers]]
[[category:Topical Pages]]
[[category:Organizations]]
[[category:Dalit Buddhism]]

Dalit Panthers - Revision history