Ram Vilas Paswan
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A brief biography
October 9, 2020: The Times of India
Paswan caught wider attention in the 1980 Lok Sabha polls that saw Indira Gandhi staging a spectacular comeback by avenging the electoral humiliation at the hands of the Janata Party three years ago. The populous Congress benches included a big contingent of Youth Congress workers, a rambunctious lot who earned their spurs as street warriors under Sanjay Gandhi. They often allowed their partisan passions to trump parliamentary decorum, inconveniencing opposition who were forced to yield to the noise.
This threatened to become the routine when a young MP from Hajipur, who had defied the Indira wave to retain his seat by a huge margin, took on the challenge. “This is Parliament, not Chandi Chowk,” he thundered, taking both opponents and colleagues by surprise.
The aggression became the hallmark of Ramvilas Paswan’s performance in Parliament, earning him a place among the well-known opposition faces.
Coming from a Dalit family in caste-ridden Bihar, Paswan’s ascendance was particularly striking. Arguably, it marked the introduction in north India of the subaltern assertiveness which had struggled to advance beyond Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Dalit politics in north, barring a few pockets in Uttar Pradesh, which came under the sway of Ambedkar's Republican Party of India and those in Bihar where they were won over by seductive promise of revolution by Maoists, had for decades remained a docile enterprise. They had relied on the condescending promises of upper caste leadership and were content with invoking compassion and sense of fair play.
Paswan marked an important break from the passivity: a switch represented by the name Dalit Sena he chose for his organisation. Scheduled Castes in Bihar had until then seemed quite comfortable with being called Harijan or God’s children, a coinage discarded in favour of Dalit because of the militant connotation that the latter packs.
Yet, few would have expected Paswan to be the change agent when he, a firstgeneration graduate, approached Ramjeevan Singh, a well-regarded politician in Bihar for a ticket of Samyukta Socialist Party to contest the 1969 polls. A true Socialist and a gentleman to the core, Singh sniffed the potential and gave him the ticket for a reserved seat in Khagaria district. His choice was validated, with Paswan winning the election embarking on an achievement-studded career.
A mainstream SC leader
Subodh Ghildiyal, October 9, 2020: The Times of India
Ram Vilas Paswan represented the paradox of being the most visible Dalit leader, for the longest period, on the Indian political firmament and yet unable to break through to establish political ground outside his native Bihar.
What defined the affable and indefatigable Paswan was his never-ending desire to be the pan-Indian face of a community whose aspirations coincided with his own rise during the Mandal movement. While the timing could not have been better, he was handicapped by his image as part of the “mainstream”, which robbed him of the rebellious edge synonymous with an “outsider”.
So when Paswan had hopes soaring, a certain then nameless fire-breathing Kanshi Ram-Mayawati duo stormed the country and stole much of the thunder. The BSP became what Paswan might have wanted to. Of course, BSP was led by leaders from the Jatav community which has a presence across the country. In comparison, Paswans are located in Bihar and while an assertive community, they lack a national spread.
The Bihar leader could never quite overcome the disappointment and kept trying till the end. As he managed to stay in power for ever, he kept going to Uttar Pradesh, the cauldron of new-found Dalit assertion, and attacking Mayawati who commanded the larger Dalit community’s loyalty.
But Paswan was a face who played his part in the rebellion of the under classes. As member of VP Singh’s “team” of OBC leaders, he sided with the paradigmshifting Mandal reservation that shook the established consensus and changed for good the face of politics as was known post-independence. The backwards have as much to thank Paswan as the Yadavs like Lalu and Mulayam, just for the energy and force he lent to the controversial move which touched off a reaction that tested many a “mainstream” leader 1990 onwards.
He never let his ambitions as a Dalit leader come in the way of power politics which required hobnobbing with OBCs and the compromises it entailed. Known as “political weathervane”, he managed to be in virtually every central government post-1989 barring a short break, with ideology proving no hurdle.
As in 2019, May
May 31, 2019: The Times of India
Born: July 5, 1946
Paswan is known as the ‘mausam vaigyanik’ (weather vane) for his ability to read political currents correctly. This time, too, his prediction that BJP under Modi was headed back to office was proved right. However, LJP chief did have a disagreement with the NDA over division of seats, but managed to drive a hard bargain, wrangling six seats. And despite the Modi wave in much of India, LJP won all six. His portfolio — Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution — may not have been the weightiest, but Paswan’s inputs on political issues did prove useful. He was the one who insisted that the income support under the PM-Kisan Yojna should be direct transfers. There was talk that his son Chirag would get the berth this time but junior was more interested in leading LJP in the Bihar polls.
