Kanshi Ram: News

Kanshi Ram was a Bahujan activist, politician, and the Founder-President of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He came from a lower-caste Ramdasia Sikh background, though he carried neither the turban nor the surname "Singh," the usual signifiers of the Sikh identity. He used to work at the Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Pune, from where he picked up leadership skills of the military kind. Inspired by BR Ambedkar and his writings, Ram witnessed caste oppression around him and decided to work towards the upliftment of backward communities. Ram formed many prominent organizations to work in this direction. In the 1970s, he founded the Backward and Minority Community Employees Federation (BAMCEF). He followed it up by setting up the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS4), and in 1984, launched the political outfit BSP. His method of combining the minority and backward caste vote comprising 85% of the pie against that of the 15% upper sections of society was instrumental in the rise of BSP as a serious political party. Ram was a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament during 1991-1996 from Etawah and in 1996-1998 from Hoshiarpur. He was the President of BSP from 1984 to 2003, when he handed over the reins of the party to Mayawati. He passed away in 2006 at the age of 72.