Continuing with its aggressive campaign against the targeting of Dalits and minorities, the Bhim Army today led a massive delegation to the magistrate’s office in Muzaffarnagar with the following demands –
1. To free all Dalits wrongly incarcerated since the Bharat Bandh of April 2, 2018
2. Government jobs for those killed by the police during the bandh
3. One crore compensation for those killed during the Bharat bandh
4. Granting firearms licenses to members of marginalized communities especially Dalits
It must be noted that a bandh was called by Dalit organisations against the dilution of the SC/ST act on April 2, 2018. While the affected communities came out in large numbers to support the bandh, videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLILcFjhPH8&t=83s) emerged later in which upper caste youths can be seen firing at Dalit protesters. A total of nine people lost their lives. Following the bandh, in a partisan strategy now commonly(https://cjp.org.in/hostile-state-machinery-targets-dalits-in-maharashtra/) used by the police, Dalit youth were picked up from their homes and thrown into jail(https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/dalit-protests-5000-booked-32-arrested-for-rioting-in-ghaziabad-1204365-2018-04-04). Bhim Army’s demands must be seen in the light of these facts.
Speaking to reporters later, Bhim Army chief, Chandrashekhar Azad announced a nationwide campaign in support of these demands. When asked about his recent Ayodhya Yatra(https://sabrangindia.in/article/chandrashekhar-azad-walks-talk-ayodhya), he said that it was to demand protection for the minority, OBC and Dalit communities in Ayodhya who were feeling the heat from the Hindutva congregation in support of the construction of the Ram Mandir. On asked about BSP supremo Ms. Mayawati’s continuing stand against him.
Chandrashekhar in his trademark style brushed it aside as a ‘family matter’. On being asked about the recent controversy about Hanuman being called a Dalit by the UP CM yogi Adityanath, Azad dismissed it as ‘yet another ploy to distract the people’ but also added, in the same breath, that if that be the case then Dalits all over India should take over Hanuman temples, ask the Brahmin priests to leave and seize the collection boxes.
