Much is being made up of the inclusion of Dalit and Other Backward Classes (OBC) members in the newly expanded Cabinet, even more is being read into the inlcudion of leaders from Uttar Pradesh. Put together this newly ‘refreshed’ Cabinet is said to have the possibility of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retain power in Uttar Pradesh, a state considered politically coveted for most mainstream parties due to its sheer size. However, local election season in UP has begun with violence reported from at least 18 districts as the elections for panchayat block chiefs took place on the weekend.

According to Indian Express, in Etawah, seeing stone-pelting and firing at Barhpura block was reported, and the local police are also investigating video where Prashant Kumar Prasad the Etawah ASP (City) is heard saying that BJP leaders “brought bombs” and slapped him. The IE reported that the officer said, “They brought stones. They slapped me too. They brought bombs, BJP people, the MLA and district chief.” Media reports also stated that violence and clashes took place in other areas including Unnao, Hathras, Amethi, Ballia, Siddharth Nagar, Kanpur, Mau, Hamirpur, Amroha, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Aligarh, Firozabad, Pratapgarh, Kanpur Dehat, Chandauli.  

According to IE, in Hathras district’s Sikandra Rao block, supporters of a candidate allegedly engaged in vandalism and rioting. In Bahraich district, two policemen, including a station in-charge, were suspended in connection with the killing of a Block Development Committee (BDC) member Yadurai Devi’s relative on Thursday, “while trying to prevent an alleged attempt by a poll candidate’s husband and supporters to abduct Devi,” an unnamed police officer was quoted by IE. According to the news report, Sudhir Yagyasaini, the main accused in the case, is the husband of Sarita Yagyaseni, who was backed by the BJP for the Shivpur block chief’s post. She won in the elections held on Saturday, getting 70 votes against 50 for her rival, who was backed by the Samajwadi Party. While the BJP is celebrating such wins, there has been an eerie silence on the large number of violent incidents, which seem to be nearly normalised in Uttar Pradesh as Assembly poll related activity begins gaining speed. 

What will happen during UP Elections 2022?

One would think that with UP state assembly elections 2022 in view, the incumbent state government too will be on an overdrive to showcase good governance, especially when it comes to law and order, or issues concerned with food and financial security, and those regarding community welfare, especially religious and caste minorities. However, news from UP, especially reported by independent media in just the past week has recorded attacks on minorities, Dalits, Bahujans and other citizens on a regular basis. Most attacks are by vigilante groups, who have appointed themselves custodians of the so called upper castes, and as worryingly an assault by a senior bureaucrat was even recorded on video.

It is yet to be seen if the Uttar Pradesh government has, apart from following the process in some cases, done anything to prevent some attacks. In just the past week UP’s hall of shame has recorded the following cases of violence.

Violence during block elections, women alleged molestation

Two women workers of the Samajwadi Party (SP) have alleged that they were molested when the nomination process for the block elections were underway. These local elections have been marked with violence, of various degrees. After these serious allegations, Indian Express reported that the Uttar Pradesh Police “suspended six of its men, including a Circle Officer and an SHO”. The molestation was alleged by the proposer of an SP candidate in Lakhimpur Kheri district. She accused BJP workers of pushing her around and molesting her; the video clips were still viral over the weekend. According to news reports, District SP president Ram Pal Yadav also alleged that after misbehaving with the woman, “BJP workers had entered the block office and removed the clothes of the SP candidate.”

Dalit man tied to tree, thrashed, assuatled on genitals

One person was arrested for mercilessly beating a 20-year-old Dalit man, even though the viral video shows that there are many more involved in the crime, inlcuding those who merely stood and watched as the victim was beaten with sticks. The crime was reported from the Akbarpur area in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur Dehat district. The attack seems to have been filmed by multiple people. The victim was asked to identify his caste even as he was being beaten, and once he revealed that he was a Dalit, the attack grew even more vicious. The victim was assaulted in the genitals with a wooden pole and continued to be  battered to an inch of  his life.

This is new india you can’t imagine such video is not less than any movie scene. this painful matter is happening in Uttarpradesh. #DalitLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/ABuriwRchf

— Tribal Army (@TribalArmy) July 9, 2021

According to NDTV, Ghanshyam Chaurasiya, additional SP, Kanpur Dehat claimed, “As soon as we got to know about the video, a police case was filed in the matter. A person identified in the viral video has been arrested. Two more people can be seen beating the Dalit youth. We are trying to find out their details and teams have been formed to arrest them.” However, the question remains: why was the beating not even reported when it took place? 

IAS officer Divyanshu Patel assaults journalist

In May, when he was posed as a sub-divisional magistrate in Barabanki, Patel had ordered that the 100 year old mosque be demolished in Barabanki.  On May 17, following the orders of the SDM’s court, the Ram Sanehi Ghat mosque was demolished, and it was reported that the “debris was then thrown into a river” hence leaving no or little ‘evidence’ of the destruction. This destruction, had a long lasting negative impact on the locals, and the Muslim connunity at large. The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board called the administration’s action illegal. According to The Print, as the communal tensions prevailed in the area Patel was transferred to Unnao as the chief development officer (CDO). However, even here Patel seems to have continued his ways. This time, he was caught on camera attacking a video journalist in Unnao, chasing him, he also reportedly smashed the reporter’s mobile phone during the block panchayat polls, which have been marked by unprecedented violence. When Patel takes a pause, a local man takes over the assault on the video journalist. Some reports stated that two journalists were attacked. 

ये कोई गुंडा नहीं।उन्नाव के IAS सीडीओ हैं,जो एक टी वी पत्रकार को दौड़ा-दौड़ा कर पीट रहे हैं।उसका क़ुसूर सिर्फ यह था कि सीडीओ की आंख के सामने हो रही बीडीसी मेंबर्स की धर-पकड़ उसने शूट कर ली थी। pic.twitter.com/mb6suKa98w

— Kamal khan (@kamalkhan_NDTV) July 10, 2021

According to news reports, the Unnao Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against “unnamed persons” based on a complaint made by the victims. However, as shared on social media the FIR doesn’t name Divyanshu Patel, a 2017-batch IAS officer, who was seen assaulting the journalist in the viral videos. He of course ‘clarified’ his actions and said he could not recognise Krishna Tiwari and erroneously assaulted him while ‘discharging his administrative duties’. Tiwari too has said on video that he was ‘satisfied’ with the officers explanation on the ‘unintentional’ assault. However, there is no explanation offered on why the officer had to attack any citizen in this manner, or who the other man who also attacked the journalist was. 

Unnao police registers an FIR on the complaint of 2 journalists against unnamed persons in the #UnnaoBrawl case

One can’t find the name of CDO #DivyanshuPatel who was clearly visible assaulting the journalist in the video which is doing rounds in the social media. pic.twitter.com/Bmjdu1HzfM

— Sparsh Upadhyay (@ISparshUpadhyay) July 11, 2021

Dalit falimy attacked, hut set ablaze in Chandauli 

On July 8 at the Bharthara village, which is reportedly just 5 km from the district headquarters of Chandauli district, a Dalit family was attacked and their hut set ablaze. The attack, reportedly by upper caste men, was over a land dispute. According to Indian Express, four men were were arrested on Saturday for attackin the Dalit family and setting their hut on fire. Even though the incident occurred on Thursday afternoon, it was only after a video of the incident went viral on social media, that the FIR was registered. The complainant Vejanti Devi told the police that the upper caste men thrashed her family members and then set their hut on fire, said Additional Superintendent of Police, Chandauli, Dayaram. According to a local news report, around 18 Dalit families live in the village, which is reportedly dominated by members of the Thakur community. The Dalits claim that “upper caste” men have always misbehaved with them, however fear keeps the victims from approaching the police, and after short lived ‘compromise’ the cycle of victimisation continues.

62-year-old man beaten in Noida 

Attacks on Muslims, Dalits, and women are not limited to far away villages where mainstream media does not reach. Another attack, this time on a 62-year-old man, identified as Kaazim Ahmad, was reported from Noida in the National Capital Region (NCR). Ahmad, told the media that it was his visible Muslim identity that made him an easy target for the attackers who beat him mercilessly on July 4. According to Maktoob Media, Ahmad was on his way to Aligarh to attend a relative’s wedding when he was attacked and communally abused at Noida. He recalled his ordeal saying, “While I was waiting at Noida Sector-37 to get a bus for Aligarh, some people standing at a distance in a white car called me towards them. When I went there they dragged me inside the car, rolled up the windows and started beating me before I could ask or say anything.” He added, “They slipped off my pyjamas, attacked me with a screwdriver on the nose, took away all my money, belongings and spectacles. They pulled my beard and tried to strangle my neck with their towel.” 

A police complaint has been filed by Kazim at the Noida Sector 37 police station, but the family wants to stay away from the media spotlight as they fear repercussions, especially in a state where religious and caste identities decide how much a citizen will be victimised.

Related:

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SKM files FIR against BJP goons for disrupting Ghazipur protest site
Cooption with denial of dignity & rights is the Dalit reality under BJP-RSS

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But the presence of roadshow participants dressed as deities of one particular faith appears to be a violation of this provision as do the chants of Jai Shree Ram. It doesn’t matter even if the people who were dressed as deities or chanting the religious slogans were or weren’t BJP workers or members. The fact that the party allowed them to participate in the rally despite violating the code of conduct and did nothing to stop them appears to make them at least partly complicit. It remains to be seen if the EC will take cognisance of this violation and hold the BJP accountable.

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At the end of a hot and humid day, a storm seemed about to break. As the wind picked up, so did Mamata’s speech. The crowd wanted more. At the end, as she chanted well known shlokas from Bhagavad Gita, the mass of people heard in pin-drop silence. It was electrifying.

This evening, walking down College Street to Shyam Bazar, I saw young men wearing placards with Vidyasagar’s image on them. Today, Mamata walked the same route that Amit Shah took yesterday. Thousands of women and men walked with her, calling the BJP out. Protesting the vandalisation of Vidyasagar’s statue.

Walking the streets, I cannot help but get the feeling that today, Kolkata – a city of eccentrics, radicals, and conservatives alike – is on the edge of a precipice. As I wandered down the Gariahat lane, I heard hawkers arguing politics. Four Trinamool supporters and one CPI-M-turned-BJP supporter. I joined their conversation for a while. The red-turned-saffron hawker accused me of being a TMC supporter when I asked him why is he asking people to vote for Modi. Their banter was sharp and political; peppered with humour, yet uncompromising. Characteristic of the city.

Will the inroads made by the BJP change all this?

Today CPI-M general secretary, condemed the vandalisation of Vidyasagar’s statue, and blamed hooliganism in the TMC and BJP. Yesterday, in an informal conversation with a highly-placed TMC official, I mused out loud that the last time the Vidyasagar statue was vandalised was during the Naxal uprising. “They were not like this,” the official said – drawing the kind of distinction between the Left and the BJP that the CPI-M today is loathed to draw.

It’s hard, caught in this vortex, to not have the bleak feeling that Bengal is slipping away.

From a FB post of Monobina Gupta titled “Some Notes from a City becoming rapidly unhinged “

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Kolkata: Just three days ahead of the last phase of Lok Sabha polls, in which nine West Bengal (WB) constituencies will also be voting, Kolkata is embroiled in a tense situation. Following the desecration of the bust of the noted social reformer and key figure of Bengal renaissance Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, videos have now emerged showing BJP cadres indulged in vandalizing and desecrating the statue.

WB Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and several top Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders changed their Facebook and Twitter display picture (DP) to his photo to protest the incident. Banerjee took out a protest rally today to protest the desecration of the bust.

Trinamool Congress’s official profile on Twitter and Facebook was also changed with a picture of Vidyasagar.
 
Derek O’ Brien, MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Abhishek Banerjee and several others changed their profile pictures on Twitter to condemn the incident.
 
Attacking the BJP, Trinamool spokesperson, Derek O’Brien called Amit Shah “ignorant” and asked him to “try his luck somewhere else”. He has also accused the BJP of being responsible for the desecration. He said, “We are trying to obtain and authenticate audio of slogans like ‘Vidyasagar finished, where is the Josh’ raised during the violence,” adding that the Central forces deployed in West Bengal have started a “whisper campaign” asking people to vote for the BJP.
 
Launching a scathing attack on BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday, Banerjee had said, “What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he God that no one can protest against him?”

 
Banerjee said this after supporters of the BJP and the TMC fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a roadshow by Shah.
 
A college named after Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, was ransacked and a bust of the 19th century social reformer shattered during the clashes. The TMC and BJP are blaming each other for the vandalism.
 
Earlier, addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Shah had accused “the TMC goons” of vandalising the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar inside a college, saying it was done to gain “sympathy” as the Banerjee-led party had realised its “reverse count” had begun.

Banerjee took out a protest rally in north Kolkata on Wednesday to protest the incident.
 
The CPI(M) also called for protest rallies against the incident. Sitaram Yechury slammed the BJP-RSS for desecrating the statue. He tweeted, “BJP-RSS think nothing of when they vandalise the historic Vidyasagar College, break Vidyasagar statue. This is their advocacy of India’s civilizational heritage? Attacking knowledge is central to getting their poisonous project going. Bengal will reject the destruction they offer.” He also said that BJP and RSS are systematically attacking Bengal. Highlighting the Vidyasagar’s contributions to Bengal’s reform movements he said, Vidyasagar was conferred the title of ocean of knowledge.”
 
Following the violent attacks on educational institutions, students from Calcutta University, Vidyasagar College and other institutions in the city organised protests on Wednesday at 4 pm at College Square, adjacent to the main campus of the University of Calcutta.
 
A Facebook event for the protest was started by ex-student, Sudeshna Dutta Gupta from Calcutta University. Students who will take part in the protest have clearly mentioned to us that it is an apolitical gathering and that they just want to protest against, what they are calling ‘saffron terrorism.’
 
The city’s elite and intellectuals may take out a protest march from College street on Wednesday evening.
 
The Election Commission will hold a meeting with Bengal observers, after the TMC sought one over the statue’s destruction.

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Kolkata: When Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar passed away on July 29, 1891, in Kolkata at the age of 70, Rabindranath Tagore said, “One wonders how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced a man!”
 
Can one say the same about the BJP and TMC leaders and party workers in Bengal, who are currently fighting an ugly battle for the state’s Lok Sabha seats? 

When the Bengali revolutionary’s statue was vandalised and broken, what did it tell us about the man who ushered in the Bengali renaissance and the political goons who broke his statue?
 
The statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was broken to pieces at Vidyasagar College in Kolkata during the violent clashes that broke out during BJP chief Amit Shah’s roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday evening. During the chaos, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members supposedly entered the college premises and vandalised property.
 

 
Vidyasagar was born on September 26, 1820, in West Bengal to impoverished Brahmin parents. An eager learner from an early age, he would spend his time studying under a streetlight as his parents could not afford gas light at home. An obstinate boy with a brilliant mind, he learned basics of Sanskrit at the village pathshaala after which he set out for Calcutta with his father in 1826.
 
He learned Vedanta, Vyakaran, Literature, Rhetoric’s, Smriti and Ethics in Sanskrit College during 1829 to 1841. He took part in a competition testing knowledge in Sanskrit in 1839 and earned the title of ‘Vidyasagar’, which translates to ‘Ocean of Knowledge’. In 1839, Vidyasagar successfully cleared his Law examination and in 1841, at the age of 21, he joined Fort William College as a head of the Sanskrit department.
 
He soon came to be known as a Bengali polymath, a well-known writer, philosopher and a staunch supporter of humanity. Revered by the British authorities of his time, Vidyasagar brought about a revolution in the Bengali education system and refined the way Bengali language was written and taught. His book, ‘Borno Porichoy’ (Introduction to the letter), is still used as the introductory text to learn Bengali alphabets.
 
He simplified a language so that people could easily access education.
 
Which is more than what you can say for the ruling government which is hell bent on shaking the foundations of all institutions in India. Dismantling UGC, the attacks on JNU, changing Indian history in Rajasthan’s textbooks to glorify Hindus and reducing the spending budget on education year after year ever since they came into power are against everything Vidyasagar stood for.
 
The last four years have seen authoritarian assaults on Indian educational institutions — HCU, JNU, FTII, IIT-Madras and BHU — aimed at crushing the democratic culture and destroying every single voice of dissent.
 
“The BJP-led central government has aggressively pursued the policies of commercialisation, centralisation and communalisation of education. It is accelerating the neo-liberal educational policies of the previous UPA government, aimed at deregulating the education sector and increasing the avenues of profit maximisation for the private capital. However, at the same time, it is destroying the federal character of Indian education and is attempting to control the entire sector from the Centre, as part of the designs to push the Hindutva agenda. This is reflected in appointing RSS personnel in key administrative bodies, rewriting of history, abrupt and irrational changes in syllabi, propagation of pseudoscience, so on and so forth. The brunt of these attacks is falling upon the students from the socio-economically exploited and oppressed section,” a report by Newsclick said.
 
Vidyasagar wrote and published countless books. He was a philosopher, academic educator, writer, translator, printer, publisher, entrepreneur, reformer and philanthropist. Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose own educational abilities and achievements remain shrouded in mystery and controversy, can hardly be expected to be a role model for India’s children and youth, ‘Exam Warriors’ and nationally televised pariskha pe charcha sessions with school kids notwithstanding, a report said.
 
Vidyasagar is credited for championing the cause of education, especially for girls. He, along with fellow reformers Ramgopal Ghosh and Madan Mohan Tarkalankar founded several schools for girls in the early 19th century. He strongly believed that everyone, irrespective of their caste or gender, had the right to education and so he opened up the premises of the Sanskrit College for people from lower castes.
 
Being a Brahmin, he worked to break the chains of caste through education. He was instrumental in removing Sanskrit words from Bengali typography and language. He pressed for more democratic public education that didn’t discriminate based on gender or caste.
 
Hate crimes motivated by religious bias shot up to a decade-high of 93 in 2018, according to a multi-organisation project led by FactChecker.in.
 
Religious tolerance deteriorated and religious freedom violations increased in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime, a report by an independent bipartisan American body claimed in 2017.
 
Caste atrocities in the last five years have seen an unprecedented rise. Dalit men are killed for riding horses, keeping moustaches, wearing footwear and even eating in front of upper caste men. Muslim and Dalit minorities are lynched for transporting cattle and the perpetrators are often upper caste ‘Gau Rakshaks.’
 
The dominant caste has certainly found protection under the BJP government to be as gruesome as they want to be without any consequences.
 
Vidyasagar was vocal about widow remarriage and introduced the practice and pushed for the Widow Remarriage Act XV of 1856.
 
Despite its significant majority in parliament, the government did not move to pass the women’s reservation bill that would have reserved 33% of seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for female candidates. That bill has been languishing in parliament for over two decades, even though research has shown that female legislators are better for the Indian economy.
 
And when it comes to health and safety from sexual harassment and assault, Indian women continue to fare far worse than many of their counterparts abroad. Experts and activists polled this year by the Thomson Reuters Foundation perceived India as the world’s most dangerous place for women, citing retrograde cultural practices, sexual violence, and trafficking. When the same poll was conducted in 2011, India ranked fourth after Afghanistan, Congo, and Pakistan.
 
When it comes to crimes against women, almost all categories have seen an uptick in recent years, with thousands of cases of dowry harassment, assault, kidnapping, and rape registered in the last year alone.
 
India’s female labour force participation rate is among the lowest in the south Asian region. In 2015-16, only 24% of India’s women were employed, down from 36.3% in 2005-06, according to the latest Economic Survey (pdf). Last year, India dropped 21 spots on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index because of the lower participation of women in the economy.
 
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s books are still used to this day to learn Bengali alphabets and literature. His words and work still help countless people, almost 200 years after his birth.
 
What is the legacy that the ruling party leaves behind?
 
Is there any politician today that is as educated, intelligent and committed to social justice as Vidyasagar today?
 
Students who witnessed the vandalism in the college said that the attackers shouted “Vidyasagar-er din shesh, how’s the josh?” (The days of Vidyasagar have ended. How’s the josh?)
 
What does the country lose when the shattered pieces of his bust lay on the ground.
 

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