While on one side the country was celebrating the reading down of Sec 377, North India was in the grips of a Bharat Bandh announced by 35 upper caste groups and organisations on September 6.
 
A trend of hostility has been observed over the years among upper caste people against the Amendments to the SC/ST Act.
 
34 companies of security forces and 5,000 security personnel have been deployed in 35 districts of Madhya Pradesh. Section 144 (Unlawful assembly) has also imposed in several districts according to ANI reports.
 
“Our demand is that everyone be treated equal. All those from SC/ST communities who have high positions in IAS and IPS due to reservation, all this must be stopped. we are with the Savarnas, that’s why we have closed shops, shut down trade for a day,” said a protester in Madhya Pradesh’s Narsinghpur in a report.
 
Anti-reservation rhetoric
The protest is against the Parliament passing an amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act that overrode a Supreme Court order diluting it. They are demanding the rollback on reservation and the checks introduced by the apex court be re-introduced.
 
Due to the widespread Dalit protests against the SC order, the Modi led govt passed an amendment bill in parliament as ‘appeasement’ causing a crack in the upper caste vote bank that has long been stoking the anti-reservation agenda.
 
Appropriating Babasaheb’s legacy for vote bank politics
The BJP, RSS, VHP nexus has tried very hard to appropriate BR Ambedkar’s legacy and fashion him as a Hindu icon and Ram Bhakt but the recent news is ringing every alarm bell of impending danger. Amitabh Bachchan hosted KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati?) recently asked a question highlighting BR Ambedkar’s middle name. Since April, The Yogi Adityanath-led UP govt has decided to introduce Ambedkar’s middle name ‘Ramji’ in all references to him in Uttar Pradesh’s official correspondence and records.
 
The increasing hatred for the constitution
Using optics to further a political agenda and appropriating Babasaheb’s legacy is not new. What’s new is stoking the anti-reservation sentiment among upper castes and encouraging fringe groups to burn the constitution.
 
Deepak Gaur of Aarakshan Virodhi Party (AVP) and Abhishek Shukla of Youth Equality Foundation were accused of burning the Constitution in New Delhi recently as a protest against the SC/ST reservation. Even though they do not seem related to the broader RSS propaganda, the culture that has given rise to such unconstitutional acts is eerily similar in both.
 
Ending caste-based reservations has been RSS’ agenda ever since it was introduced in the constitution. Their chosen weapon of choice is to speak a lie a thousand times to make it the truth. Many RSS and VHP leaders have commented that Ambedkar only wanted the reservation system to exist for 10 years and have managed to make it widely popular.
 
“RSS sees the Indian Constitution as a roadblock for establishing Hindu Rashtra. For a long time, RSS and other right-wing groups have been peddling lies that Dr B.R. Ambedkar wanted Reservations for the SC/STs to be discontinued 10 years from the inception of the Constitution,” said PG Ambedkar in an article by NewsClick.
 
“The Sangh Parivar, a strong believer of the Manu’s (a)dharma code, does not believe in the empowerment of the lower castes and women. It sees the Indian Constitution, with its progressive provisions, as a roadblock for establishing the Hindu Rashtra. The RSS leaders have been making statements on the need to ‘revisit reservations’ or end it. Manmohan Vaidya, at the Jaipur Literary Festival, recently said that caste-based reservations should go. Prior to that, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat made a similar statement just before the Bihar Assembly elections,” he said.
 
Voices against reservation
The hatred has been deepening even before the LS polls of 2014 where BJP came to power.
 
“The hurried step of 4.5 per cent quota to Muslims in the 27 per cent OBC reservation by the central government was contrary to the constitution and was taken with an aim to destroy the democratic rights of the majority,” VHP executive president Praveen Togadia alleged in a report from 2012 before launching a nation-wide agitation. He also advocated the use of violence for cow protection before being ousted.
 
VHP supported RSS’ Mohan Bhagwat’s call to review the reservation policy in 2015. “Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) asked the Centre to set up a judicial commission to find out if the beneficiary castes needed it anymore,” reported Economic Times. “Pushing for the review of the quota system, VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain said what Bhagwat suggested was nothing new as even the makers of Constitution had envisaged a review of reservation after 10 years. “It is high time to find out whether the castes for whom reservation was provided have benefitted from it. It also needed to be found out that whether the castes receiving benefits of reservation need it in future,” he said in the report.
 
“In remarks reminiscent of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement on the need to review the reservation policy, just ahead of the 2015 Bihar assembly polls, Sangh publicity head Manmohan Vaidya Friday quoted B R Ambedkar to underline that “it’s not good to have reservation forever” and “the need for it should be done away with as soon as possible” to “provide everyone with equal opportunity”. Speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Vaidya also said that providing reservation to communities other than SCs and STs “seems a little like encouraging separatism,” reported Indian Express in 2017.
 
“The Indian Constitution provides for reservation to SC, ST and OBC. Since 1981, (when the) RSS had passed a resolution… there was a controversy back then about reservation and the RSS pratinidhi sabha had passed a resolution that for the categories mentioned in the Constitution, SC, ST and OBC… efforts should be made to implement it fully. Sangh has always maintained it,” he said in the report.
 
“Earlier, during the discussion, Vaidya said caste-based reservation in the context of SCs and STs was meant to address historical discrimination perpetrated by “us”. The subject of reservation came to India in the context of SC/ST… for centuries, we denied the brothers of our community respect and benefits… this was wrong… it is our responsibility to correct this… they were kept away from these things for being born in a particular caste… this is not correct… therefore, the provision of reservation was included in the Constitution since the beginning to take them along. Dr Ambedkar has said, in any nation, it’s not good to have reservation forever. The need for it should be done away with as soon as possible and instead a time should come to provide everyone with equal opportunity… that’s the service of reservation. In other cases, efforts should be made to provide greater opportunities, more education to everyone instead of reservation… beyond this, providing reservation seems a little like encouraging separatism,” he said in the report.
 
“(Article 335) allows governments to provide reservations for the SC/STs in employment and other posts, related to state governance. If Dr. Ambedkar intended to end reservations in services, he would have incorporated a relevant clause. He believed that there should be proportional representation in matters of services and education. He says that “The question of entry into the Public Service is an important question for all minority communities. But to the Scheduled Castes it is a vital question, a question of life and death. There are many reasons why this must be so. In the first place, it is a question of opening up a career for young men[/women] from the Scheduled Castes. This is an aspect of the question which the Scheduled Castes, and even the Government of India, cannot ignore,” said PG Ambedkar in the earlier mentioned report.
 
“Ambedkar, for whom representation of Dalits in services was a matter of life and death would not have been so casual about the issue as the conservatives/RSS want us to believe,” he said.
 
He added that Ambedkar set the 10-year limitation for legislative roles. “Babasaheb Ambedkar definitely talked about a set time period for reserved seats in legislative assemblies and the parliament. He introduces the article 295A in the Constituent Assembly: “… [R]reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes either in House of the People or in the Legislative Assembly shall cease to have an effect on the expiration of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution. This is also in accordance with the decision of the House.” Thus, it is clear that Ambedkar said a limitation of “ten years” should be imposed upon reservations on legislative positions,” he wrote.
 
Dream to replace the Indian constitution with their own and subverting its history
The BJP, RSS, VHP factions have been twisting this history and setting a dangerous precedent. Many have tried to change how masses perceive the current constitution.
 
“Replacing the secular Constitution by a new Constitution is an integral part of the Hindutva project of turning India into a Hindu rashtra. The RSS had been nursing this ambition almost since its birth, but was able to muster enough courage to put its desire in the public domain only after the demolition of the Babri mosque on December 6, 1992. Less than three weeks later, on December 25, 1992 Swami Muktanand Saraswati and Swami Vamdev Maharaj held a joint press conference at the office of the Vishwa Samvad Kendra (that also happened to be a BJP member of parliament’s flat). They released a booklet that was a veritable ‘white paper’ of the Hindutva brigade, denouncing the Constitution as “anti-Hindu” and putting forward a prototype of the kind of Constitution it desired for the country. Its pink front cover posed two questions: “Who is the destroyer of Bharat’s unity, integrity, brotherhood and community amity? Who has increased starvation, unemployment, corruption and irreligion?” wrote journalist Kuldeep Kumar.
 
“The answer was also provided on the cover: “Vartman Indian Sanvidhan” (present Indian Constitution). The word Indian was deliberately used along with two Hindi words to convey the foreign roots of our Constitution. This manifesto was published by the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, Vrindavan along with the Sarvoday Satsang Ashram, Haridwar. Swami Hiranand wrote the manifesto’s preface, declaring: “The present Constitution is against our country’s culture, character, circumstances, soil and climate. It looks towards foreign countries and should be completely discarded”. He added that “the conspiracy to convert Bharat into India continues,” he wrote.
 
“The manifesto or ‘white paper’ put forth its demand very frankly while, in the typical RSS fashion, hawking a fictional story as historical fact. It claimed that when the draft of independent India’s Constitution was sent to Constituent Assembly president Rajendra Prasad, he refused to sign it because he was dissatisfied with it. However, he relented when Jawaharalal Nehru assured him that it would soon be changed and should be accepted for the time being to facilitate the transfer of power from the British. The booklet went on to say that on August 15, 1947, Hindustan was divided into several countries like Pakistan, Brahmadev (Burma), Sri Lanka and India. The present Constitution pertained only to that region of Hindustan, which is currently known as “India”. It clearly said that Muslims and Christians should enjoy no rights, Vande Mataram must replace Jana Gana Mana, the Ashok Chakra must be removed from the tricolour, no reservation should be given to any caste including scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and grants and facilities for Anglo-Indians must be abolished,” he wrote.
 
“In January 1993, top RSS leader Rajendra Singh wrote in an article in Indian Express that India’s was “not a composite culture” and “in a very fundamental sense, this country has a unique cultural oneness”. Therefore, he concluded: “A Constitution more suited to the ethos and genius of this country should be adopted in the future”. Ten days later, then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi reiterated the demand for a fresh look at the Constitution. When the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government came to power at the Centre, it appointed a commission to review the Constitution,” he added.
 
RSS fights with the constitution of India doesn’t end there. The members will go to any lengths to subvert history. They even claimed that Babasaheb did not write the constitution. “In an interview with Outlook, Ram Bahadur Rai, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) chairman, senior Hindi journalist and lifelong RSS worker who served as Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) organising secretary in the early 1970s, has made a startling claim. According to him, it’s a myth that B.R. Ambedkar framed the country’s Constitution. In fact, it was B.N. Rau who did the actual drafting, while Ambedkar corrected the language. “B.R. Ambedkar’s role was limited,” said Rai, “so that whatever material B.N. Rau gave him, he would correct its language. It was like RAW or IB, where foot soldiers write reports in broken English and IPS officers turn it into good English, capable of being presented to the PM. So, Ambedkar did not write the Constitution,” a report said about the 2016 interview.
 
KN Govindacharya claimed that RSS will rewrite the Indian constitution. “In the 1990s, he was the parivar’s celebrated ideologue who, in collaboration with mentor Lal Krishna Advani, shaped the BJP’s twin strategies of Ram mandir and social engineering,” his introduction read in an interview by The Wire, where he claimed that they will rewrite the constitution to reflect ‘Bhartiyata’.
 
Burning of the constitution by the likes of Youth Equality Foundation and Anti-reservation party might seem like an isolated incident, but in hindsight are a product of carefully manufactured victimhood. Thereby creating the need to rebel and overthrow the imagined oppressors.
 
What happens when the Constitution itself is seen as anti-national?
 
Related Articles:
Who is AVP and Azad Sena that burned the constitution?
“Ruling classes and castes use reservations as a prop to inflict more violence upon dalits”: Anand Teltumbde
Sangh Appropriation of Icons: Pranab Mukherjee in Nagpur
Stop the deification and appropriation of Babasaheb: Dalit youth to the Sangh Parivar
Make No Mistake, We are Here to Change Constitution: BJP minister Anantkumar Hegde
‘Youth for Equality’ hooligans burn Constitution, police lodges FIR after strong responses from citizens

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New Delhi: Deepak Gaur of Aarakshan Virodhi Party (AVP) and Abhishek Shukla of Youth Equality Foundation, have been accused of burning the Constitution at a protest against the reservation system in Delhi.
 
A viral video caught everybody’s attention on August 10, five days before the Independence Day. In the video, the accused were seen tearing pages of the constitution and burning them. Gaur was arrested for organising a Constitution burning protest, which was held on August 9 at Delhi’s Parliament Street. Gaur has been booked under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act.
 
Gaur belong to a party which was registered by the Election Commission of India before the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. He fought the LS polls from Faridabad constituency while AVP’s National president, Sanjay Sharma fought the Haryana state elections from Ballabhgarh constituency.
 
Abhishek Shukla, alleged to be one of the founders or spokespersons for Youth Equality foundation, also known as Azad Sena, was unanimously elected as the Convenor for AVPs national forum in July 2018. In an article by Dainik Jagran, it was said that AVP will fight the upcoming 2019 elections united from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
 
In July 2018, AVP Uttarakhand state president, Mahesh Chand Pant participated in a protest demanding 70% reservations for Brahmins and Kshatriya castes. “The meeting was organized by Brahmin Kshatriya Reservation Movement Committee, in Buddha Park of Haldwani. Committee chairman Sushil Bhatt said that the person who earns 40 per cent marks, gets a job due to reservation but the person who scores 905 still doesn’t get a job and has to starve. There are no opportunities for Brahmin, Kshatriya castes because politicians use reservation in education, employment and job promotion as vote bank. Therefore, the committee has raised its voice to demand 70 per cent reservations for Brahmins and Kshatriya castes. If the government cannot give reservations to Brahmins and Kshatriyas, then caste reservation has to be stopped and should be instead given to economically backward people,” a Hindi report by Dainik Jagran said.
 
AVP claims to have 50 lakh supporters in India. Preliminary research suggests that no party members currently hold an elected office. Their Wikipedia page says, “The main agenda of AVP to removal caste-based reservation from the Constitution of India and to provide equal opportunity to every citizen of country.” On their facebook page, they have defended Deepak Gaur and said that he has been falsely accused.

 
Sabrang India had reported that after his arrest, Gaur agreed to burning the constitution. “Gaur reportedly revealed in his interrogation that he and Shukla had conspired to burn the Constitution with the intent to catch the government’s attention regarding the amendments to the SC/ST Act. They supposedly played a role in ensuring that the video of the protest went viral, and also issued press statements, according to the police,” the report said.
 
Their facebook page has more than 25,000 likes and followers. The cell phone number given on the page as contact information belongs to Gaur. The page consistently spews hatred against Dalits, SC/ST and OBC groups and want to abolish the reservation system based on caste in India. 

To drum up support for themselves in the upcoming LS polls, they write statements on their page like, “Elections are coming, all the political parties use the same formula, this time we have to remember that BJP, Congress, SP, BSP, Trinamool, Shiv Sena and Akalis are the group that voted 100% to scrap Supreme courts SC Act verdict. that this is the same group which is the supreme court of the SC Act. What should be the decision in the upcoming elections, you decide what will it be, the anti-reservation party or a party that imposes SC act and reservation.”
 
The Azad Sena facebook page has few numbers and video by Abhishekh Shukla that doesn’t play. It is shown that the Facebook page first became active in 2015. Abhishek Shukla is known for his rabid hate speeches through his Facebook profile where he calls Dalits “Neele rang ke aatankwadi aur Haraamzaade” (Blue coloured terrorists.) He was also a part of Rail Roko where people from his group stopped trains in their tracks and their banner said “Stop the black law from victimizing Savarna people.” His Facebook profile has more than 18,000 followers.
 
In a video speech right after the Aug 9 incident, he clarified saying that they did not burn the constitution and that the videos were doctored by anti-social elements to attack them. “We burned the copies of a privately published work which spoke about the poison of SC/ST Act in Indian Constitution,” he said in his video. It is odd that he said that because if they are promoting an anti-reservation agenda, they should have been sharing free copies of that book instead of burning it.

Even the RSS stance on reservation has been problematic since before Independence in 1947. In 2017, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue Manmohan Vaidya had said, “The caste-based reservation in jobs and educational institutions must end soon. There should be enough opportunities for jobs and education instead of this system. It only promotes separatism,” at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
 
A post was shared by Shukla which had a statement by Vikas Mishra, another member of the Azad Sena/ Youth Equality Foundation, saying that he will boycott all support to BJP if reservation was not removed from the constitution before 2019.

The emergence of such parties in small numbers across northern states is a worrying trend pointing towards a future of immense caste-class struggle and violence. Shrujana Niranjini Shridhar, illustrator and curator of the Dalit Panther Project archives commented, “Dominant castes want reservation in jobs and education, and the blame is pinned on the most oppressed of the society. This happens when education and jobs are privatised. It’s easy to blame the reservation when you don’t want to hold your government accountable for lack of jobs and education opportunities. After all, it’s easier to channel your internalised hatred towards SCs, STs, OBCs rather than demand answers from the government.”
 
Many contact numbers given for AVP members were unavailable and could not be reached for comments.
 

The post Who is AVP and Azad Sena that burned the constitution? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
The protest was organised by the Aarakshan Virodhi Party and Youth Equality Foundation, which is headed by Abhishek Shukla. Gaur reportedly revealed in his interrogation that he and Shukla had conspired to burn the Constitution with the intent to catch the government’s attention regarding the amendments to the SC/ST Act. They supposedly played a role in ensuring that the video of the protest went viral, and also issued press statements, according to the police.
 
Many citizens’ groups expressed rage over the protest, and condemned its unconstitutionality. On August 10, Anil Tanwar, the National Convenor of the Akhil Bhartiya Bhim Sena, filed a complaint, and also submitted footage of the protest that featured the burning of the Constitution, and protesters shouting anti-Ambedkar, anti-Dalit and anti-Bahujan slogans.
 
Earlier in August, the Union Cabinet had approved a bill to overturn the Supreme Court’s order regarding the SC/ST Act, which had drawn criticism and allegations that it was “diluting” the Act.

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“दिल्ली के जंतर मंतर पर भारी पुलिस बल के सामने ही मनुवादी देशद्रोहियों ने भारत के संविधान की प्रति जला दी। ऐसे लोगो के खिलाफ तत्काल प्रभाव में कार्यवाही होनी चाहिए।भाजपा राज में क्या क्या नही देखना पड़ रहा है”

Delhi police has lodged an FIR against an organisation Youth for Equality (Azad Sena) in the said incident in which the group can be seen burning the Constitution and shouting anti-Ambedkar slogans. They can also be seen shouting slogans against Dalits and Bahujans.

Sections 153(A), 505 of the IPC of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act 1971 have been imposed on the group as part of the FIR. The FIR has been lodged in the Parliament Street Police Station by Akhil Bhartiya Bheem Sena national in-charge, Anil Tanwar.

Tanwar provided a CD containing a video of the video that went viral on August 10 in which some hooligans can be seen burning a bare act of Indian Constitution and shouting slogans.

“A resident of Gurugram, Tanwar also provided a video CD containing a viral video of the incident in which some protestors are seen burning a copy of the Indian Constitution and shouting slogans”, said Deputy Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma.

Meanwhile, some reports that have emerged on social media indicate that  one Sreenivas Pandey, a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Bhadohi area was the one to post the video on social media. Reportedly, he also said that “Savarnas aren’t weak and are on the streets to demand their rights”    

As per reports, the issue was also raised in the Delhi Assembly by Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam. He said that the group had raised slogans against Dr. Ambedkar and burnt a copy of the Constitution and urged the Speaker to ask the police commissioner about the action taken.

Meanwhile, the video took social media by rage and shock. Shrujana Niranjini Shridhar, illustrator and curator of the Dalit Panther Project archives commented, “Dominant castes want reservation in jobs and education, and the blame is pinned on the most oppressed of the society. This happens when education and jobs are privatised. It’s easy to blame the reservation when you don’t want to hold your government accountable for lack of jobs and education opportunities. After all, it’s easier to channel your internalised hatred towards SCs, STs, OBCs rather than demand answers from the government.

Will the Delhi police even admit that this happened? They beat people up for not standing up for the national anthem, call university students anti-national, but burning the constitution is patriotic.”

Youth have warned that action must be taken immediately otherwise there will be a movement against this unconstitutional act

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