FOCUS-April 2021

BHIMA KOREGAON-A QUESTION OF ANSWERS History of every evolving society has its share of agreeable events and disagreeable opinions. Many a times, in fact more often than not, society and by extension the world, come to terms with the reality of the event and life goes on. History, as we all know, is full of events, understanding of which gives us a sense of perspective to understand and accept these events as an inevitable development in any society, which keeps adjusting itself to the evolving reality of life, which is ever on the move. World War I has come and gone, so has the World War II. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the culmination of global estrangement. Americans, who bombarded Japan, became its biggest trading partner, friend and protector. Both have found new meaning to their co-operative co-existence. Newer ways of socio-political life has emerged in the larger context of live and let live. We have United Nations organisation, which tries to give meaning to the concept of co-operative co-existence based on universal human rights, irrespective of colour, race, religion or country. But the truth is, even these global bodies have their grey areas, where powerful members have made these world bodies less effective. Can this scenario be changed?! It’s a question begging for answer interminably. Vadhu Budruk is a village near Bhima Koregaon outside Pune in Maharashtra. Legend has it, that Aurangzeb killed Sambhaji Maharaj, the Maratha ruler and being a cruel ruler of Mongol origin he mutilated the body of Maratha ruler and it happened on March 11, 1689. Govind Gaikwad Mahar from Vadhu Budruk village collected the body parts of the deceased Maratha ruler Sambhaji Maharaj and organized the last rites. Out of love and respect for the late Sambhaji Maharaj, Mahars, who are now classified as Dalits, of Vadhu Budruk said to have constructed a memorial to the Maratha ruler. When Govind Gaikwad died, a tomb too was constructed in the same village. Life had gone on. With the demise of Sambhaji Maharaj, a Brahmin dynasty, of Peshwas had ushered to control the Maratha Empire. Although they were good administrators and had expanded Maratha influence, they were notorious for their mistreatment and persecution of low caste people, especially Mahars, who were called untouchables. But the Mahars of 18th century or 19th century did not harbour any bitterness towards Peshwas, since they had accepted the social divide and aberrations that existed those days. Those were the initial days of East India Company of England. Slowly and steadily they were expanding their area of influence as years passed. Come 1818, on January 1st, according to historical sources available in the public space, British forces of East India Company had come face to face with Peshwas. Details available in the public space, informs that, there was no way British could defeat Peshwas, who had an army of close to 30,000 and Britishers were not even a 1000. Even their less than 1000 troops, had more than 500 Mahars, the local Indians, the so-called untouchables. Mahars were untouchables to Peshwas, but they were acceptable to British to serve them. Since it was an employment with some dignity, obviously Mahars were happy being with British or English soldiers. May be they gave their best as a mark of gratitude to the white race who employed them. They fought valiantly and won the battle of Koregaon. To commemorate the memory of dead soldiers, a victory Pillar or Vijay Stambha was erected. Thus 1st January became a symbol of their valour. Victory Pillar was constructed by the British. Was it a ploy, an extension of their divide and rule policy, so that it remains a lasting reminder that Mahars did indeed defeat Brahim Peshwas!? So that the divide persist! However, the victory or the victory pillar of Koregaon did not make much difference to Mahars’ per se in the immediate future. Life again went back to become uneventful. Coming to the recorded victory of Mahars over Peshwas, was however disputed by Prof. Anand Teltumbde. According to him ‘portraying the battle of Bhima Koregaon as the battle of Mahars’ against their caste oppression in Peshwa rule is a ‘pure myth’. He mentions most of those who died in the battle-some 27 out of 49- were not Mahars, and the Peshwa army actually retreated fearing the arrival of a larger British force. Thus he considers painting of the battle of Mahars in Koregaon against Peshwa’s Brahmins’ rule as misleading. Prof. Anand Teltumbde is a grandson of BR Ambedkar, a highly educated and respected intellectual. He was a Prof at IIT Kharagpur. What he says carries conviction and therefore can be taken on face value. However in January 1st 1927, BR Ambedkar was learnt to have visited Bhima Koregaon Vijay Stambha. To commemorate his visit a large number of Mahars started to visit the Vijay Stambh as a pilgrimage on 1st January every year. However according to eye witness who was a practicing family physician in Vadhu Budruk, although many men and women used to visit Bhima Koregaon Vijay Stambh they did not visit the tomb of Govind Gaikwad Mahar who is reputed to have built a memorial to Maratha ruler Sambhaji Maharaj, both memorials are in Vadhu Budruk village. But he confirms that caste Hindus led by Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote had desecrated the tomb of Govind Gaikwad by removing the canopy on the tomb so also they desecrated the memorial of Sambhaji Maharaj, since they didn’t accept the fact that memorial to Sambhaji Maharaj was built by Govind Gaikwad, a Mahar. This was the beginning of a peaceful atmosphere of Vadhu Budruk getting disturbed. In the meanwhile, to bring about unity among Mahars yearly commemoration at Vijay Stambh became a regular event on every 1st January. A new theory was allowed to float that the Vijay Stambh represents the victory of Mahar over Peshwas, a Brahmin dynasty. This attracted huge crowd running into lakhs. It was a massive show of strength. Naturally show of strength, unnerves opponents. Jan 1, 2018, had marked the 200th year of Battle of Bhima Koregaon. Gathering was expectedly huge. A conference was organized by a crowd of 250 including two retired judges, BG Kolse Patil and P. B Sawant, so also a Gujarat MLA, Jignesh Mewani. Although all earlier years, these commemorations were peaceful and social harmony in the village was a norm. But in the year 2018, tension had begun to build in Vadhu Budruk over the question of which community had conducted the last rites of Sambhaji Maharaj. Although it was well known that it was Govind Gaikwad, a Mahar, who had collected the mutilated body of Sambhaji Maharaj and had performed his last rites, Marathas were not prepared to accept it. It had strangely remained dormant for all the 200 years. But this time round, politics probably took over the Maratha psyche and according to information in the public space; the Panchayat of Bhima Koregaon had issued a notice asking residents to boycott the commemoration event by calling all shops to remain closed that day. Clearly mischief was in the air. Stone throwing by anti-socials started followed by violence in which some 5 were injured and a youth died. On 2nd January 2018, an FIR was filed against Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote. Sambhaji Bhide is a Hindutva activist. He was a full time worker of RSS. In 1980, he left RSS to form Shiv Pratishthan Hindustan. He was a Professor of physics at Fergusson College Pune. Being a highly educated Hindutva activist, he has a discernible reach in the higher echelons of political leadership. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is supposedly his admirer. No wonder, state machinery has been rather slow in acting against this octogenarian, who is currently all of 88. Unlike Bhide, Milind Ekbote, a Hindutva activist, is younger at 58 and is president of Dharmaveer Sambhaji Maharaj Pratishthan & Samarth Hindu Agadi. While there is an accusation that he instigated violence in Bhima Koregaon he in turn accused “leftist, pro-naxal anti-national force of instigating violence at Bhima Koregaon”. Reportedly, while Bhide was never arrested due to ‘lack of evidence’, Ekbote was arrested in March 2018 but released on bail about a month later, Ekbote had brought up at the court while applying for bail that ‘Elgar Parishad, an evening conclave held on December 31, 2017, on Pune’s Shanivar Wada, the erstwhile seat of Peshwa power was responsible for the ruckus on January 1st to January 3rd 2018. According to Pune police provocative speeches at the conclave led to the violence at Bhima Koregaon the next day. The Pune police also claimed that conclave was organized with the help of banned CPI Maoist. Police reportedly booked some 23 people and arrested 9 of them. They are all well known rights activists. Most of them have been denied bail on the ground of creating unrest in the country and are accused of plotting to over- throw elected government. As late as March 22nd 2021 Stan Swamy, was denied bail by an NIA court. He is an 83 years old Jesuit Priest of Roman Catholic order. He has been a tribal rights activist. Prima facie, it is very disturbing to see rights activists behind bar. But what is surprising is why court of law does not see merit in their appeal for bail? It is true courts need not be always right. But, it has been happening frequently. Lot of liberals has been writing in the media in support of these arrested activists. They have accused the central government of the day as being intolerant of criticism of government’s actions of commission and omission. ‘Democracy is in danger’ has been their repeated clarion call. They accused the government of throttling public opinion and many other dictatorial tendencies. How much these liberals are right and how much the government is right is completely clouded by mutual intolerance of seeing one another’s point of view. In the meanwhile, has the justice taken a back seat? Those arrested continued to remain incarcerated. Ideally nobody should be in prison but the truth is they are still inside the jail with unproven accusations. We go back in time, not very far. Some 12 years ago in 2009 Lt. Col. Shrikant Prasad Purohit was arrested in 2008 Malegaon blast case. Supreme Court granted him bail on 22nd August 2017. Surely Supreme Court must have gone into details of the case before granting him bail. But NDTV talks about ‘10 facts’ about Col. Purohit, the main accused. This is despite Apex Court’s bail! Asseemanand was another accused arrested and similarly bailed out. Pragya Thakur was another alleged main accused in the same Malegaon blast case. She too has been given bail and is now an M.P. In 2018, RVS Mani, a former central government official in the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote and published a book “THE MYTH OF HINDU TERROR- Insider Account of Ministry of Home Affairs-2006-2010”. Book has some very damaging information regarding the alleged machinations in the corridors of power. However, strangely the entire media decided to ignore the publication and not to react. There have been no comments or reactions from the main stream media houses on those serious charges leveled by the former MHA official RVS Mani. Even liberals, who jump into the fray even if there is a remotest possibility to attack the present government at the centre, are tongue tied. He openly accuses important lights of UPA regime like Shivraj Patil, P. Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde, all Union Home Ministers at different times during 2004/2013. The book is extremely disturbing in that, it documents various important cases in which investigations were derailed and evidence suppressed and newer ones manufactured. RVS Mani suggests that the state machinery was systematically subverted to undermine criminal investigations in order to sustain a false and questionable narrative of Hindu Terror. His portrayal of Digvijay Singh, a senior Congress man and former CM of Madhya Pradesh, so also involvement of Hemant Karkare, a police officer of Maharashtra cadre is deeply worrying. According to RVS Mani, these two are the original architects of the Hindu Terror Myth. It is on this questionable narrative of Hindu Terror, that all three accused were arrested and released after some 10 years incarceration. None in the media came to their rescue. None wrote in support of them. Now all of them are on bail. Mind you these arrests happened during 2004-2014 tenure of UPA led by Congress. The silence of the media, the so-called liberals and of course the opposition political class on the black and white contents of the book by RVS Mani is very strange. Even courts, strangely have not taken up the matter of such a serious publication in national public interest. This is Yeh Mera India, always barking up the wrong tree. ISSUES & CONCERNS is not an investigative publication, nor it has the where-withal of main stream media to pursue ‘the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth’. But can surely ask questions in service of truth. Indians, the ‘aam aadmi’ have a right to KNOW THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH. It is clearly evident that there is unease in the society. It is true a section of upper caste have been rather bad and cruel with socially vulnerable sections like Dalits who are not economically and numerically strong. And our authority in-charge of law and order has not been above board in dealing with these perpetrators of violence. Thus the pain of those who suffered at the hands of upper caste has been allowed to simmer. This shows the failure of leadership especially among upper caste people to address the malaise. This unfortunate development has persisted wherever and whenever BJP has come to political power in states or centre. The latest development where Elgar Parishad leadership of Dalits invited likes of Arundhati Roy and Sharjeel Usmani is a reaction that the Dalit leadership must resist. The fact is there are enough and more men and women among Hindus, themselves who are critical of happenings in Hindu society but could still play a meaningful role in diffusing the increasing unease among sections of Hindu society instead of calling professional Hindu baiters and political operators. We are all privy to the incendiary language used by Usmani at the venue and how he has been booked by the government in Mumbai. These acts of tit-for-tat are not going to help anybody, least of all Dalits. Anybody who commits societal wrong should be punished without delay so that message of ‘No-Nonsense tolerated’ goes. And nobody should be allowed to fish in the troubled water. Upper caste leadership among Hindus & BJP should take the initiative upfront with honesty and sincerity as an elder brother to sooth the frayed nerves and hurt psyche among Dalits. Only then some difference can be expected for lasting solution for this ever widening divide that is visibly causing the national disquiet.