One Kamal Didi (she signs as Kamal Didi too) of the Rashtriya Mahila Gau Rakshak Sewa Mandal was trying to catch stray cows with the help of the Nagar Nigam to take them to the Gaushalas when Qasim, a cleaner boy from Rabbani Hotel, came to throw garbage in an empty plot near the dustbin on Kanti Chandra Road in Jaipur. All the hoteliers and other private residents throw garbage there. Some of the stray cows who were hanging out near the kachra (the stray cow population of the city is always hovering near dustbins, as they are very hungry), immediately went for the freshly thrown bags, which had food waste along with some chicken / mutton bones.

Kamal Didi immediately started thrashing Qasim accusing him of trying to pollute the cows with beef, dragged him and brought him to the hotel, with 15 other of her followers. In next to no time more than a hundred people joined them later, all wanting the hotel owner Rabbani to come out. The police was called and it was alleged that beef was being cooked and served in his hotel.

The police and the media arrived together. The Gau Rakshaks are always with the media. When they could not find Rabbani, they picked up Wasim the receptionist and the cleaner and booked them under section 151 CrPC and arrested them.

At the hotel they found brochures on the activities of the SIO (the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Hind, JIE), writings of Maulana Wahauddin and the communal harmony campaign literature of Jamaat. So the police reached the JIE’s office asking for Naeem Rabbani. When they learnt that he was not there, they went to his house. Not finding him there either, in line with filmstar Ajeet's his famous dialogue ‘Uski ma, behen ko utha lao’ (Get hold of his mother and sister), they picked up the brother-in-law Abdul Rehamn, who had nothing to do with the hotel.

That is when people got in touch with me.

 I rushed to the Sindhi camp police station. The police let the brother-in-law go. It was only on our way out that we learnt that they had picked up two others of the hotel. After dropping Abdul Rehman safely to his relatives, we went back to the police station to meet the other two and get them out. But the police told us that they had been booked and arrested. They would be produced in front of a magistrate and restrained.

What is interesting is that the protest over the hoax cry that beef was being cooked, resulted in police taking the meat samples and also the Jaipur municipal corporation sealing the hotel. They got all the guests out and sealed it.

What is sad is that Hyatt Rabbani has been getting awards regularly from the hoteliers association for good service among other things. Now the hotel is closed. Rabbani is being asked to show up in the morning (of March 20) and will also be restrained under sec 151 of CrPC.

The Muslim community leadership in the city is in a state of shock over how the police could act under pressure and book Rabbani his staff over a mere a allegation, without basis, of beef being cooked and served. They are very upset. The electronic media has virtually declared that the meat samples were of suspicious nature, did not look like mutton or chicken.

So even before Yogi Adityanath takes over as UP CM, the rest of their lot are so emboldened that they take no time in declaring a Muslim who runs a hotel as committing a heinous crime. Some were also sure that this was done by the next door hotelier who was threatened by their booming business. The ward councillor Nirmala Sharma was also there directing the corporation staff to seal the hotel. While this was being done, the crowds were shouting Jai Shri Ram! In fact, Jai Shri Ram and other slogans were constantly being raised in the drama which lasted for four-and-a-half hours. From 6 pm to 10.30 pm.

Qasim and Wasim are spending the night in the police station. Hopefully they should be released tomorrow. Rabbani not knowing what has hit him, was just working hard in his business is now preparing to face the police. His friends and other members of the Muslim community kept saying that all over Jaipur people are throwing garbage as there are not even garbage bins. Why take action against us only? When I told this to a senior police official he said the police only act when somebody complains.

This is not the first beef related case in Rajasthan. On May 30, 2015 in village Birloka, Khimsar tehsil, Nagaur district, 60-year-old Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi was lynched by a mob simply because a rumour was spread that Muslims had killed more than 200 cows for a feast and pictures of the carcasses started circulating on social media.

Young men in thousands gathered in the fields of Kumhari village where the carcasses were lying as the municipality contractor had rented the field to dispose of cattle carcass, as a routine municipal exercise. Hate speeches and protests took off all over and before one knew Abdul Ghaffar Quereshi who had nothing to do with the incident was beaten with iron rods and killed in the market place, despite some of his Hindu neighbours trying to help him. The hate speech had provoked the neighbourhood to just kill the man as they wanted him out of the village.

The PUCL condemns this attack by the police and Kamal Didi who have maligned the name of Naeem Rabbani and appeals to the police commissioner Jaipur, Sanjay Agarwal to stop this attack on the hotelier and his business. The DCP west and the local police need to be charge-sheeted for acting against Rabbani under pressure of the Gau Rakshaks and the ward councilor. The JMC should also be held accountable for sealing the hotel for no reason, acting under pressure from the ward councillor.

Kavita Srivastava is Secretary, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
 

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The slightest pretext is needed in Rajasthan by the Hindutva forces to communalise any incident of vandalism and crime. The latest issue to ignite the communal cauldron is the name of Osama–bin–Laden. While most of the countryside is oblivious of who this person is, Bin-Laden’s name on wall writings even in interior villages and mofussil towns have provoked communal tension in three places that I personally know of in the state.

While it is important for the law and order machinery to identify those responsible for these wall writings, the reaction and capital made out of it by individuals representing the BJP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and the VHP needs to be monitored.

A few shops in that kasba are forcibly shut down by the vandals, Muslim traders terrorised, the Muslim community isolated, madrassas regarded with suspicion and a spate of cases lodged against Muslims. A recent incident in Daulatgarh (Bhilwara district) illustrates the trend. An investigation carried out by PUCL members, Bhanwar Meghwanshi, Raju Jangid, Allaudin Bedal, Ganga Singh Rathore and Abdul Hamid Bagwaan, all from Bhilwara, who visited Daulatgarh on December 29, 2001 and again on January 9, 2002 to study and also initiate a process of peace in the kasba is worth recording:

Daulatgarh was a sleepy kasba town in Asind tehsil with the local Thakurs controlling the politics of the region. In the month of August and September last year (see CC, August Sept 2001) after the demolition of the Kalindri masjid, Sawai Bhoj Temple complex in Asind in July, 2001, representatives of the BJP, VHP, Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal first carried out a trishul diksha samaroh and then a jal abhishek ceremony in September and October (CC, November 01).

Against the backdrop of what had happened at Asind, these programmes of aggressive mobilisation were enough to terrorise the seventy odd Muslim families in a village of over five hundred families. The arrival of a 28-year-old Maulana, Anwar Hussein in the village, became reason enough for the representatives of the local BJP, VHP and SS forces to launch their propaganda, claiming that they felt threatened.

The Muslim community especially called down Anwar Husein from Jodhpur, after collecting contributions from local families, so that he could educate their children in the madrassa. This fuelled rumours that the maulana was conspiring with the youth and talibanising them.

The month of Ramzan saw unease in this kasba for the first time. According to one sympathiser of the Hindutva lobby, villager Bharat Singh, "…. it was the loud calling of the azaan and other "Quran bhajans" every morning at the time of sehri that caused tension. Since half-yearly exams were taking place, the blaring mike disturbed school students.

The villagers got the police to intervene, who ordered that mikes could not be used. Two days later, on December 16, at about 9 am, a rumour spread through the village that someone had written pro-Osama-Bin-Laden slogans on the temple wall. According to one Shanti Lal, the wall writing said, "Mike bandh karane wale teri jagah jehannum mein – O B Laden"(Those responsible for stopping use of the microphone in the mosque shall burn in hell – O B Laden). As a result of this, villagers were up in arms and blamed the maulana for provoking the youth to write it.

The police who were close by, intervened and promptly erased the writing on the temple wall. The Muslim community told the PUCL fact-finding team that though by the time they reached the temple the alleged writing had been erased, they were willing to believe the account and were willing to punish those who did it.

The Muslim community then did what the Hindutva forces wanted them to do. Reacting under pressure, they promptly sent away the maulana. They did not want to be labelled "Laden samarthak" ("Supporters of Laden") which people in that area including the local police started calling them. They feared that the police would keep an extra watch on them.

On January 9, Muslims of Daulatgarh were declared "worshippers of Laden" by the over ten thousand strong assembly that had gathered at Sawai Bhoj Temple to hear Sadhvi Ritambhara. The erstwhile Daulatgarh Thakur, who complained that Talibanis had found their way even into the backwaters of Rajasthan, was chairing the meeting. Speaker after speaker at the public meeting condemned Daulatgarh Muslims for being Laden worshippers and demanded that strong action be taken against them. Sadhvi Ritambhara, known for spreading poison, led the attack. Her speech continued uninterrupted by the police for well over an hour.

Muslims of Daulatgarh live in great fear today. Even dispatching the maulana back to Jodhpur has not changed of people’s opinion towards them.

Shekhavati youth challenge communal forces

From January 1 to January 10 last month, more than 50 kasbas and villages in the Shekhavati region of Rajasthan, which covers the districts of Churu, Jhunjhunu and Sikar witnessed communal vandalism of a kind that the region had not witnessed before. The state home department list classifies three cities of Sikar district as "communally highly sensitive cities" and three others as just "sensitive."

In the past, riots have not erupted in this region. Even at the height of the Babri masjid demolition movement there was no violence here. According to local residents, tension did prevail in some towns but never got out of hand. The region, like other parts of Rajasthan, has also produced kar sevaks who were responsible for demolishing the Babri Masjid, but who could never indulge in similar criminal activities in their own areas.

On the night of January 1, a drunken criminal belonging to the Muslim community broke three idols of the Ram Darbar Mandir in Rolsabsar and threw them by the roadside. Rolsabsar village has a population of eight hundred families, half being kayam khani Muslims and the other half Hindus belonging to various castes. Fearing great tension, the very next morning the family of the accused Ghulam Nabi alias Rasgulla promptly handed him over to the panchayat who in turn handed him to the police.

According to the young sarpanch, Aijaz Ali, they also handed over two other notorious Muslim boys, who everybody knew were not directly involved, in a bid to demonstrate that Muslims did not encourage such acts. Ali told the fact-finding team that local Muslims did all they could to demonstrate their condemnation of this solitary act, saying that the culprits deserved the harshest punishment.

In Rolsabsar, local Muslims initiated such sensitive and salutary measures for peace, as did local Hindus in Sangarwa a few days later.

According to the deputy sarpanch, Puran Singh, and the temple priest, they, along with the entire Hindu community in the village, were satisfied by the prompt response of the Muslim community and the police. The idols were replaced and further action was left to the police. The matter was closed as far as they were concerned.

But while the people of Rolsabsar had settled the matter amicably, it became a useful rallying point for the BJP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and the VHP to mobilise the entire Shekhavati region. Capitalising on the prevalent heightened passions of nationalism, with the country’s borders less than 100 kilometres away, the act of breaking the idols was described as "anti-national" by these communal groups.

Over the next ten days, more than fifty villages and kasbas of that region saw schools, colleges, bazaars, courts and even offices of professionals like lawyers and doctors, forcibly shut down by these groups. But the law and order machinery did not intervene.

Three mosques were desecrated in the region during this period. A pig was thrown into one, the gate of another was burnt and the third was also damaged. Violence followed in some kasbas.

In Churu, police lathi-charged people when prohibitory orders were violated. In Laxmangarh town, during a bandh on January 2, a mosque was desecrated and tension followed. The Muslim community protesting the mosque desecration was dubbed anti-national by the BJP leadership. Laxmangarh remained forcibly closed for the next three days by the forces exerting pressure on the local administration to arrest the "anti-national miscreants".

Interestingly, in the sleepy village of Sangarwa, where very poor Muslims reside — and who were oblivious to any of the disturbances in the region — the door of the local mosque set on fire on the night of January 6. Members of the local Hindu community, with the help of the police, promptly replaced the door and re-painted the wall to prevent escalation of tension.

The vernacular press described these bandhs and violations as "spontaneous" and as "expression of public anger."

On the January 4, the BJP sent a high-powered team, led by former education minister and senior RSS leader, Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi, along with Gulab Chand Kataria, a former state party president. They justified the retaliation of their cadres to the anti-national incidents at Rolsabsar. They condemned the Muslim community for trying to provoke religious sentiments especially when the country was on the verge of war. Hate speech and vilification was dished out in large measures.

Where were the progressive forces? Neither the CPI(M) – who had mobilised one lakh people to protest the dismantling of the Rajasthan State Electricity Board in October 2000 — and a party that has a strong presence in Sikar (the only MLA comes from the Dhond constituency in this district) – nor the Congress — which has won a majority of MLA and MLC seats from the region — stepped forward, barring stray statements that made no impact.

Incidentally, of the 14 municipalities in the Shekhawati region, Muslims chair eight and locals speculate that the BJP is really concerned with snatching away this political control.

The first strong voice of protest against the mobilisation based on division and venom typified here by the RSS and BJP leadership, came from a group of about a hundred and fifty young boys from Ratangarh, one of the important towns of Churu. Ratangarh had a protest bandh on January 2 itself.

Mobilised under the banner of Srijan, these young men belonging mainly to the poorer and vulnerable sections of society decided that they had had enough. They would challenge the politics of lies and manipulation as epitomised in the posturings of the sangh parivar.

This was not the first time that they had been mobilised. But this time the issues were dramatically different. From relief for the Orissa cyclone victims in 1999 — (under the leadership of Rajeev Upadhaya, who hails from a family that subscribes to Gandhian values) they had raised more than fifty lakh rupees which helped in buying more than three lakh clothes for the cyclone victims — to drought relief for the residents of Barmer, to a head-on battle against the politics of venom and hatred today.

Last August, the group had protested the sale of a minor girl and ensured her rehabilitation. Their success in this case got the culprits arrested and even helped them organise a public hearing on violence against adolescent girls.

Concerned over how their region was being held victim to communal poison, these young men organised a 28-kilometre march from Ratangarh to Rolsabsar to demonstrate that both towns wanted peace. Most were unemployed youth while some were involved in small entrepreneurships. They were young boys from all communities, Muslims, Bodh, Harijans (Mehtars), as well as Brahmin, Bania, Jat, Malli and Rajput. The rally, which took six hours to cover 28 kilometres was unprecedented. It provided a platform for ordinary people to voice their views on peace and harmony.

The traders of Ratangarh expressed anger that they had been forced to close the market on January 2. They showered flowers on the marchers and made speeches. The people of the villages that were located on the way also expressed their solidarity with the rally and small sabhas were held on the way.

The rally received an emotional welcome before it reached Rolsabsar, when more than a thousand people of the panchayat, including Bhanwru Khan, the local MLA, the Zilla Pramukh, Bhagwan Singh Dhaka, the pradhan, sarpanch and upsarpanch and several administrative officials of the region joined the last kilometre of the peace march. Women joined the march when the rally went around the village and it finally culminated in a sabha in the temple compound of Jamwaya Mataji ka Mandir.

In the speeches that followed, villagers remembered how young Shahid Mohammed Ikram of their village had laid down his life in Kargil and how today they were proud that the local high school was named after him.

They said that since World War II, the village had produced soldiers who laid their lives fighting for their country. In the 1965 and 1971 wars, more than 250 soldiers from all communities, including Harijans and kayam khanis (Muslims), had fought on the border and today, more than forty of their village boys were on the border facing the Pakistani forces.

Could this village be termed anti-national, the MLA asked? He said he appreciated that stringent punishment, even capital punishment, must be given to the boys who committed a heinous crime like breaking idols of Ram and Sita. He thanked the villagers of Rolsabsar for handing over the guilty Muslim youth to the police.

Other interventions made during the rally also appreciated the no-nonsense attitude displayed by the Muslim community in handing over the guilty persons but lamented that society was unable to deal with mistakes, even crimes, in a just and humane fashion.

Several young boys denounced the role of the media, which had inflamed passions but had ignored coverage of their peace march. Some said the best reply to Pakistan was for Hindus and Muslims to live peacefully together in India.

The youth from Ratangarh announced the holding of a sadbhavna mushaira as part of their next move to promote peace and harmony. The villagers of Rolsabsar arranged buses to take back the youth to Ratangarh as a gesture of gratitude.

It was only after this dynamic local initiative by village youth that the CPI (M) took out a huge peace march in Sikar and after that several other organisations were motivated to hold peace meetings in different kasbas. For the time being, at least, thanks to this local and dynamic intervention, expressions of peace are finding a platform in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, January-February 2002 Year 8  No. 75-76, Breaking Barriers 1

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BHILWARA

Bhanwar Megwanshi

Twenty–six years old Bhanwar Megwanshi is the editor of a monthly Hindi magazine, Diamond India, published from Bhilwara in Central Rajasthan. A Meghwal, one of the scheduled castes, he was born of humble parents in village Sidiyas near Bhilwara. Though his parents were not literate, they educated Bhanwar and his elder brother in the local village school and sent him to a boys’ hostel run by the social welfare department to complete his 12th standard, after which he did his BA privately. 

He comes from a family that believed in Baba Ram Dev, the medieval saint worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims. The latter call him Rama Pir. He grew up worshipping the pagliya, feet of Baba Ram Dev. And Bhanwar has grown up a long way to this day when he is busy combating communal forces and fighting caste oppression in his home district. But it has been an arduous and amazing journey for him, a battle 13–years–long, beginning since he was only a boy of 13. A chequered way to dignity and fulfilment through a fight for justice in society.

As early as standard 6th, the reality of being born an “untouchable” was driven home to him. Bhanwar had gone to meet one of his school friends — a Jat by caste. Till then his friend’s mother had never objected to his sitting anywhere in their house. But that day she asked him to sit on the floor and not the bed on which he was sitting, as the family had guests who knew that he belonged to one of the ‘lowliest castes’. The family tried apologising to him, but Bhanwar was broken. It hit him for the first time that he was a low caste and an “untouchable”, and had a fate radically different from his “upper” caste friends. 

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh came to the village with its shakha in 1988 when Bhanwar was in the 8th standard. Bhanwar went to the secondary school in the neighbouring village. His Geography teacher in that school started the shakha with help from the peon. As the RSS shakha provided the only opportunity for games and physical exercises, Bhanwar joined it along with several other boys. In the shakha, he was introduced to Panchjanya (the central organ of the RSS) and Patheya Kan (the Rajasthan RSS mouth piece). 

In the first year itself, he was promoted to the mukhya shikshak of the shakha. When only 15, in the year 1990, he was selected for the Officers’ Training Camp by the RSS. He completed the first camp of 20 days. In the same year, he was promoted as the RSS Zila Karyalaya Pramukh or office in-charge of Bhilwara district, quite a prestigious post. 

He wanted to rise further in the organisation and become a pracharak.  He told the seniors of his ambition. He was told that he could not become a pracharak, “…Kyunki tum ek vicharak ho, tum apne dhang se hamare vichar rakhoge na ki hamare hisab se…” He was further told that since he belonged to a lower caste he would not be acceptable. 

His having a mind of his own and his lower caste status disqualified him for the post of a RSS pracharak. Nevertheless he was selected to become a worker in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad office which had only then started in the heart of the Muslim area of Bhilwara as compensation. 

Thus he became a vistarak, a post as important as that of a pracharak – vistarak of the ideology by moving to an allied organisation like the VHP. As a vistarak, he could also have moved to other allied organisations like the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, Sanskar Bharti, the Bhartiya Janata Party or the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad. 

In December 1990, Bhanwar was selected for the first “kar sewa” at Ayodhya. The 400-strong contingent from Rajasthan was stopped at Tundla near Agra where they were arrested. They stayed in a temporary jail in Agra for ten days. On his return to Bhilwara he went back to his village as the VHP and the RSS were taking out the asthi kalash yatra of the so-called kar sewak martyrs who had lost their lives by the Saryu in Ayodhya. This event was the turning point of his life. 

The asthi kalash carried by the VHP sadhu-sants and leaders was given a glorious welcome by the villagers under Bhanwar’s leadership. He got his family to prepare the meal for the yatris, consisting of kheer and puris. When they were asked to eat the food, a senior RSS leader took Bhanwar aside and told him that they did not have problems eating in his house but the sadhus would. So they suggested that the food be packed to be eaten in the next village. The food prepared for twenty-five people was packed and given. The next day Bhanwar discovered that the food his mother had prepared with such pain had been thrown by the yatris on the roadside. They had instead eaten in the house of one Brahmin. 

This was a shocking, second encounter with untouchability. Bhanwar felt angry and cheated. He took the decision to leave the RSS. He decided that he would not work with those who would not eat or sit with him. It was a painful moment of introspection for him. His every day experiences of being an untouchable hit him with a force. He realised that his RSS and VHP colleagues had never let him get into the Charbhuja temple close by. Being “untouchables” he and his folks were made to take water from a separate hand pump. As a Dalit he could not ride a cycle past the Thakur’s Rawala, or the village manor. The rule for the Dalit was that he had to get off the cycle. His anger against Hindu dharma made him want to leave it. 

Finally one day, he left his village and went to a nearby town in the district to a Roman Catholic Priest and told him that he wanted too become a Christian. His past brushes with Christians made him believe that theirs was a religion that practised equality. He felt that he would find his answers there. 

He was honest with the Roman Catholic priest. He told him that his desire to join Christianity was not out of any love for the religion but an act of vengeance against Hinduism that had treated him with indignity. The priest advised him not to be hasty, asked him to go back to his village and read the Bible. Only after he felt convinced, would he be baptised. 

Bhanwar tried to explain to the priest that his fight was against caste and untouchability. It was in that context that he wanted to convert. The priest did not respond to this. Bhanwar took the Bible away and went to the priests of other Christian denominations. He felt that none of them could understand his anger against Hinduism and the indignity he had gone through. And none of them were willing to fight against caste. They all talked of things spiritual: that “Christ is the Saviour “ and that he should “surrender to Christ”. 

One of the priests even sent word to his family that their son was going astray and planning conversion and that they should stop him. Bhanwar’s father told him firmly that they would be ex-communicated from the caste if he took a wrong step. He felt a betrayal by the Christian Church. When the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 and many of his erstwhile companions had gone to do ‘kar sewa’, Bhanwar was trying to seek his answers in Christianity. 

His struggle to attain a new identity and do away with his original lower caste Hindu identity, which he hated, made him so lonely and engrossed with himself that he was even indifferent (he can not believe it now) to the demolition of Babri Masjid and its bloody aftermath.

His desire to fight caste and the RSS was so great that he felt that he would get a platform for this by joining party politics. In 1993, at age 18, he joined the Janata Dal. He was promptly made the Bhilwara district president of the Chattra Janata Dal. In no time he got disillusioned, as the party had no programme. He came in contact with Ram Vilas Paswan and was made the district Dalit Sena president. He found the Dalit Sena full of sloganeering and no programme dealing with the Dalit reality on the ground. He was also disillusioned by the local Dalit Sena leaders who talked of scientific temper but spent a great deal of time with astrologers. 

When Ram Vilas Paswan was railway minister in 1996, Bhanwar was dutifully paid for his services and made an advisor on the Divisional Railway Users Consumer Committee of Western Railways (Ratlam Division). At the young age of 21, Bhanwar was in a powerful position. But corruption in high places put him off. He found that many of Paswan’s close supporters were keen that he become a broker for the minister. Not willing to the do this dirty work, he resigned from the committee in early 1998. 

He once again felt cheated and realised that the famous words of Ram Vilas Paswan: “Mein us ghar mein diya jalane chala hoon jis ghar mein sadiyon se andhera hai” were only propaganda. Paswan was just like any other Raja, a Dalit Raja. He maintained a separate court for the ordinary workers, like the Diwan-e- Aam of the Rajas, and a Diwan-e-Khaas for the office bearers. Bhanwar called him not Ram Vilas, but Bhog Vilas. He left the Dalit Sena. 

Still keen on getting answers some where on party political platforms, Bhanwar joined the newly floated Rashtriya Janata Dal. Although the district president of the RJD, he felt that at the state and district level it was a Yadav party, of the Yadavs, by the Yadavs for the Yadavs, the rest of them were just showpieces. He moved on from RJD and took membership of the Samata Party in 1999. When the Rajasthan Samata party merged with the Samajwadi Party, he decided to leave party politics altogether. 
He realised that none of the political parties were serious as far as the Dalit question was concerned. He had had truck with all the socialist groups. Why did he keep away from the BSP? He recalls that he met Kanshi Ram of the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1999. He did not like Kanshi Ram calling all Dalits chamaars. Bhanwar felt that chamaar was pejorative in Rajasthan. He felt that the BSP was also not addressing the core issues of indignity and untouchability. It was moving with the compulsions of electoral politics. 

Disillusioned with life, Bhanwar returned to his village and joined as a teacher of the newly started Rajeev Gandhi Pathshalas. He wanted to have no truck with any ideology. He felt that neither religion nor party politics could bring about essential change. So disenchanted was he by the world that he chose not to even read newspapers or hear the radio. 

In August 2000, he met a Sufi saint called Selani Sarkar in Ahmedabad. Bhanwar felt comfortable with him and his followers, as they did not believe in divisions of caste or religion. Bhanwar found that people of all castes and religions seemed to have the same place in the Sufi saint’s order. He experienced a sense of freedom, of being just a human being, free of caste, religion and other identities. Something that he had not experienced till then at all. 

He found that people of different religions had even adopted each other’s practices. It was here that he realised what Manav Dharma was. The Sufi saint inspired him to begin writing and start a magazine. Bhanwar involved his teachers of the area to start a publication of their own under the company nomenclature of Diamond Newspapers Private Limited. 

In the last year he has made this magazine, Diamond India, a platform for voices of the oppressed and for communal harmony. He feels that his resolve to practice and live Manav Dharma is actualising through this endeavour. The first issue of the magazine talked of Hindu–Muslim rishtedari. These youngsters took the bold stand of Hindu–Muslim inter-marriages in a scenario where such marriages cause communal tension. 

Through their magazine they said that if a Hindu has no Muslim or Christian friend and vice versa, he/she has lived an incomplete life. They talked of how friendship between people of different religions must not stop at the tea stalls, but should move to the homestead. 

In the last seven months, Bhilwara district has seen many instances of breaking/ damaging of mosques and mazaars, including the latest ones in Asind and Jahazpur. In this backdrop, Bhanwar’s magazine has fearlessly taken a stand against the sangh parivar and allied communal forces. The Diamond India team is combating communalism and caste through the printed word. 

Even though Bhanwar has been able to take life in his stride and tried living Manav Dharma, he is still often subjected to indignity for being a Dalit. He is saddened by it but feels that through his work he can make the minorities and Dalits see their strength in their togetherness. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2001, Anniversary Issue (8th) Year 8  No. 71, Cover Story 8

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On May 22, 1998, the victim of the heinous gang–rape incident in a Rajasthan University Boys Hostel eight months ago alleged that she had been gang–raped once again that evening — inside a Maruti van by four masked, armed men. In her FIR she said that assailants had threatened to wipe out her entire family if she did not drop her pending complaint against Prahalad Singh Krishaniya, a deputy superintendent of police (Dy. SP) and Dharmendra Singh Punia, son of an Addl. SP.

It may be recalled that her gang–rape on September 5 1997, by 10 men in the JC Bose Hostel had proved to be the last straw for the girl. She then gathered courage to report to the police not only about that particular incident of sexual abuse but also the sordid story of a seven–year–long sexual exploitation by numerous men with powerful connections.

Women’s organisations in Jaipur, the entire city and the outside world was outraged when the victim complained of being brutalised even while her earlier complaint is pending. The Janwadi Mahila Samiti, in the midst of its state convention when the incident happened, gheraoed the state secretariat the very next day. The main opposition party, the Congress, too, came out strongly against the incident. The outrage was compounded as the alleged assault was linked to police inaction in the earlier incident of gang rape and sexual exploitation over several years. Twelve of the accused are still absconding while the police refuses to treat Dy. SP Krishaniya (also son–in–law of an MLA) as an accused.

Between May 27 and May 30, the girl changed her story three times. She finally retracted her complaint and said she had not been raped at all. In her fourth statement to the police, she said she had gone over to a boy (a medico) from her work place of her own accord and had willingly had sexual intercourse with him.

Her retraction came as a big relief to the BJP’s Bhairon Singh Shekhawat–led government in the state. For the first time, Shekhawat had been faced with an aggressive Opposition that had decided to mobilise people on the issue of rape. The Congress had already raised the issue in Parliament and had planned a siege of the state secretariat on June 1 to highlight the deteriorating law and order situation in Rajasthan.

Besides, the retraction also gave the police a convenient justification for going slow in the proceedings against the accused in the earlier case lodged in September last year. It also came as a big relief to the hypocritical middle class of a conservative city whose conscience was burdened by her account eight months ago. It felt extremely uncomfortable being confronted, yet again, with the horror of something it had complacently refused to see before that fateful September. The relief also laid bare the vicariousness that was but an extension of the male marauders who had cruelly tossed around a woman victim like a sex toy for seven long years, ever since she was 17 or 18.

Acting as a handmaiden of these relieved groups, a section of the local press went to town, salaciously pointing an accusing finger at the girl morning after morning, resurrecting the already rejected theory of a nymphomaniac on the prowl endangering society’s morals. It also gave them the opportunity to put women’s organisations in the dock.

The daily Rajasthan Patrika (Hindi), said such organisations were not worthy of trust as they have always raised false cases — for example, the Sathin Bhanwari Bhateri and Shivani Jadeja (a girl on whom acid was thrown) cases. The Dainik Bhaskar went a step ahead. It published interviews of the wives of men who were being interrogated by the police and “established” the classic patriarchal stereotype: “a woman’s worst enemy is another woman.” The enemies in this case were the victim of the hostel rape case and women’s organisations that raised an unnecessary hue and cry and brought dishonour to respectable middle class families.

One does not know whether the girl’s fourth version, at the bidding of her father and the police, is final. Perhaps, only a psychiatrist can tell. In fact, it seems entirely possible that it is closest to the truth — a tragic truth that the police and a voyeuristic section of the local press and its vicarious readership refuses to see. But before looking at the four versions of the May 22 incident, one should look at the sequence of events preceding the lodging of the FIR with the police.

On May 22, there was justifiable alarm when the girl was reported missing by Vihaan, a resource centre for children where she had been working for the past month and a half. At 4 p.m., she left her office ostensibly to wait for the auto-rickshaw which drove her home every day. When the auto-rickshaw arrived, as usual, at 4.30 p.m., the driver could not find her. An alarmed office staff immediately informed the father. Some of us, members of women’s organisations helping her fight her case, were also informed. Her office colleagues also said that she had made long phone calls before leaving.

The girl’s disappearance was particularly worrisome in view of the pressure she and her family were being subjected to for withdrawing her complaint against some of the accused. The girl’s family knew, and so did we, that some of her tormentors had contacted her during the past one month. She had herself informed us that she was being persuaded to withdraw her complaint of Dy. SP Krishaniya’s involvement in her sexual abuse. The Dy. SP is the son–in–law of a Jat MLA from Nagaur, Richpaal Mirdha.

The case being politically sensitive, the police too became active when told that the girl was missing. A search was launched. Suresh Yadav, a shady character form the girl’s hapless past was picked up by the police for interrogation. At around 8 p.m., the girl walked into the house of an acquaintance of her father and called her home. At 8.15 p.m. the acquaintance dropped her home.

The girl told her mother and sister that she had been gang–raped again. The police and some of us reached her house 20 minutes later. We found the victim on the floor, moaning. The moment she saw us, she hugged one of us and said she wanted to die. Since the police was with us there was no other option but put her into the police jeep and take her to the station. The mother, who had never come out publicly in the last eight months, announced that this time she, too, would also take to the streets and accompanied her for medical examination.

The six days between May 20 and May 25, brought one shocking incident after another of sexual crimes in Rajasthan. On May 20, BJP MLA Rangji Meena and his cohorts allegedly gang–raped a woman devotee in the Kaila Devi temple in Karauli district. The police refused to lodge an FIR until the court gave directions for it do so. A minor girl was raped and killed in Kota. Her family reported that the son of a wealthy business man, a nephew of a senior minister in the state government, and the son of a person close to a central minister, were involved. The police was trying to convert the rape–cum–murder case into one of accidental death, they complained. On May 25, in Behror (Alwar), a girl was thrown into a well when she and her brother resisted the molestation she was being subjected to.

A defensive Shekhawat was forced to order a CBI inquiry into what was now called the double gang–rape case. But before the CBI could move in, the victim retracted her story.

On May 27, the National Women’s Commission, which had been informed about Rajasthan’s week of sexual atrocities, came to Jaipur to discuss the grave situation with us and the government. Women activists had from the beginning noticed two discrepancies in the story of the girl — the unexplained telephone call from her office and her leaving half–an–hour earlier than normal. Thinking that the girl had been forced by her abductors to give a fabricated story and conceal the true facts, we were continuously prodding the girl. In the presence of the visiting NCW team, we questioned her more closely. It was then that the girl came out with a second version.

The second version was that she was returning a call from a shady character Suresh Yadav involved in her earlier exploitation. Pressurising her, Yadav had taken her on a motorcycle to his shop where he and his masked friends raped her, she said.

When this version could not be confirmed by the police, the girl gave a third version, this time only to representatives of women’s organisations. She said that Suresh Yadav had taken her to an unoccupied house and raped her — no one else was involved.

This was followed by the fourth version, mainly at the bidding of the girl’s father. The girl said she was feeling lonely and friendless and badly needed affirmation. In the past 20 days, she had made friends, without revealing her true identity, with a young doctor living across from her work place. Apprehensive that the doctor would spurn her if he knew that she was a gang rape–victim, she assumed a false name — Simran. She said that on May 22, when she was feeling particularly lonely, he had invited her over. So she went and had sex with him, willingly.

That’s when the Rajasthan police had a field day. It planted leaks in the local press, insinuating that the girl was a “nymphomaniac”. Of course, no police officer was willing to be quoted by name The obvious intention was to cast a shadow on the previous cases, too. The police was subtly suggesting through a helpful press that it was the girl who had always invited gang–rape on herself. (The girl had reported that in every tragic episode in the last seven years of her repeated sexual exploitation, she had been gang–raped).

In their zeal to cover up their sin of deliberate ennui in the earlier cases, the police even committed procedural lapses. They leaked the girl’s complaint of an offence under section 161 CrPC to the press. According to a senior counsel, S.R. Bajwa, this was tantamount to violation of Sec 228 (A) of the IPC which clearly states that the identity of a victim woman who complains of offences under Sec. 376 and 376 a,b,c must not be made public.

The police also did not show the girl her own statement noted under Sec. 161 CrPC. They did not even take her to identify the spot or the boy who had supposedly confirmed her story. The hurry was probably prompted by a state government under increasing pressure due to rising atrocities against women in Rajasthan.

In our press statement issued on June 4, we emphasised the issue of rehabilitation for such brutalised victims. We said that the horrible sexual exploitation from an early age where she was abused by more than fifty men and the brutal gang–rape in September, 1997 had so traumatised the rape victim that her statements and actions cannot be expected to be entirely rational. Moreover, neglect of her psychiatric rehabilitation by her family and society in the eight months since September, the threats and the inducements she has subsequently received from the accused, and the fear and insecurity she had experienced as many of the accused were still absconding, had added to her imbalanced state. The attack on her character by a particular caste lobby had increased her isolation. Instead of being rejected, she needed empathy for her recovery and a dignified existence in society.

In order to understand our statement, it is important to quickly go over the facts of the last eight months since her gang–rape in September 1997.

An informal network of more than 40 organisations under the Mahila Atyachar Virodhi Jan Andolan (MAVJA) banner, have been working since 1996 on several rape cases including that of the hostel rape case. MAVJA activists staged a month-long dharna under the Balaatkaar Virodhi Andolan banner in September–October last year, protesting against police inaction despite increasing sexual crimes in the state.

MAVJA has tried to monitor every aspect of the hostel rape case. Had it not been for our intervention and that of the National Commission of Women’s high–powered fact–finding committee, the girl would by now have been declared a call–girl by the police and the case closed. The charge sheet in the hostel rape case, was divided into two parts, and was filed on October 20, 1997 (pertaining to the gang–rape On September 5, 1997) and January 2, 1998 ( for the seven–year–long sexual exploitation).

The group tried its best to put pressure on the government for arresting all the 22 accused in this case. Fearing that the girl will be completely isolated when she finally deposes in court, in camera — very often lawyers representing the accused ask highly offensive questions which only adds to the victim’s trauma — we also tried through the NCW to set up a team of women observers in court. A decision in this regard is pending before the chief justice of Rajasthan.

Also, for the first time, we made the issue of rape into an election issue during the Lok Sabha elections in February 1998. We targeted three candidates, two of whom were involved in the hostel rape case. It was a matter of some satisfaction for us that all three candidates lost.

For us, the rehabilitation of the rape victim has been a primary concern. From the beginning, we have felt that the girl who had undergone such trauma needed professional help to heal. We urged the family several times that she be taken to a psychiatrist. In Jaipur, there is a government-run psychiatric centre and a few private psychiatrists. Unfortunately, no women’s organisation, not even the excellent short–stay home run by the Rajasthan University Women’s Association has the facility of a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

The victim’s family, at one level, feared the invasion of their privacy. At another level, they feared that their daughter’s case may be damaged if the defence counsel uses her visits to a psychiatrist to claim before the court that the girl was in an unstable state of mental health and, therefore, an unreliable witness. So, they kept postponing the issue of taking her to see a psychiatrist in Jaipur. Because of the likelihood, since January this year, of the girl’s statement being recorded any time, the family was also reluctant to take her outside the city for professional help. Meanwhile, the delaying tactics adopted by the accused to ensure repeated postponement of the framing of charges and trial has resulted in the statement of the girl not being recorded to date.

By March 1998, the girl who had not stepped out of her house for more than six months came close to suicidal tendencies. MAVJA urged the family to reconsider its stand on the psychiatric treatment in Jaipur. Even after an appointment had been fixed, the family backed out once again.

As the girl spoke of feeling suffocated in the house, she was taken on a holiday for a week by a member of MAVJA. We also contacted women’s organisations across the country seeking help to give the girl an opportunity to heal — receive psychiatric care, get involved in productive work along, be assured full security. Sadly, we were told that there was no such home available anywhere.

We then felt it would help if she could at least step out of her home every day for a few hours. A Child Resource Centre, Vihaan, aware of her situation, offered her a work opportunity. She was given the task of setting up a library for the organisation, a job which she handled well. She also took active interest in other activities of the organisation and was on good terms with all. In her six weeks association with Vihaan, there was not a single instance of her ever making a pass at any of the male co–workers.

Following her retraction, we asked the girl why she had given a different account earlier. She said she feared the wrath of her family if she told the truth. So, on knowing that the family had reported her missing to the police, she chose to lie. More importantly, she said with tears in her eyes: “I did not want to lose this person. It was the first time that I had made my own choice out of love and I wanted to protect him. I feel very sorry that I have lost him now”. Asked how she expected to build an intimate relationship with someone after assuming a false identity, she said, “Who will accept me if I say that I have been forced into sex with so many men over the years?”

This tragic fantasy needs to be contrasted with the reality of Rajasthani society where men, especially the powerful, are free to indulge in their sexuality criminally, through rape. They can even queue up for it, be cheered by a mob of fellow men, as they did in September in a place of learning. “I was caught for a very long time with the sex-mafia and could not extricate myself, however hard I tried”, says the girl in anger and pain amidst all her inner turmoil. She goes on to say that there are many other girls in Jaipur who are trapped just like her.

For all the anger of the press and the middle class, the statement of the girl ought not to be taken lightly considering that the sex scandals of Ajmer (Rajasthan) and Jalgaon (Maharashtra) are still not behind us. The CBI which has taken charge of the case ought to follow this line of investigation if it is serious about punishing the criminals and not in a hurry, like the Rajasthan police, to close the case.

While the saga of the hostel rape case victim is still unfolding, it is very clear that this is not merely a story about retraction of a complaint of gang–rape. Several issues come to the fore.

The primary issue, for MAVJA, in this specific case remains that of the psychiatric rehabilitation of the girl. It is crucial that the family recognises the urgent need for her psychiatric treatment and takes her to the best institution in the country. However, this is an important issue that the women’s movement also needs to address urgently. There are groups like the one in Pune where Mira Sadgopal and others are trying to build an awareness in the area of women’s mental health. There is also Sakshi in Delhi that trains activists to help heal sexually abused children. Maybe, the Rajasthan movement should set an example by establishing a similar centre for women victims.

Secondly, howsoever much the government and the police try to rely on the retraction by a victim to claim that all cases of rape filed by women are false, or that women’s organisation make an unnecessary hue and cry, even they cannot deny certain facts. On May 29, Union home minister L. K. Advani had to concede in Parliament that Rajasthan follows Maharashtra in the highest number of reported cases of atrocities against women.

The BJP cannot deny that rape and the larger of issue of atrocities on women have now become an issue for the people. And therefore all political parties in the state have per force had to bring it on their agenda. The women’s wings of left parties were part of the formation of MAVJA. These parties have supported all our agitations since 1996. The All–India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) and the All–India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) have done excellent work to strengthen the cause of women.

During the Parliamentary polls in February this year, for the first time, women’s organisations (minus the Congress and the BJP) came together and campaigned effectively in the constituencies of three candidates who have been anti–women. Two of them were connected to the hostel rape case. MLA, Jagdeep Dhankad (Congress) had attacked the girl in the state Assembly implying that she was a call girl. Another Congress MLA, Richpaal Mirdha, father–in–law of Dy. SP Prahalad Singh Krishaniya, one of the accused, fought the election on a BJP ticket. The third MLA, Rohitas Sharma, an independent minister who fought the election on a BJP ticket this time, is known to have protected his son in the Shivani Jadeja case (acid was thrown on a school girl in 1997 but till date no arrests have been made). Besides he is himself involved in the Alwar sexual exploitation case of June 1996).

Inspite of our limited intervention, our campaign was seen as a real threat by the candidates and the administrative machinery was deployed to prevent us from holding meetings. But, in the end, all the three candidates were defeated.

Realising that women’s organisations are emerging as effective pressure groups and can mould public opinion, the two major parties in the state – Congress and the BJP — are revamping the women’s wing of their own organisations.

On June 1 and 2, Neera Shastri, the national secretary of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha, and a member of Delhi’s state women’s commission, came to Jaipur and demanded from the Rajasthan government that it set up a women’ s commission. This incidentally is a demand on which MAVJA and NCW have for long been agitating with the govern-ment. Shastri announced that the Mahila Morcha would set up in each ward teams of five women to focus on the issue of atrocities against women in the state. She also indicated that the Mahila Morcha in Rajasthan would soon have a new president. The current president, Tara Bhandari, is notorious for her anti–women stance. It was she who had led the rally last September against the woman who had accused a Jain muni of raping her. During her two day stay in Jaipur, Shastri visited the hostel rape case victim (something almost unthink- able for BJP women in Rajasthan) and also met some members of MAVJA. The state unit of the Mahila Morcha has the dubious reputation of being more anti–women than the government. (Cover story, CC, Nov. 1977). Evidently, the Mahila Morcha is giving itself a face–lift since Assembly elections are due this November. The BJP knows it cannot face the electorate this time without addressing this issue.

In January 1996, the state Congress presi-dent, Ashok Gehlot refused to meet us when the anti–Bhanwari Devi rally was being planned. This despite the fact that the then All–India Congress president, Girija Vyas, had taken a stand against the court judgement (which went against Bhanwari Devi) and for which she is still facing a contempt case. But now, even Gehlot has decided that the law and order situation in Rajasthan, especially increasing crimes against women, is one of the foremost issues for his party. On June 15, Congress workers held district–level agitations on this issue all over the state and several thousand workers courted arrest. Congress president, Sonia Gandhi is scheduled to visit Jaipur in mid–July to address a women’s sammelan. That the Congress will try to cash in on the issue of increasing atrocities against women in the coming polls is clear.

Meanwhile, we members of different organisations committed to providing a forum to struggling women and fighting to see the end of a gender–discriminatory world, call upon all women’s organisations in the coun-try to help us plan a new phase in our endeavour.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July  1998. Year 5  No. 45, Herstory 1

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