Prime Minister Narendra Modi has found an unusual way to deal with deeply uncomfortable social questions. He keeps mum. His people attack the Opposition (as thought they were in government) as a strategy to distract. The game played out with vehemence on trusted television channels. Then, emerging as a messiah, the PM speaks to offer solace if and only if there has been a hue and cry up and down the country.
This script played out to the last detail in the case of the hair-raising Kathua case of Jammu, and the earlier Unnao case. Elements of the state, the ruling party, and the wider parivar elements, appeared to be involved in covering up the crime or defending the accused and (in Uttar Pradesh’s case) chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
Eventually, the pressure of the regime versus the people got to be too much. The silence of the sphinx cracked in the end. On Friday, Mr Modi declared on the eve of Ambedkar Jayanti, the 127th anniversary of the birth of the national icon as he inaugurated a refurbished Delhi residence that had belonged to Ambedkar, that “justice” will be done to “our daughters”. He was acute enough to note that the “conscience” and the “sensibilities” of the nation had been shaken.
Kathua and Unnao pertained to the women question. The Muslim question is for the moment in the background, except that Kathua did involve that. The dalit issue is to the fore at the moment. The PM is still to speak on this though he has said no government has done more to honour Ambedkar, and that the Congress had done its best to efface Ambedkar’s memory.
Prudently the PM stops after speaking of steps to honour Ambedkar. His government and the ruling party are unable to enumerate steps taken in states run by the BJP to come to the aid of the dalit community. The days and weeks preceding the anniversary have seen an unprecedented denigration and humiliation of dalits, and violence inflicted on them, with the Centre either playing dumb or remaining stoical.
It is a sign of disaffection that on the eve of Ambedkar’s anniversary, dalit activists in Ahmedabad tried to stop a BJP MLA from garlanding Ambedkar’s statue — again one of those tokenistic gestures of “honouring” Babasaheb while showing indifference to the dalit community. They were of course arrested.
The same day in Rajasthan, another BJP-run state, the police entered dalit homes, thrashed women and elderly men, and broke furniture in order to arrest some young men (who weren’t around) it alleged had taken part in the April 2 Bharat Bandh protest called by dalits, and allegedly attacked a police station. The images played out on television. We will hear the alibis soon enough “as the law takes its course”, a lesson ruling party politicians love to impart.
