Dalits see red as UP paints Ambedkar saffron, backtracks
lucknow — After facing flak over installing a saffron colour statue of Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar, district authorities in Budayun in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday changed its colour to the blue.
The saffron statue, unlike the usual blue, was installed in Dugraiyya village on Monday after the earlier one was vandalised on Saturday.
Sub Divisional Magistrate (Sadar) Parasnath Maurya said: “The previous statue of Babasaheb, shortlisted by a committee of the police and district administration, was barely three feet high. Later, a saffron statue was selected. The cost of this statue was Rs22,000 and it was paid by the committee.”
Asked about the saffron hue, the SDM said: “The committee members had brought blue paint along, but the statue was installed before giving it a blue coat. Today, the statue has been repainted in blue.”
However, the incident, reminiscent of an earlier episode where the state Haj Committee office boundary wall was painted saffron and then repainted white, prompted opposition parties to take potshots at the ruling BJP, which has often been accused of ‘saffronisation’.
“It was the BJP people who had forced Babasaheb to leave Hinduism and embrace Buddhism and today these people are enacting a drama of adopting Babasaheb. Till today, Babasaheb’s statue used to be either blue or white, but these people gave a saffron colour to the statue and made an effort to damage the dignity of Babasaheb. The disciples of Babasaheb are feeling angry,” Samajwadi Party leader and Badaun MP Dharmendra Yadav said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who himself wears saffron robes, defends the colour fetish and finds nothing wrong with it. “Saffron colour represents purity... can someone deny the existence of the sun which is also saffron... people questioning all these are narrowminded,” he has said many times in the past. —