#ChaloUna: ‘This is no Dandi March’

Protesters and journalists were attacked as the march reached its destination in Gujarat

WrittenBy:Deepanjana Pal
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Since the Dalit Asmita Yatra started on August 5, the bandobast has been tight. People have joined the march in different places — making the ranks of the protestors swell — and then left it as it made its way out of their village or town. What has been constant is the police. For the entire route, police vans have accompanied the buses and vans carrying the #ChaloUna protesters. “Without the police, this rally wouldn’t have been possible,” said journalist Amit Kumar. “The backlash would have come way sooner and it would have been way more.”

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Kumar, who has been following the march since August 9 and is reporting it for Two Circles, was talking about the incidents of violent disruption that the Dalit Asmita Yatra has faced since it began on August 5. Yesterday, at the final leg of the rally, supporters of gau rakshaks blocked the highway, forcing the rally to make a detour to reach Una, and attacked those marching. Among the people injured were Kumar and Greeshma Rai of Dalit Camera.

“It’s not the first time there’s been violence,” said Kumar. Dalits were injured when the rally passed through the villages of Khamba and Bodidar. They were pelted at with broken bottles and stones. In Bodidar, it is estimated approximately 50 Dalits who were travelling with the march were attacked. “You can tell that as the rally is going on, the dominant castes here are feeling the strength of the movement,” Kumar said.

Yesterday in Samtera, an upper caste-dominated village, the rally faced a barricade. When the rally was to leave the village for Una, the police suggested a detour. The road had been blocked by those protesting against the protestors. While the convoy of Dalit Asmita Yatra’s vehicles took the police’s advice, Kumar (who had rented a bike) and Rai decided to go and see how this counter protest had shaped up.

“They’d put up a barricade on the road and it had layers,” said Kumar. There were branches that they’d arranged and then they’d put bhusa (cow fodder) on the road, so a bunch of cows came and sat down there. Then there were women lined up and finally, men yelling ‘gau mata ki jai’ and ‘jai shri Ram’.”

At this point of time the rally and its accompanying police were still nearby. Kumar and Rai were told to join the gau rakshak protest by a few people they spoke to, but nothing more happened. Once the Dalit Asmita Yatra’s vehicles had left Samtera, however, the mood changed.

“There were about 500-odd people there,” said Kumar. “Some were ok with talking to the media, some weren’t. Greeshma and I spoke and tried to reason with some of them.” At this point, Kumar and Rai were the only reporters in Samtera. Rai, who has a camcorder, was recording all of this and you can see some of the conversations on Dalit Camera. There’s deep-seated belief among the gau rakshak supporters that savarnas have been “crushed” and that Dalits are being led astray by political leaders who are exploiting them.

“Look, it’s a movement that has probably claimed the head of a chief minister,” said Kumar, referring to Anandiben Patel’s resignation. “But it’s just typical savarna mentality to dismiss the way people have been coming together and to give the credit to Congress or some other party, instead of acknowledging that there is real anger and real resistance.”

At one point, some Dalits decided to go through the barricade and that was when things turned ugly. The dominant caste protestors resisted, the police tried to lathi charge and the situation erupted. “Our phones were snatched, I got kicked and slapped, which hurt but the injuries were like you’d get in a bad fight in a playground,” said Kumar. Women tried to harass Rai by pulling at her clothes.

“We managed to get out of there and made our way back to Samtera village and asked at a shop for a way to get out,” said Kumar. “Just our luck, it was a Darbaar guy we asked.” The Darbaars are the dominant caste in Samtera. “Our mistake was that we said that we wanted to rejoin the rally. Also, we had cameras and people had seen us interviewing people, so I guess we could have been identified anyway,” said Kumar.

The shopkeeper threatened and abused Rai and Kumar. Kumar noticed there was a car nearby, its windows down, overhearing the conversation. When the two journalists left the shop on the bike Kumar had rented, they realised they were being followed. Not just that, that same car forced them off the road. Kumar and Rai both fell off the bike, which fell on them. Leaving them lying injured on the country road, the car sped away.

“It would be wrong to say we were attacked in the strictest sense,” Kumar said. “The car didn’t hit us. The guy just drove it in a way that he knew we would fall.” He’s quite certain they were targeted because they were known to be journalists who were covering the rally.

Kumar is of the belief that the Dalit Asmita Yatra has taken the dominant castes in the area by surprise. “This is no Dandi March, it’s not like people are walking by foot, making some kind of a statement,” he said. He pointed out that rather than being symbolic, there’s a very real and pragmatic agenda that has been laid out by Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, who has been at the forefront of this chapter of the movement. Mevani’s demands include the arrest of those who beat the Dalits in Una under Prevention of Anti-Social Activity Act; making the position of safai kamdar (sanitation workers) permanent so that they’re paid as per the Sixth Pay Commission; withdrawal of cases filed against Dalits during recent protests; and allotment of five acres of land to those Dalits who want to discontinue the traditional work that they’ve been assigned for generations. Along with this, Mevani and other Dalit leaders have emphasised their solidarity with Muslims, another marginalised community in the area.

“In Gujarat, Dalits on their own are a very small minority of the population,” Kumar pointed out. “No one has seen them as a vocal force before and now, there are slogans of ‘Dalit-Muslim bhai bhai’ — not Hindu, but Dalit. Dalits and Muslims are getting together and yelling ‘Narendra Modi hai hai’ on the main roads of some towns. It’s a massive shift. Even two months ago, this wasn’t possible.”

As the Dalit Asmita Yatra has made its way through the state, what has become unmistakable is the anger among Dalits in Gujarat and the sense of triumph that this rally has inspired — not just among the marginalised and those present, but also those watching from a distance. Hearing slogans of “Jai Bheem”, seeing the people gather in swelling crowds of hundreds, and watching the movement gather strength as Dalits took vows in village after village to reject the demeaning labour that has traditionally been assigned to them, this resistance has felt real and empowered. “You can feel the anxiety in the dominant castes now. And they haven’t really seen anything yet,” said Kumar. “Whatever’s happened so far, it’s not even a real show of strength. For that, wait till 15th morning, in Una.”

Kumar was right. The photographs from the Dalit gathering at Una show an immense crowd, with tiny bobbles of human heads covering as far as the camera can see. In stark contrast, there was a manicured gathering of politicians, schoolchildren and exclusive guests who gathered at Red Fort this morning, to hear Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Leaving aside the fact that at one point, it looked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was napping while Modi spoke about progress and responsible governance, it’s impossible to not notice how choreographed the whole event was. State functions always are micro-managed, but this year, the contrast between the event at Red Fort and the glorious mosaic at Una was particularly striking.

In Una, Radhika Vemula, or “Radhika Amma”, reminded everyone that the country did not belong to one caste or religion and congratulated Gujarat’s Dalits for having forced ex-Chief Minister Anandiben Patel to resign. Mevani urged everyone to unite against the land acquisition bill that was recently passed in Gujarat Assembly and launched a Rail Roko movement. Kanhaiya did what he does best: raised slogans of azadi. Some reports have come in of anti-Dalit protestors stoning people’s vehicles and those entering or leaving the meeting. However, more memorable are the images of the electric atmosphere at Una as the people like Mevani speak to a crowd that’s evidently alive and crackling.

Meanwhile in Delhi, Modi faced an audience that looked distinctly lean and sleepy in comparison to the outpouring in Una. It was a crowd of invitees, wearing what they had been told to wear (particularly the children whose clothes formed the number “70”), sitting where they had been told to sit and cheering when instructed to cheer.

As we were filing this report, news has come in from Una that Mevani and his supporters have been taken to a police station where they’re “stuck”. Meanwhile, just as the Dabaars had hinted to Rai and Kumar yesterday, upper caste mobs have come to Una, blocked roads and are causing unrest.

Happy Independence Day.

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