BAMCEF

BAMCEF
The All India Backward And Minority Communities Employees Federation
Formation 6 December 1978 (1978-12-06)
Founder Kanshi Ram
Founded at BAMCEF Convention at New Delhi
Type Social organization of educated employees[1]
Legal status Active
Members
2 million[2]
President
 Waman Meshram (Bharat Mukti Morcha faction[3])
B. D. Borkar (Mulnivasi Sangh faction[4][5])
Website www.bamcef.info
www.bamcef.org.in
www.bamcef.co.in
bamcefmission.com

BAMCEF is an Indian charitable organization. It was founded in 1978 to enlist the aid of the comparatively well-educated among the bahujans and other communities of India who suffer discrimination. It has no political or religious agenda, nor does it promote agitation to achieve its goals.[6] BAMCEF is an acronym for "The All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation". The term backward got its significance from the Constitution of India, which divides the oppressed and exploited Indians into categories on the basis of their backwardness, namely: Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Minority Communities.

The origins of BAMCEF lie in an organisation for employees of repressed communities that was established in 1971 by Kanshi Ram.[6] This became BAMCEF at a convention held in Delhi in 1978, with an official launch on 6 December 1978, the anniversary of the death of B. R. Ambedkar.[7] The ideology of BAMCEF is to fight the entrenched system of inequality that divides Indian society, and to abolish the caste system.

History

As an employee of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory in Pune, Kanshi Ram realized that the formation of a bahujan bureaucracy was important to serve Dalits' interests. He set about forming a federation, through which he worked his way up the bureaucratic hierarchy. By identifying a few zealous officers, he was able to influence lower-ranked staff.[8]

The motto of this organisation was 'Payback to society', to inspire the Dalit bureaucrats to do their bit for the Dalit masses. In this way, a continuous supply of intellectual property, money and talent was ensured. Ram did not want to make BAMCEF an employees' union. He wanted it to become an organisation of educated Bahujan employees: "the think tank, talent bank, and financial bank of the Bahujan samaj".[9]

BAMCEF raised funds to promote their agenda and for training.Kanshi Ram appointed state-level conveners as well as mandal conveners to act as links between state and district levels.[10] Suryakant Waghmore says it appealed to "the class among the indigenous moolnivasi bahujans that was comparatively well-off, mostly based in urban areas and small towns working as government servants and partially alienated from their untouchable identities".[11]

Others established the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4) in 1981. This organization made an impact on people in North and South India. Later, this group was led by Ishaan Singh Tomar. Before the formation of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), DS4 entered local elections in Delhi and Haryana in the name of "Limited Political Action". Later on, Ram dissolved DS4 and formed BSP as a completely political wing.[12] This caused strain within BAMCEF ranks.[13]

In early 1986, BAMCEF split. Kanshi Ram announced that he was no longer willing to work for any organisation other than BSP. One element of BAMCEF, which was associated with Kanshi Ram, became a shadow organisation to help BSP in electoral mobilisation. Those remaining in BAMCEF after Ram's departure registered BAMCEF as an independent non-political organisation in 1987.[14]

[D. K. Khaparde]] was national president of BAMCEF from 1987 until his death on 29 February 2000. His successor was Waman Chindhuji Meshram.[15][16]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Reporter, Staff (2011-12-07). ""Pay back to the society after self-introspection"". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  2. ↑ "Kanshi Ram: from BAMCEF to the Bahujana Samaj Party". Round Table India. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  3. ↑ "Campaign against electronic voting machines from March 25 - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  4. ↑ Yogesh Maitreya. "RSS-ABVP disrupts BAMCEF's Haryana convention". twocircles.net. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  5. ↑ ""Captivating the Simple-Hearted" Book Launch Captivates Canadians". Sikh24. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  6. 1 2 Waghmore 2013, pp. 39-40.
  7. ↑ Jaffrelot 2010, p. 535.
  8. ↑ "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow". The Indian Express. 2014-05-24. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  9. ↑ Jaffrelot 2003, p. 392.
  10. ↑ Franco, Macwan & Ramanathan 2004, p. 52.
  11. ↑ Waghmore 2013, p. 40.
  12. ↑ "BSP finally arrives as Mayawati stuns political observers with her election performance". India Today. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  13. ↑ Teltumbde, Anand (2016-08-19). Dalits: Past, present and future. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781315526447.
  14. ↑ Waghmore, Suryakant (2013-09-30). Civility against Caste: Dalit Politics and Citizenship in Western India. SAGE Publications India. ISBN 9788132118862.
  15. ↑ Singh, Rohini (2014). "BSP founder Kanshi Ram's Dalit group Bamcef plans to contest 400 Lok Sabha seats". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
  16. ↑ "Another procession demands strengthening of atrocities act". The Times of India. Retrieved 2018-08-14.

Sources

  • BAMCEF (2017), "BAMCEF AT A GLANCE", BAMCEF, retrieved 20 December 2017
  • Franco, F; Macwan, J; Ramanathan, S (2004), Journeys to Freedom: Dalit Narratives, ISBN 81-85604-65-7
  • Jaffrelot, Christophe (2003), India's silent revolution: the rise of the low castes in North Indian politics, Permanent Black, ISBN 978-81-7824-080-0
  • Jaffrelot, Christophe (2010), Religion, Caste, and Politics in India, Primus
  • Waghmore, Suryakant (2013), Civility against Caste: Dalit Politics and Citizenship in Western India, Sage, ISBN 978-81-321-1308-9
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