The Intellegince Bureau has been assigned the job of finding out who actually called for the 2 April shutdown and it seems to be struggling for an answer.
New Delhi: Any idea who called the 2 April ‘Bharat Bandh’, the day nine people were killed and many were injured in clashes reported from several places?
It seems even the home ministry is clueless about who was behind the call that went viral on WhatsApp and other social media platforms, following which Dalit groups came together to protest against the controversial Supreme Court order on the SC/ST Act.
Now, the home ministry has sought the help of the Intelligence Bureau, which is combing through social media profiles and pages of Dalit organisations to fix responsibility.
‘Bandh politically motivated’
Citing intelligence reports, some MHA officials said that the bandh was “politically motivated” and was called by “upper caste” people who had no connection with the Dalit cause.
“We have found that it was initiated by some people in Karnataka, Bihar and Morena in Madhya Pradesh to serve a political purpose. They had nothing to do with the Dalit cause,” a home ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We have inputs suggesting that the people who gave the call and started circulating the message on WhatsApp and other social platforms belong to the upper caste,” he added.
Whiff of foreign hand, say officials
Some MHA officials also suspect the involvement of a foreign hand. “Inputs suggest that those messages on WhatsApp could have been circulated by an outside force just to create tension and provoke the people,” an official said.
“We are doing this exercise to trace the origin of this bandh call as it became a security and law and order issue. Responsibility has to be fixed but for that we need to know who was behind it,” the official added.
But Dalit groups have a different story to tell.
Given the national scale of the protests, there was no central leadership. What is known is that a meeting of Dalit groups was held in Delhi, a few days before the bandh, but no one officially gave a call for the bandh, said Bhim Army spokesperson Manjeet Nautiyal.
“Some groups met in Delhi to discuss the cause, but did not give any call for a bandh. That came through WhatsApp and was circulated in all our groups, of which most activists are members,” Nautiyal added.
He did not divulge names of groups which came together for the meeting.
Dalit activist and Delhi University professor Ratan Lal, however, said that the government must address the real issues and focus on why the Dalits were so angry to come out on roads just reading a WhatsApp message, instead of getting into the details of who orgamised it.
“There was no leader or group who gave the call, and that is what makes this protest so powerful,” he said.
“Just a WhatsApp message and so many people were on the road. Such is the anger among people,” Ratan Lal added.
“It was the collective discontent and anger that came out. This government is not addressing the real issue,” he said.