With Bhim Army, Saharanpur fights for its identity

Dalits always held a majority, but Bhim Army has given them courage to counter injustices

Crossing the sleepy village of Ghadkoli in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, an unlikely blue board emerges. In a simple, bold font, the board spells “The great Chamar” in Hindi. While it bears no sign of any violence, this ostensibly plain board has fired up passions across caste lines in this village and others around Saharanpur. While the word Chamar is prohibited and its usage is punishable under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, the upper caste Thakurs and Yadavs took particular notice of the prefix “great”.

As a result, the board was burnt down twice. After the second time, it was reinstated the very next day by the state police to prevent any tensions from flaring up. The board was just one of the several Dalit symbols that have been attacked in Saharanpur. The Ambedkar statue in Ghadkoli was defaced on several occasions. To handle the situation “sensitively”, there’s police presence every few hundred metres, with police officers called in from neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh.

This pre-emptive action comes close on the heels of recent clashes between the Thakurs and Dalits in the district. Though the Dalits have always held a majority in the area, their new-found boldness to fight back is a direct consequence of the rise of the Bhim Army. Founded by Chandrashekhar, it can perhaps best be described as a social movement led by Dalit youth. The Bhim Army does everything to make a Dalit’s life “better” — medical help where none is available, financial assistance for weddings and funerals and, when the occasion demands it, a strong “army” of young men to fight back against any violence directed towards Dalits. While Chandrashekhar is in hiding at the moment, his loyal soldiers are carrying on the work of educating and organising the youth in villages.

Photo: Dalip Kumar

“Getting our community together is like a battle from The Mahabharata. Bhim Army has finally given a fragmented Dalit community a sense of identity,” says Rohtash Singh, a shopkeeper in Ghadkoli. Just next to his shop’s boundary wall, two policemen have woken up from their afternoon siesta and are listening to this conversation intently. One of them beckons me, with a polite smile and an offer of a sip of water. “There is no tension in this area. Everyone lives peacefully and happily. See, we even brought that board up within a day,” says Sub-inspector Jitendra Kumar. Singh, the shopkeeper with posters of B R Ambedkar posted on the counter, smiles.

This idyllic view of Ghadkoli disintegrates as soon as a few residents assemble at Tinku’s home. The 23-year-old is a local entrepreneur, who decided to launch a detergent called Bheem Shakti after learning the tricks of the trade at a Patanjali factory. He and his business partner, Jaswant, pooled in their own money and took out loans to create the brand, which was supported by the Bhim Army. “Chandrashekhar bhaiyya has a simple motto: Jaano phir maano (educate yourselves and then follow). We don’t want blind followers but people who can help us truly fight for justice,” says Tinku over the phone. To date, Bheem Shakti has done business worth a couple of lakhs (Tinku is not sure of the amount of money he has made). In his description of the Bhim Army, it appears that it works as a crowd-sourcing initiative in Saharanpur. For example, if someone is unwell and needs blood, Bhim Army volunteers will donate blood. Same goes for arranging ambulances or even collecting money for a daughter’s wedding.

While he is not home, about 10 men and women want their voices to be heard. “What Bhim Army? We can and we will fight against all the atrocities ourselves,” says a fierce Sapna. All of 19, she has strong views about caste biases and says the media is to blame. When probed a little further, she falters, thinks for a moment and replies with moist eyes, “Every fight, problem, issue — everything is a Dalit’s fault. The media only thinks about the Thakurs,” she says. This elicits several nods of approval from men and women across the small, brick-walled room.

“Look, we’re not part of any army and we don’t want any trouble. But the Bhim Army has finally given us a reason to have pride in our community. We don’t want euphemisms like ‘Harijan’. We are Chamars and calling us by different names is not going to wish away the atrocities we face,” says Gajraj, one of the few elderly voices. He cites an example to further explain his angst. “Before the Bhim Army, we used to often think that these so-called atrocities were all in our heads. Today, I have begun to notice small things like how we’re not allowed to sit on the same cot as the Thakurs,” he says. A popular psychological term describes Gajraj’s views best — gaslighting, a form of manipulation so severe that it makes the victim question his own sanity and destabilise his belief system.

Reclaiming the Chamar identity is perhaps one of the ways to reject this gaslighting by upper-caste men and women as well as the administration. The Bhim Army’s popularity, especially for its initiatives towards educating school children, has made political parties jittery. Mange Ram, a member of the organisation that runs a local free sewing skills centre in Tiwai, believes that all political parties are mistaken in directing their suspicion towards Chandrashekhar or his ‘army’. “He is fighting a social cause, not a political one. That is his main attraction,” he says. Surrounded by curious young men, Mange Ram denies being a part of the Bhim Army, a thought that resonates across villages in Saharanpur. For some, it is a simple act of protecting themselves against any trouble. For others, it is about protecting an ‘army’ that they see as representative of their struggles from being targeted by the media or the local administration. “You should have seen the protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. It just shows that at heart, we are all with the Bhim Army, even when some of us may not be open supporters.”

Ram Kumar, a Dalit activist and member of the Dynamic Action Group, says that the success of the Bhim Army lies in its young demographic. He cites the instance of the recent violence in Sabbirpur, where the Dalits clashed with Thakurs over a rally the latter brought out for Ambedkar Jayanti. A Thakur youth died during the violence and his kin was given a monetary compensation and a job for their loss. “The Dalits today realise that in case of a conflict, there will be a one-sided investigation. But they also know now that they have a voice and they will not accept this kind of treatment lying down,” says Kumar.

Photo: Dalip Kumar

Every third person spoken to claims to have attended the rally in Delhi. Besides the Dalits from Saharanpur, this protest resonated with similar Dalit movements across the country. In fact, Rohith Vemula, the Hyderabad Central University student who committed suicide in protest of the institutional prejudice, and the Gujarati lawyer-activist, Jignesh Mevani, are popular cultural icons even in the remotest parts of Saharanpur. This is despite the fact that all internet services were shut down in the villages of Saharanpur, as well as Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code was imposed in the area. Mange Ram dishes out his feature phone and chuckles, “Not everyone is on WhatsApp. It is the anger and the will to change our lives that binds us,” he says. He is one of the few relatively affluent men in the village, with a pucca house and a television. His wife, amused by all the attention her husband is receiving, peeks from behind the wall, head covered in a red dupatta.

In Chhutmalpur, the home of Chandrashekhar, his celebrity status is more evident. Two shopkeepers grumble under their breath about his sudden claim to fame when asked for directions to his home. A bright maroon gate bears the name of Bhim Army in Hindi. The blue Bhim Army flag flutters on the roof. Out comes Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar’s brother, a 31-year-old, confident young man who ditches the traditional head-bob as a greeting for a firm handshake. In the village chaupal, he is accompanied by three men, all of whom are Bhim Army’s members.

“For us, the Bhim Army began when our father died. It was only after his death that we became aware of all the discrimination that he had hid from us to give us a ‘normal’ upbringing,” says Singh. Their father, a school teacher, was once invited to dinner at a student’s home. “They didn’t even tell my father to bring his own utensils. They waited to insult him at the doorstep,” says Singh. The four men painstakingly detail out the treatment meted out to them as young students of the Inter College. “We were errand boys for the Thakurs. If we refused to, say, buy them beedis, we would get beaten,” says Dinesh Gautam. From separate taps for drinking water to not allowing them any forum to express their concerns, the prejudices are deep-seated. “Imagine if young school boys know that Chamars are to be mistreated. That mean it’s in their psyche,” says Singh. In this lies the real strength of the Bhim Army —going to the root of the problem and addressing it with education and awareness building.

Kumar warns that if the administration continues to make villains out of the Bhim Army, Saharanpur is bound to be on the boil again. “This is the first time that the Dalits are sending out a strong message. After this, if there is violence, the Dalits will retaliate like wounded lions, fiercer than ever.” There’s a storm brewing, one that looks unlikely to die down.