Mumbai: In June 2019, as Rajya Sabha member Ramdas Athawale returned to Mumbai after taking oath as a minister in the then Modi government, he was received by a throng of supporters at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

Dressed in a bright blue kurta with a cherry red jacket, Athawale sat in a makeshift chariot under a large decorative umbrella. Amid a 15-km-long traditional Marathi dhol-tasha procession, Athawale and his supporters made their way to Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, where Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s ashes are interred.

For a bystander, the question arises: Just how is a leader without much electoral clout able to pull such weight in a powerful coalition?

The poet with strange rhymes

In any discussion on RPI chief Athawale in political circles, there is rarely any mention of his opinion on critical issues.

Instead, the 59-year-old Dalit leader is most popular for providing comic relief during serious parliamentary discussions and election campaign rallies with his poems, where he mixes Hindi and Marathi to fashion awkward rhymes.

For instance, at the Mahayuti’s final election rally in Maharashtra, in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, Athawale took stage and spun a verse making the words ‘nakhre’ (tantrums) and Thackeray rhyme. He said, “Uddhavji Thackeray tumche chalnar nahit Maharashtrat nakhre, karan amcha sobat aale ahet Raj Thackeray.” (Uddhav Thackeray, your tantrums will not work in Maharashtra anymore because now Raj Thackeray has come with us.)

He is known for his unconventional fashion, and has made headlines for things such as the induction of actor Rakhi Sawant into the RPI and being a potential housemate on Bigg Boss [when he was dropped from the season 2 line-up, hundreds of RPI workers ransacked the office of Colors TV, which airs the reality TV show].

For political commentator Pratap Asbe, Athawale’s relevance lies in his reputation as a Dalit leader.

“Having Athawale’s support helps the BJP show a blue flag with their saffron one and sends a message that the Dalit community is with them, and that they are giving a Dalit community leader prominence,” he said.

This election, Athawale was important for the NDA for combating the Opposition’s allegation of the Constitution potentially being under threat if the Modi government comes back to power.

Also read: Congress allegation of Dalit oppression under Modi rule is wrong, says NDA ally Athawale

From ‘Dalit Panther’ to politician

Participating in a Parliament discussion on the 10 per cent general-category quota in 2019, Athawale launched into a poem: “Savarno ko arakshan deneki dikhayi hainNarendra Modiji ne himmat, isi liye2019 mein badhegi unki kimmat… (Narendra Modiji has shown the courage to give reservations to the upper castes and this will help his stocks rise in 2019).”

Notable here is the use of the Marathi word “kimmat” instead of the Hindi “keemat” to strike a rhyme with “himmat”.

After a few more verses, Athawale’s poem moved to his favourite topic — his political ambitions. “Narendra Modiji aur Amit Shahjiagar de de mujhe thoda dhakka, toh mainCongress ke khilaf marta hun chhakka (If Narendra Modi and Amit Shah give me a little push, I will hit a six against the Congress).”

But much before Athawale started becoming a near permanent fixture in the Modi government as a junior minister, he sharpened his political acumen as an active opponent of caste-based oppression.

Born on Christmas Day 1959 in Sangli, Maharashtra, Athawale’s first brush with activism came as a student at Mumbai’s Siddhartha College, the hotbed of the Ambedkarite movement back then.

He subsequently became a firebrand member of the Dalit Panthers, an organisation founded by poet and activist Namdeo Dhasal that seeks to combat caste discrimination.

The organisation later split into smaller groups and Athawale was one of the leaders who kept the movement alive by aligning with fellow Dalit Panther Arun Kamble, a Buddhist scholar.

Athawale rose to significance in the late 1970s, during a movement to rename Marathwada University after Ambedkar. The movement, which the Shiv Sena strongly opposed, saw violent clashes between Dalits and Marathas on Maharashtra’s streets [the university was renamed on a compromise in 1994 to Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University].

Within years, Athawale transitioned from activist to politician.

The RPI, established by Ambedkar, split into several smaller factions, with Athawale’s faction emerging as one of the few significant ones.

In 1990, Athawale joined the cabinet in the Sharad Pawar-led state government, allying with the Congress (I). He was appointed as the minister for social welfare, transport, employment guarantee scheme and prohibition propaganda, and also served as member of the state legislative council from 1990 to 1996.

When ‘Bhim shakti’ joined ‘Shiv shakti’

“The saffron flag will never flutter over Mantralaya. We will ensure the Tricolour remains there,” Athawale had said at a massive pre-election rally at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park in 1990, soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena forged an alliance.

Athawale’s conviction, however, lasted only till 2011, when, feeling sidelined, he severed ties with the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance.

Athawale, who won the 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha polls from Pandharpur (later merged with the Solapur constituency), lost the Shirdi Lok Sabha seat in 2009 to the Shiv Sena by more than a lakh votes and blamed the local Congress leadership for working against him.

In most of his interviews even today, Athawale likes to recall a story about a visit to Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray on his birthday in 2011: As they chatted, the latter remarked, “Bhim shakti and Shiv shakti can work wonders together.” The BJP, too, came on board and there has been no looking back, he says.

Thirteen years into the NDA alliance, Athawale’s RPI has hardly grown. But the alliance has helped him raise his profile as a Union minister of state.

“Dalits have got permanent houses under the (Pradhan Mantri) Awas Yojana, gas cylinders under the Ujjwala Yojana, and work on the Babasaheb Ambedkar memorial at Indu Mills has picked up pace,” Athawale told ThePrint in an interview in 2019, seated on a throne-like chair at his Mumbai residence, ‘Sanvidhan’, in suburban Bandra.

Athawale had made a strong push for at least one seat to contest as part of the BJP-Shiv Sena-RPI alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. But when that could not happen, he was told that his Rajya Sabha membership and ministership will continue.

This time too, he wanted to contest at least one seat as part of the state’s Mahayuti alliance. When that didn’t happen, he pushed for a Union cabinet berth. On Sunday, Athawale paid his respects to his late mother’s photo and went to take oath as a Minister of State for the third time. And he seems content with that.

केंद्रीय मंत्रिमंडळ शपथविधी ला जाण्यापूर्वी आज नविदिल्लितील निवासस्थानी मातोश्री दिवंगत हौसाआई आठवले यांच्या प्रतिमेला विनम्र अभिवादन केले. pic.twitter.com/OB06e4Z0jH

— Dr.Ramdas Athawale (@RamdasAthawale) June 9, 2024

(This is an updated version of a report published in June 2019)

Also read: Narendra Modi’s 2019 victory is Hindutva 2.0 — and Dalits & OBCs form its backbone