Will Chandrashekhar Azad be Opposition candidate against Modi in Varanasi?

Chandrashekhar follows the same principles of organising the Dalits as Kanshi Ram: Via education, through the bureaucracy and in self-defence

Will Chandrashekhar Azad (or Raavan, the name he has given to himself) be the Opposition candidate against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi? Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s recent meeting with him has everyone talking about this. You need to be exceptionally brave to fight Modi in Varanasi and Raavan certainly is.

On the face of it, Raavan is fighting everyone. He was born in Dhadkauli village of Saharanpur in a Dalit family, studied at a Thakur-owned college in nearby Chhutmalpur, witnessed the discrimination against Dalit students and vowed to fight it. Being an Ambedkarite and an admirer of Kanshi Ram (but not of Mayawati), he tried to follow the same principles of organising the Dalits as Kanshi Ram: Via education, through the bureaucracy and in self-defence. He founded the Bhim Army and set up 400 Bhim Army schools in Saha-ranpur district which provide free-of-cost primary education. He started self-defence classes and led bike rides through villages — including upper caste Thakur villages — as symbolic self-assertion.

This is important. Uma Bharati, a sadhvi from the Lodh caste who rose to become a Union minister, once recalled how, in her village Tikampur, others from her caste could not cycle past the homes of Thakurs. They had to dismount and walk past on foot: Because the Thakurs saw this assertion as an affront. That was 25 years ago. Nothing has changed.

The Bhim Army asks Dalits over 18 to join them. Most of the members belong to the community of leatherworkers or its sub-caste Jatav. But the Bhim Army also welcomes Muslims. It lacks a formal structure and is an unregistered body, but claims to have over 20,000 members in and around Saharanpur. Its stress is on direct action based on confrontation to preserve, protect or restore the dignity of Dalits. “Through the Bhim Army, the Dalit youth become aware that they can struggle for their constitutional rights and they will no longer tolerate oppression. The Bhim Army is not to scare off anybody but for the security of Dalits,” Raavan said in a recent interview.

Raavan’s troubles started in 2015, when he put up a board out­side his village which proclaimed: ‘The Great Chamars of Dhadkauli Welcome You’. In a village that also had Thakurs, how could this be tolerated? The Thakurs defaced this. This began a phase of confrontation, which peaked when the BJP took out a ‘Shobha Yatra’ in Saharanpur without permission through communally sensitive areas. Dalit-Thakur clashes broke out a few weeks later in the district on the birth anniversary of the Rajput king, Maharana Pratap. The state government held the Bhim Army responsible for inciting violence even as  Raavan rejected the allegation. He was arrested, but the high court acquitted him. But within hours, the Yogi Adityanath government ordered his re-arrest under the National Security Act. He was incarcerated amid massive protests by civil rights groups and released only recently.

Saharanpur is well-known for Dalit mobilisation and the unity among Muslims and Dalits. This project has been endorsed by many activists. According to Chandra Bhan Prasad, noted writer and Dalit thinker, “There are around 400 Lok Sabha constituencies where the Dalit-Muslim combine constitutes 30 per cent of the electorate. Also bear in mind that 90-95 per cent of Dalits and Muslims go out and vote. So, if they are able to come together, they become significant electorally.” Raavan has emerged as a face of this unity, even though he is not that well known in the rest of India.

Little wonder then, that the Congress is reaching out to him. His party is unrecognised. And the Congress sees in him the same political potential as Hiralal Alawa, convenor of tribal political outfit Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti, who was a key factor in swinging tribal votes towards the Congress in MP.  

Will Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Raavan’ have the same effect?