NEW VISION: Digvijay (right) presenting the Bhopal Declaration to the President

At a time when public discourse in the country was centred on terrorism, President K.R. Narayanan struck a different chord. In what may be his last Republic Day address to the nation-unless, of course, he gets re-elected-he called upon the private sector to provide representation to the deprived classes. Socialism in private enterprise? Not quite. He wanted the private sector to emulate the example of corporate America; undertake supplier diversity and affirmative action.

Narayanan's appeal was based on the Bhopal Declaration-a new recipe for partnership in civil society drawn up by Dalit leaders at a conference organised by the Madhya Pradesh Government in January. In their 21-point agenda, they demanded quality education and the "democratisation of capital". In a deregulated economy, they wanted Dalits to become entrepreneurs and traders. They asked the government to intervene in the market on their behalf and make some obligatory purchases from them.

At the end of the conference the state Government itself ushered in supplier diversity. Chief Minister Digvijay Singh announced that 30 per cent of the purchases for ashram schools and hostels would be made from Dalit entrepreneurs and dealers. "We will build a new class of entrepreneurs. We will create Dalit millionaires. We have to think beyond government jobs," says Digvijay. "The SCs and STs constitute 35 per cent of Madhya Pradesh's population. Even if we fill up our backlog, we won't be able to provide enough jobs."

The prime mover behind the Bhopal Declaration is Dalit writer Chandrabhan Prasad. He wants his community to come out of the bondage of reservation and explore the market. "Asset ownership in the country should reflect the social spectrum," he says.

Why have the Dalits suddenly turned to the private sector? "Supplier diversity is our means to cope with the withdrawal of the government from a number of areas under the LPG-liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation-regime," explains a Dalit leader. For the first time, the Dalit imagination has moved away from reservation and government jobs. "The Dalits have sought a new role for the government-state support to create a middle class," says Aditya Nigam of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. "They have put forth their demand in the language of the New Age economy."

The corporate sector has responded warily. "If job quotas are imposed on us we won't be able to compete internationally," cautions industrialist Arun Bharat Ram. Merit, not caste, matters in the private sector, he asserts.

Prasad rebuts Ram's claims. "Dalits have to hide their caste when they approach private firms. Recruitment in this sector happens on caste basis. All we are asking for is equal opportunity."

Sociologist Dipankar Gupta links the demand for jobs in the private sector to the large presence of Dalits in the urban areas. "By referring to the US example, they have willy-nilly emphasised on quality, which is a welcome sign," he says. However, his counterpart Andre Beteille flinches at the idea of extending job quotas. "Social change through reservation is a 19th century idea. Any further extension of the quota will become counter-productive," he says. "Even in the US, supplier diversity is now being rolled back and affirmative action is viewed as a disincentive for developing skills."

Nevertheless, in the Indian context, the Bhopal Declaration reflects the gains of Dalit politics in the past decade. Its importance lies in its vision of creating a Dalit middle class outside the state system, a dream fraught with interesting possibilities.