Ambedkar’s 1942 party reconfiguration misfired amid rising national and communal politics.

Evidence

Though Ambedkar had a formidable intellect, he didn’t have the sense of timing, the duplicity, the craftiness and the ability to be unscrupulous—qualities that a good politician needs. His constituency was made up of the poorest, most oppressed sections of the population. He had no financial backing. In 1942, Ambedkar reconfigured the Independent Labour Party into the much more self-limiting Scheduled Castes Federation. The timing was wrong. By then, the national movement was reigniting. Gandhi had announced the Quit India Movement. The Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan was gaining traction, and for a while caste identity became less important that the Hindu–Muslim issue. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 426

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why Dalit political autonomy failed to consolidate, connects to debates in contemporary Dalit electoral politics about separate versus mainstream parties.