Assertion & confrontation

The board that started it all for Chandrashekhar Azad Raavan, winner from the Nagina Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh, is still there.

-  ADITI PHADNIS

It proclaims proudly: "The Great Chamar Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Village Gharkauli Welcomes You." Near Saharanpur, Gharkauli has Brahmins and Rajputs as well as a large number of Dalit Muslim residents. The board calling it (Gharkauli) a "Great Chamar" village was put up in 2016. The upper castes in the village objected to it. The Dalits refused to remove it. Talks between the upper castes and Dalits failed. One day, the sign was found defaced.

In came Chandrashekhar Azad with his posse of motorbike-borne riders amid roars of "Jai Bhim" and "Jai Bhim Army".

Tensions rose, stones were thrown by both sides and the policemen who were sent to investigate the matter were thrashed.

Thus began a phase of direct confrontation and Dalit agitational politics of a kind the younger generation had not seen. This led to more Thakur-Dalit clashes in the district that very month on the birth anniversary of Rajput king Maharana Pratap.

The state government held Azad's Bhim Army responsible for inciting violence. Azad claimed the government was targeting it to malign the movement and shield offenders. The state administration arrested Azad. The matter went to court and the high court acquitted him.