Kharge controversy revives questions over Congress’s record and electoral strategy among marginalised communities.
Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand elections, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress have begun playing the cards of Dalit politics. Following the alleged ‘purification’ (havan) controversy after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s rally in Haldwani, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi launched a rather peculiar campaign demanding that FIRs be registered against those responsible. Was there any attack at Kharge’s rally? In the cleaning and religious rituals conducted at the same ground in preparation for an event in the following days, does Rahul have any recording or other evidence of abuses against Kharge or of any tantric ritual directed against him? None has emerged so far. Yet Kharge and his leader Rahul Gandhi have continued to raise an uproar, from Parliament to the streets, over the alleged insult to Dalits. Rahul, in press conferences and on social media, has sought to amplify the issue, alleging that Dalits are still being insulted everywhere. Raising the issue of the alleged attempt to ‘purify’ the stage after Kharge’s rally, he demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ensure that an FIR be registered with the police over the alleged insult.
This is perhaps the first time in India that the top leader of the Opposition has begun sitting in protest at the Prime Minister’s residence one day demanding that an FIR be registered and the next day demanding that 200 FIRs be withdrawn. It is as though FIRs are registered in the offices of PM’s ministers. Despite 22 years as a parliamentarian and repeated appearances in courts, he apparently does not know that an FIR is merely a complaint, neither evidence nor a conviction. The verdict will come years later in court. In other words, this appears to be little more than politics aimed at confusing and provoking the public. The BJP says the incident has nothing to do with caste. It claims that garbage had been left behind after the rally and that some people had performed a religious ritual merely to clean and purify the place. That organisation, too, is not affiliated with the party. At the same time, the BJP has accused the Congress of indulging in divisive politics over the issue and using Dalit society as a political tool. The matter has now taken a legal turn. The Dalit youth who participated in the havan has himself filed complaints against Rahul Gandhi for allegedly spreading hatred.
Naturally, such cases can continue to move through legal corridors for years. This is why a senior journalist from Varanasi called me a few days ago and said, ‘There is always scope for the Opposition in an election, but Rahul and his advisers do not even understand that old stains on walls are not easily erased. And the poor Dalits, backward classes and minorities of this country, even if less educated, do not easily forget the atrocities committed during Congress rule. Reports and editorial comments documenting atrocities against Dalits are available.’ Indeed, this issue reminded me of my files of reports and commentaries from the past several decades. Kharge is currently the Congress president, and on the question of the honour and humiliation of Dalit leaders, one must recall Babu Jagjivan Ram, regarded as one of the Congress’s foremost Dalit leaders. He too was president of the party in the 1970s and had served as a senior minister. As a journalist, I had opportunities to meet and speak with him regularly from 1972 onwards. Distressed by the excesses of the Emergency and the condition of Dalits, he rebelled after the announcement of elections in 1977 and formed a new party with another major leader, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna.
The Janata Party also included most of the Congress leaders belonging to the old Organisation Congress. Yet those Congressmen too did not allow Jagjivan Ram to become Prime Minister. Reports of demonstrations by his supporters outside his residence and at other locations for several days demanding that he be made Deputy Prime Minister are still preserved in my files. At the time, the Indira Congress had branded him a rebel. But when the Janata Party split in 1979, instead of backing the most experienced leader, Jagjivan Ram, who was still Deputy Prime Minister, the Indira Congress supported Chaudhary Charan Singh, who had sent Indira Gandhi to jail, and helped make him Prime Minister. Charan Singh was under pressure over the cases pending against Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi. Charan Singh refused to withdraw those cases. As a result, the Indira Congress withdrew its support just before the confidence vote, forcing Charan Singh to resign. Jagjivan Ram claimed that he could muster a majority. He was the leader of the Opposition/Janata alliance and had the support of a considerable number of MPs. Why, then, was Jagjivan Ram not given the opportunity? Can the record of using and humiliating Dalit leaders, therefore, simply be forgotten? Even today, is the Congress party presenting Kharge, rather than Rahul Gandhi, as its next Prime Minister?
As far as atrocities against Dalits are concerned, the question of the social and political rights of Dalits has never been merely a question of the Constitution and the law. The question is: when these incidents took place and Congress governments were in power, what did the administration and political leadership do? Why did the police administration under Congress governments fail to protect Dalit citizens, and how successful was it in ensuring that the perpetrators were punished? Perhaps Rahul has been told about the role played by Indira Gandhi’s expression of sympathy and demand for punishment of those responsible during the famous Belchi incident of Dalit violence in Bihar after 1978, and how it contributed to her political comeback. But the return to power did not happen because of one incident alone. A major reason was the disintegration of the Janata Party and, to some extent, the Congress’s old organisational strength. Where is that organisation today? In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, some of the most violent attacks on Dalits took place during Congress rule, and Congress leaders were accused of providing protection to perpetrators. The situation went so far that despite allegations that a Congress leader was behind a massacre of Dalits, the party, by putting pressure on the President, managed to have that former MP nominated again to the Rajya Sabha in the nominated category. The President had once returned the proposal without agreeing to it. It was sent again, and he had to sign it.
