Bharatpur: Until a few weeks ago, Belara Chauraha was a quiet intersection in the sleepy town of Nadbai, located in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district. Now, it is the epicentre of a political war — over the installation of a statue.
On one side, there is Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, and on the other, is Maharaja Surajmal, the Jat ruler who founded Bharatpur, now a reserved Lok Sabha constituency for Scheduled Castes.
The intersection is now guarded round the clock by dozens of police officers and a Special Task Force team. Tin sheds have been raised around the site, and selfies are prohibited.
“When the mason came and told onlookers that it is Ambedkar’s statue, word spread and people felt hurt…,” Aniruddh D. Bharatpur, a 15th generation descendent of the Jat ruler, told ThePrint.
It all began in December last year, when, a proposal was raised at a general body meeting of the Nadbai nagar palika (municipality), for the installation of three statues — of Ambedkar, Surajmal, and Parshuram, considered an incarnation of Hindu god Vishnu — at three key intersections of the town.
Due to the non-submission of some documents, only the Belara Chauraha proposal got a No-Objection Certificate for installation of the Ambedkar statue. However, the Jat community — which wields considerable influence in Rajasthan, comprising around 12 per cent of the electorate — is demanding a statue of Maharaja Surajmal at Belara Chauraha instead.
Soon after sitting Congress MLA Joginder Singh Awana announced via social media that Cabinet ministers Bhajan Lal Jatav and Vishvendra Singh would inaugurate Ambedkar’s statue at the intersection on 14 April, things took a turn.
On the nights of 11 and 12 April, clashes broke out between two groups, one in support of an Ambedkar statue and another wanting one of Maharaja Surajmal. A state highway was reportedly blocked and police personnel were pelted with stones. The Jat community blamed MLA Awana, and led a protest against him on 12 April. According to an FIR lodged in connection with the clashes, slogans like ‘Ambedkar Murdabad, Surajmal Zindabad’ were raised to instigate the Jatavs, a Dalit community.
The statue war has exposed caste fault lines and the politics over it in Rajasthan, months ahead of assembly elections set to happen later this year in the Congress-ruled state. Following the protests, Rajasthan tourism minister Vishvendra Singh made an emotional appeal to the protesting Jats, asking them to show “big heart” and allow the installation of Ambedkar’s statue. However, his son, Anirudh D. Bharatpur, quoted earlier, is batting for the Jats.
Incidentally, Union Minister Amit Shah visited Bharatpur on 15 April, where he claimed that there is a “a 3-D government in Rajasthan and three Ds stands for ‘dange’ (riots), ‘durvyavahar’ (ill-treatment) with women and ‘Dalit’ atrocities’”.
When ThePrint met Divisional Commissioner Sanwar Mal Verma, he said that the NOCs regarding all three statues were deferred on 13 April.
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Father versus son
Jats and Dalits are key vote banks in the region. In the current context, the Congress, in an apparent bid to garner Dalit votes, is backing the installation of the Ambedkar statue.
But this matter even has a Congress minister and his son divided.
In his appeal to the Jat community to allow the Ambedkar statue to come up, state minister Vishvendra Singh wrote in a letter: “Had Maharaj Surajmal been alive, he would have been allowed to install a statue of a hero belonging to the weaker section. I appeal to the Jat community not to allow anyone to malign their community’s image as a casteist one.”
His son Anirudh, however, told ThePrint: “They had been waiting four years for Maharaja Surajmal’s statue.” Anirudh, whose Twitter bio says he comes from the ‘Sachin Pilot school of thought on most matters surrounding Rajasthan’, had last month also taken to Twitter to accuse Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of “insulting” India on foreign soil, over his remarks made in the UK.
Meanwhile, Manudev Sinsini, deputy pradhan, Deeg panchayat samiti, claimed that “(sitting MLA) Awana is behind this”.
“He is trying too hard to woo Dalit votes by promising them a statue of Ambedkar,” he told ThePrint.
Rajiv Gupta, a retired professor from the social sciences department at Rajasthan University, said it is not unusual for such caste differences to spark just ahead of elections.
“This shouldn’t be seen in isolation. There are caste sammelans being organised across the state and country, these kinds of acts gain momentum when the elections get closer,” he told ThePrint.
The protests
On 29 March, Divisional Commissioner Sanwar Mal Verma had convened a meeting with the district magistrate, superintendent of police (SP) and others to consider the proposal for the statues.
But due to the non-submission of two reports from the town planning and public works department, only the Belara Chauraha proposal could get a go-ahead, a senior district official told ThePrint.
On 8 April, block pradhan Bhupendra Singh sat on a protest along with other village heads, opposing the move and demanded a change in the proposal.
Reacting to this, members of nagar palika wrote to district collector Alok Ranjan saying that the contested site belongs to the nagar parishad and they had taken the decision to install Ambedkar’s statue with a majority.
Amid the protests, the divisional commissioner on 10 April issued the remaining two NOCs — for the installation of Maharaja Surajmal and Bhagwan Parshuram’s statues at two other intersections chosen by the nagar palika.
By now, the protests had gained momentum on social media, with the hashtags #Jat pride and #Maharaj Surajmal trending.
Aniruddh D. Bharatpur soon joined the battle and announced on Twitter that he would do a bhoomi pujan on 13 April. He went to the contested site with a crowd of thousands, where he placed a photo of Surajmal.
“I haven’t done anything illegal. The local urban body is fully captured by the ruling party. The administration didn’t consider the emotions of the dominant Jat community. Why did they not take their consent before making such a decision? Why was it done secretively? Can you put Hanuman’s statue in a Muslim-dominated locality?” he told ThePrint.
Later, he also released a video on Twitter and called for a Mahapanchayat, “We (Jats) are not against any public figure of any community. Maharaj Surajmal didn’t just belong to Jats, but he was a Hindu dharam rakshak,” he said in the video.
Meanwhile, the district administration took serious note of the “security lapse” on 13 April. “We have asked the additional SP in whose presence the photo was placed by Anirudh Singh,” a senior police officer, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint.
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The situation now
After the police crackdown, which led to the arrests of seven men and the registration of two FIRs against Anirudh Bharatpur and deputy pradhan Manudev Sinsini, there is silence in the adjoining villages. Of the seven arrested men, four belonged to Bharatpur district and three belonged to Alwar, Haryana’s Faridabad, and Uttar Pradesh.
“They were randomly picked. One man, Peetam who is in his sixties, was sleeping in his house. He had nothing to do with the protests,” Dharamver Singh, the lawyer who is fighting their case, told ThePrint.
The cost of the legal fees is being taken care of by Anirudh Bharatpur and Sinsini.
“I will bear the cost,” Anirudh told ThePrint, adding that those arrested were not even a part of the crowd that protested. He alleged that they were randomly picked and paid a price for the andolan that he started. “So I vowed to bear the costs,” he added.
The arrested men were produced before a court last Monday, and sent to 3-day police custody. “The case will go to Bharatpur court now and we will seek their bail there,” the accused’s lawyer said.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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