By Shiva Thorat, TwoCircles.net
Nanded: Over the past couple of months, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has spent considerable time and resources in celebrating two years since it came to power. A key part of these celebrations has been organising Vikas Yug (The Development Era) events across the country, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that not all parts of the country have reacted positively to these events.
The region of Marathwada would surely qualify as one region, where people were perplexed to see such event being organised in an area which has suffered from extreme droughts over the past four years. But more than the event itself, it was the chief guest—Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister of Labour and Employment—which left the local population, especially the Dalits in the region, bemused to say the least, and it came as no surprise that when Dalits, especially students, took to the streets to protest against his arrival.
For the past year, Dattatreya has been knee-deep in controversies. He is one of the persons who are currently facing charges in relation to the institutional murder of student Rohith Vemula in January 2016 at University of Hyderabad (UoH). He was the minister who wrote letters to the UoH administration and Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani rebuking Rohith and other Dalit students as “anti-nationals” and misusing his state position to influence a university’s proceedings. He has been booked for abetment of suicide under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989.
Little wonder then, that when Dr. Tushar Govindrao Rathod, a BJP-affiliated MLA, organised the event in Nanded and invited Dattatreya, students from various communities protested against the announcement. But what started initially as a student protest, got a real lift when the Yuva Panthers, a party established in 2014 in Nanded, decided to join the protests. Yuva Panthers, started by Rahul Pradhan, was inspired by Dalit Panthers, established in the 1970s by poets and writers group in Maharashtra, like Namdeo Dhasal, Raja Dhale, and J V Pawar. Members of Yuva Panthers also claim to be followers of Phule-Ambedkar-Saint Kabir.
The party distributed pamphlets, and was instrumental in bringing together activists, academicians, and students in requesting the authorities, from local administration to the Prime Minister, state governor and police to stop the arrival of Bandaru Dattatreya.
However, the BJP paid no heed to these protests, and on 15th June, Dattatreya arrived at the Nanded Railway Station with adequate protection.
As soon the Yuva Panthers and others came to know about the event, about 100 protesters gathered and they and began protesting vehemently against the BJP event, showing the black flag and shouting, “Bandaru Go Back!”, “Rohith Vemula Zindabad!”, “Jay Jay Jay Jay Bhim!”.
But the BJP looked unlikely to budge from their plans. The party members along with the chief guests went to event place on the vehicle. One of the protesters, who spoke to Twocircles.net, said “We went ahead to the Mukhed, a village near by Nanded where the event was scheduled to be held. We all are showed our objection to the event and Bandaru Dattatreya strongly”.
Siddharth, a member of Yuva Panthers, said, “Rahul Pradhan, the member of Yuva Panthers and student was arrested by the police just before the Mukhed event. Whoever opposed the event was arrested intentionally.” The protesters alleged that the police and authorities sided with the BJP party members to suppress any protests. Following prolonged discussions between the organisers and the protesters, it was decided that the event would be cancelled.
This was not the first time that the Yuva Panthers have taken up the issues of Dalit students. Since its inception in 2014, the organisation has worked closely on addressing the issue of unemployment of Dalit students, inspired by the Dalit Panthers Movement.