It was a video that the perpetrators, a gang of ‘cow protectors’, probably took themselves. In the video, four dark, scrawny men can be seen lined up, bare bodied, behind a car in what appears to be a village marketplace. All around them, ordinary life carries on. Only a small crowd is gathered to watch the men being beaten up with a stick. Their crime: They had been caught skinning a dead cow.
It did not take long for the video from the village of Mota Samadhiyala near Una town in Gir Somnath district of Gujarat to go viral. The men being beaten were Dalits, and the attackers were from higher castes. Dalit groups rose in protest. Within two weeks, the political heat from the incident had led to a national outrage, put pressure on the ruling BJP government in Parliament, and hastened the resignation of Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel.
With elections for state assemblies in Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh scheduled for next year, the politics over status of Dalits is far from over.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, and former Chief Minister Anandiben, among others, have visited the victims of the Una incident.
Dalit groups are now on a march from Ahmedabad to Una, a distance of 355 kms. They intend to hoist the national flag at Una and announce their azaadi from atrocities.
Newly appointed Chief Minister Vijay Rupani clearly has his task cut out. “These agitations reflect that the so-called Gujarat model has not reached all sections of society and some have been untouchable even in the state’s so-called success story,” said Ahmedabad-based economist Hemant Shah. Schemes for the welfare of the lower castes and Other Backward Castes had not benefited them, Mr Shah said, and this was now revealing itself via agitations and rebellions.
A meltdown for the BJP in Gujarat would dent the images of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. The opposition seems awake to this possibility, as seen in the line of VIPs who landed up after the Una incident. The images from Gujarat are also likely to have an impact in UP.
Mayawati, who handed over compensation cheques to victims and addressed a rally, said, “When I was watching the video on television of the youth being beaten up, it felt as though my back was being broken.”
Anandiben’s lack of alacrity in responding to the Una incident, coming on the back of her previous failure to tackle the Patel agitation, saw her quit her job.
“She had not visited the families of those beaten up until other political parties jumped in the fray. She visited the affected area and the families nine days after the incident,” political analyst Vishnu Pandya pointed out.
The Patels constitute 18 percent of Gujarat’s population. The Dalits are about 7 percent. The BJP lost ground to the Congress in recent local body elections. A loss in Gujarat will mean a loss of face in Delhi. Mr Rupani, and the BJP leadership, is probably aware of this as he takes over the reins in the state.
The writer, a former journalist, works with CEPT, Ahmedabad
