In violence-hit Shabbirpur, fear looms large among Dalits
The rubble of damaged Dalit houses tells the story of fear and arson that had engulfed Shabbirpur and turned it into a ghost village after a violent clash with Thakurs five days ago.
The men have either fled to safer places or are attending injured family members at Saharanpur’s district hospital while the women are left to pick the broken pieces of their lives.
Saharanpur senior superintendent of police Subhash Chandra Dubey said 25 houses were set on fire, but Dalits of the village 25 km from Saharanpur city insist 55 houses and five shops were burnt down on May 5 after a Thakur youth was killed in caste clashes.
Dalits in the area fear more attacks after the terror allegedly unleashed by Thakurs following dispute over a procession to honour Rajput ruler Maharana Pratap that triggered the clash last Friday.
Saharanpur district has 26% Dalit population and 10% Thakurs. But in Shabbirpur village, home to 572 families, the total population is 4,000, which includes 2,500 Thakurs and 600 Dalits and this lop-sided ratio worries the Dalits.
“Thakurs were always dominant as a caste in the area that also has Jatav Dalits in good numbers,” said Dalit activist Ram Kumar.
“Only women, who could manage to escape the wrath that day are living in these ransacked houses. Most of the men have fled to safer places due to fear,” said Nafe Singh at the house of his relatives Dal Singh and Kamla Devi, both of whom are hospitalised along with their four-year-old son Badal.
The Dalit houses and five shops in Shabbirpur were seemingly attacked one by one. The strewn grocery, cattle with burn injuries, damaged motorcycles, remains of utensils and other furniture still lie around in the half-burnt homes.
Ratan, 55, one of the eyewitnesses recalled how “a mob of over a 1,000 youths on twowheelers and armed with swords and rods wreaked havoc and vandalised everything that came in their way”. All this, he alleged, in broad daylight and in the presence of policemen.
A communally sensitive district of western Uttar Pradesh, Saharanpur is not new to such incidents. The Thakur-Dalit animosity had spilled over ahead of the recent assembly polls when the BJP’s state vice-president Dayashankar Singh made derogatory remarks against BSP chief Mayawati. Dayashankar was expelled only to be reinstated later after his wife Swati Singh won the election from Lucknow.
In April, similar clashes were reported from Sadak Dudhli village when the BJP took out a procession, without permission, to mark the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar.
“Dalits fear that violence may erupt again any time. They have already spread word that a Jatav has killed a Thakur. No Dalit would dare to live here in future,” said Virendra Kumar, a resident of the village who works with a construction firm.
Main Lal, a member of the Bhim Army, a group of youth behind the Dalit protests, said they have more reasons to worry as “police sided with the Thakurs and would implicate Dalits in false cases.”
Virendra Rana, a local Thakur leader who switched from SP to BJP recently said Dalits were being instigated by some vested interests to resort to violence.
“Otherwise what is wrong in commemorating Maharana Pratap Jayanti. He was a national icon, not of any particular community,” he said.
Dalit leaders allege that the renewed violence against Dalits is a tactical move by the ruling BJP ahead of civic polls scheduled in next two months.
“The BJP lost both assembly seats — Saharanpur and Saharanpur Nagar — to the SP-Congress alliance. The party has only one representative — Raghav Lakhan Pal — in the region,” said political analyst, Prof Sudhir Panwar.
Dalits fear that violence may erupt again any time. They have already spread word that a Jatav has killed a Thakur. No Dalit would dare to live here in future