Even after 67 years of Independence, Ambedkar has to be ‘caged’ here
LALGANJ (AZAMGARH): A well-laid out road between Azamgarh and Saraimeer towns has Fariha village midway. One side of the road has the Dalit hamlet of the village while the other has the rest of the village population. Right at the intersection of the dalit hamlet road and the main one is a stone bust of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar holding the Constitution of India. This Ambedkar bust is ‘caged’.
A group of villagers — young and middle-aged men -- were sitting around the ‘cage’ with their chappals (footwear) off, while a dalit youth was perched on the pedestal, busy giving the statue a fresh coat of paint. There was a bucket each of weather proof, an aquamarine and blue paint, a small tin of pink and still smaller 100 ml tins of red, black and white paints. On asking them, “why fresh paint?” the eldest in the group, Ramadheen, said: “It is Ambedkar Jayanti on Monday.” “Why the cage?,” Ramadheen, Akhilesh, Chandraprakash, Choteylal, Mahajan and Sattulal, who all go by their first name – said in unison: “To protect him (the statue). It has been shrinking over the years.”
One of them narrates the story: “When installed in 1990, it was a life-size headto-toe statue. Soon, some miscreants, under the cover of night, demolished it. Then we installed one statue after another (six times) and all met the same fate. Finally, we got this one -- the smallest of all -- just one feet bust, five years ago when Behenji (Mayawati) was the chief minister.
We had held a ‘chakkajaam’ (road blockade) right at this spot. The station officer of Nizamabad police station came running with this bust and asked us to install it.
We installed the statute, but this time we put an iron cage, with spikes overhead to protect it, by collecting donations.”
On Ambedkar Jayanti on Monday the dalits will celebrate the occasion by taking out a procession from this statue to Bangawan Chowk Ambedkar statue, a few kilometre away.
Dr Baliram of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is the incumbent MP from Lalganj seat for which Fariha village votes. He is the candidate this time too. He had won this seat in 1996 and 1999 as well. So it’s obvious where your vote would go this time too? “Yes. Even if we vote for BJP people would still say that we voted for BSP, so we might as well continue to vote for BSP,” said Akhilesh. On being asked he said he said he was an MBA student at a private college in Lucknow and came to the village for Ambedkar Jayanti.
BJP never ever won this seat. The last time the Congress won it was in 1984. Neither BJP prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi nor Congress president Sonia Gandhi or its vice president Rahul Gandhi held an rally in Azamgarh district where Lalganj is among the two constituen- cies. When SP announced Mulayam’s candidature on Azamgarh seat, political circles were rife with rumours that Mayawati would respond by contesting the neighbouring Lalganj seat herself this time — which she is not.
Some politically aware locals say that BJP could have come in the reckoning here had it given the seat to Daroga Prasad Saroj, who was SP MP on here in 1998 and 2004. SP did not give him the ticket this time and he crossed over to BJP. It gave the ticket for the seat yet again to Neelam Sonkar, who was the first runner up in 2009.
So everyone says it’s a tough one between SP and BSP. BSP has incumbent MP contesting the seat, while SP has a new candidate in Bechai Saroj. “We too have two advantages. One — all the five Assembly seats under Lalganj parliamentary constituency are with us and we have two ministers from this area in the government. Secondly, we expect trickle-down effect from Netaji (Mulayam) contesting the neighbouring Azamgarh seat,” says the Azamgarh district executive committee member of SP, Tiflur Rehman.
Lalganj is going to polls in the sixth phase on May 12.