02 December, 2006
The Hindu
Why did Maharashtra burst into flames on Thursday
following Dalit protests, almost without warning?
To those who have not been monitoring what is
happening among Dalits, and more specifically
amongst the followers of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar this
year, it would appear that the protests came
out of nowhere. Yet the signs of anger have
been more than evident, particularly over the
last two months since the murder of four Dalits
in the village of Khairlanji, 100 km from Nagpur
on September 29. Ironically, just three days
after this atrocity in which the mother and
three grown children of the Bhotmange family
were brutally killed, a major event took place
in Nagpur bringing together the national leadership
of Dalits. On October 2, Dussehra Day, Dalits
marked 50 years since Dr. Ambedkar's conversion
to Buddhism. On October 14, the actual date
of the conversion, once again lakhs of people
gathered in Nagpur. Not a whiff of the atrocity
so close at hand disturbed the occasion.
The first protests against the Khairlanji killing
emerged more than a month later, first in Nagpur
and then in Amravati and Yavatmal. In each case,
the protesters appeared as if out of nowhere
and caught the police off guard. They seemed
to be leaderless but did not escape the full
force of police brutality, particularly in Amravati
and Yavatmal. The anger that fuelled those demonstrations
was clearly linked to Khairlanji and the State
Government's failure to move swiftly to deal
with the crime. Although since then, the State
Home Ministry has taken some steps by suspending
the officials who were lax in registering the
atrocity and in the follow-up to it and arresting
the sarpanch and upa sarpanch of the village,
suspected of having led the mob, the general
perception remains that the incident has not
been taken seriously enough.
Anger against this apparent indifference had
been brewing and was just waiting for a trigger
to burst forth again. This was provided by the
desecration of Dr. Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur
on Wednesday. News about this spread instantly
through the electronic media. Some reports suggest
that Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) cadre also passed
on the information. The BSP has built a base
in Vidharbha, Marathwada, and in Mumbai following
the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Apart
from Khairlanji, the police response to the
demonstrations in Nagpur, Amravati, and Yavatmal
that followed also fuelled the fury seen on
Thursday.
At a discussion in Mumbai on Tuesday on media
coverage of the Khairlanji incident, Dalit writer
and critic Anand
Teltumbde pointed out that police brutality
in Amravati and Yavatmal towards peaceful demonstrators
had not been covered or followed up by the media.
While in Amravati, one Dalit youth was killed
in police firing and several were injured, in
Yavatmal, the police picked up 50 youth in the
middle of the night from a Dalit basti without
any explanation of what their involvement was.
Even well-respected Dalit activists, including
a woman, were picked up in the night and allegedly
abused.
Disillusionment rife?
A Nagpur-based Dalit activist says the mainstream
media are not aware of the extent to which news
about Dalit atrocities now circulates through
other sources. For instance, well before the
news about Khairlanji hit the
national press, pictures of the slain members
of the Bhotmange family were on many websites
dedicated to Dalit issues. In particular, in
this year of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar's
conversion to Buddhism and his death, Dalits
have been networking far more diligently than
earlier. Educated Dalit youth, he suggests,
are disillusioned with the existing political
leadership and are looking for ways to express
their dissatisfaction. The virtually leaderless
protests following the Khairlanji murders in
Nagpur and elsewhere are an indication of this
disillusionment.
The 50th anniversary celebrations have also
led to much greater social mobilisation amongst
Dalits this year. Leading up to December 6,
Dr. Ambedkar's death anniversary, there have
been hundreds of events at Boudh Viharas in
many parts of the State as lakhs of Dalits begin
converging on Chaitya Bhoomi in Mumbai for December
6. With the Kanpur incident taking place just
a week before this major event, it was inevitable,
some of these activists believe, that Dalit
youth would have been provoked to take to the
streets and protest. While the media covered
the damage to public property and the inconvenience
caused to the general public as a result of
the protests, the reasons for such deep-seated
anger need to be probed more deeply. Why would
thousands of ordinary Dalit youth come out on
the road and vent their anger in this way unless
their sense of disillusionment with the system
had not already reached boiling point? Instead
of merely looking at whether the protests were
"spontaneous," as Maharashtra Home
Minister R.R. Patil holds, or part of an organised
plan, we need to understand the basis of this
fury.
The reality in Maharashtra, as elsewhere in
India, is that despite reservation and the chance
for education and upward mobility that this
has given some Dalits, caste prejudice continues
to survive. The Bhotmange family, for instance,
was educated. Yet, its members had to tolerate
casteist slurs. Bhaiyalal Bhotmange, who owns
five acres of irrigated land, was not permitted
to plaster his house because the panchayat would
not accept him as a resident of the village.
Such stories are not the exception; they can
be multiplied many times over across Maharashtra
but are rarely reported. As a result, when anger
erupts, the government is left wondering what
went wrong.
Divisions within the Dalit political leadership
further compound the problem in Maharashtra.
Despite the outrage
over Khairlanji, there has been no united response
by these parties. Instead, they are suggesting
outrageous solutions ranging from arming Dalits
to separate Dalit villages. With important civic
elections in Mumbai and Thane around the corner,
several observers fear that Dalit and other
political parties will only be interested in
capitalising on this current unrest to bring
in votes. The Maharashtra Government has been
equally lacking in sensitivity and foresight.
It continues to deal with atrocities, and incidents
like Khairlanji, as a law and order problem
or isolated atrocities.
In fact, after the initial protests, the State
Government tried to make a case that the protests
were the work of
Naxalite groups and used that as an excuse to
move against the protesters with greater force.
Thursday's events should inform the government
that such a myopic understanding of the situation
will only make things worse.
Copyright © 2006, The Hindu.
