Gupta’s leaning towards Sena-BJP irks Paswan

“When little was happening in UP to merit concern, Gupta described the situation there as `chaos’. That helped the BJP to form a government with Mayawati in the saddle. Here, in Maharashtra when the situation is really chaotic, he helps to keep a communal government going. I do not understand what he is after,” Paswan told select reporters at a private gathering on Friday after leading a four hour Id-e-Milad procession organised by the Khilafat movement.

His position is not unlike that of Congress president Sitaram Kesri who has recently taken to clubbing `Communists’ and `communalists’ together.

However, unlike Kesri, Paswan’s tone is not confrontationist, just matter of fact. But while Gupta might have given a breather to the Maharashtra government, Paswan has indicated he will lose no time in consolidating the Dalit movement which he believes is in a new state of churning following the July 11 events in Maharashtra.

If that seems like a tall claim, he points to the fact that a single instance of indiscriminate firing by the police on innocent Dalit men, women and children in Mumbai last week has led to a series of incidents in other States, including New Delhi, Gujarat and Karnataka.Moreover, it has reduced the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who heads the movement for the empowerment of Dalits, into describing Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar as an isolated incident in Mumbai which should have no bearing on her interests in UP. “As for Kanshi Ram, who knows where he is? May be he is sick and in hospital,” says Paswan who has lost little time in stepping into the breach.

Indeed if Kanshi Ram fancies himself as the national Dalit leader, the Minister believes he should have hot-footed it to Mumbai long before now. In the meantime, Paswan has not let grass grow under his feet. He has been to the city twice since the firing incident to condole the deaths of Ramabai Nagar’s victims and commiserate with Chhagan Bhujbal, the victim of the Shiv Sena’s blatant, violent attack last Sunday.

The trigger effect the Mumbai police firings have had on the rest of the country, he says, “indicate that there will be a new realignment of all forces ranged against the Sena-BJP. And that is a good thing.” In more ways than one, actually, so far as Paswan goes: for it totally compromises Kanshi Ram and his protege who, given their circumstances, are clearly unable to condemn the incident and sympathise with Mumbai’s Dalits for fear of upsetting their equation with the BJP on their home turf. So the Dalits might now see them for what they are and gravitate towards a new leadership.

To that extent, Paswan is happy that he was among the first leaders to visit Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar and not stoned or beaten out of the colony as Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde and even their own leader Ramdas Athawale were.

In his perception the silver lining to last week’s events is that it has exposed the so-called communal forces for what they really are: anti-Dalit. “Otherwise there was an attempt to drive them in a different direction. The carrot of empowerment was being used to destroy their ideology and corrupt the movement by making them believe that their only ideological commitment was to power,” he said.

Paswan said this was the right time for all the different streams of the Dalit movement to stop pulling in contrary directions and unite to form a cohesive group in order to defeat the designs of the Manuwadis. Such a move is more urgent for the State’s Dalits for, at 13 per cent, they are far outnumbered by the other classes (only Gujarat has fewer Dalits than Maharashtra). Moreover, they are divided into Buddhist and non-Buddhist factions that render them more vulnerable to vested interests.

The beating up of their own leaders is a lesson that must not be forgotten, he says. This is their last chance: a do or die situation, given that a failure to pull themselves up can only lead them into a quagmire from which there will be no rescue. For by then the interests of the communal forces would have been justly served.

Poor coverage of Khilafat procession flayed

Paswan has expressed surprise that Doordarshan’s national newscast on Friday night did not even mention the annual Khilafat procession in Mumbai on the occasion of Id-e-Milad, let alone provide coverage.

Paswan, who led the procession taken out from the historic Khilafat House at Byculla in central Mumbai, told reporters that he was unhappy with the Mumbai Doordarshan Kendra for not having covered the procession and added that he would raise the issue with Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy. He said “the only time I was approached by the Doordarshan reporter was when I was at a meeting with State Chief Minister Manohar Joshi”. Doordarshan reporter was not present when he had visited the ransacked bungalow of Opposition leader Chhagan Bhujbal though some other mediapersons were there, Paswan added.