Published Paper Details:

On 11th May, 2007 Bahujan Samaj Party (henceforth BSP) emerged as a single majority party in the Uttar Pradesh (henceforth UP) state assembly elections. A party formed as recently as 1984 and climbing up the status of a majority party so quickly deserves attention. One is compelled to investigate the changing political terrain of UP society and politics which led to this upsurge of BSP. It is here that I find myself asking questions about the nature of Dalit politics and society in UP with respect to democracy and development. This paper is divided into five parts. In the first part, I describe the growing popularity of the BSP, the second part then looks at history of the growth of awareness among Dalits in UP, in the third part, I introduce the booklets being circulated among Dalits, their buyers, sellers, writers and publishers. The fourth section deals with the messages, histories and myths in the booklets. The formation of a politicised section of Dalits and its successful assertion behind BSP forms the substance of the fifth section of the paper. The paper concludes by giving few theoretical implications for revisiting the presuppositions underlying democracy and development as envisaged in modern western political thought which we can draw upon from the empirical investigation carried on in the paper.