All the waters of the Ganga

Uttar Pradesh, the hallowed land of sacred rivers and holy temples and of sadhus and saints, has become a map of rape and death. All the waters of the Ganga will not wash the blood and cleanse the sins of the perpetrators of the rape of the Dalit girl in Hathras, nor all its holy waters purify the defenders of rapists and their lusty cheerleaders. The rapists and killers may hang or may go scot free under political patronage, but can those in ochre robes who wield power, where criminals under their watch have a free run, those leaders who sing Vande Mataram and end their speeches with zesty cries of Bharatmata ki Jai, can they go unpunished? Can any amount of worship in the temples of Kashi and singing and chanting of beads in Mathura to appease the Gods exculpate one from one’s dastardly crimes when they violate women with such cruelty? Can such a land ever aspire to Ram Rajya?

Why did the UP government busy itself pointing fingers at Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi or assaulting and arresting journalists and civil rights activists who were showing solidarity with the victim’s family? If there is such a rape or murder in West Bengal, shouldn’t the BJP protest against the administration of Mamata Banerjee? If there are violent sexual assaults and brutalisation of Dalits in Rajasthan, as has been the case, can the BJP sit quiet and let Ashok Gehlot off the hook?

Doesn’t the UP government realise that its soft-pedalling of atrocities against Dalit women and highhandedness and exploitation of minorities will be taken as tacit approval of these by the upper castes and will result in a backlash against them and against the BJP itself and its affiliates as has happened in West Bengal and Kerala previously, where they are at the receiving end? The autocratic ways of Mayawati when she rode roughshod channelling Dalit anger against upper castes gave way to lumpen elements from the Yadav community and Muslim leaders during the rule of Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav. Did not the BJP ride to power promising to rid UP of violence and goondaism, on the promise of good governance?

Some political commentators have observed that “While Muslims as ‘enemies’ suits the BJP’s political strategy perfectly, alienating the Dalit vote could exact a heavy price.” Uma Bharti has been openly critical of the Yogi government’s handling of the Hathras rape and assault. Others have commented that while Muslim lives might not matter for BJP, Dalits lives matter. Their votes do. They have warned that Yogi is playing with fire, stoking it to appease the upper castes. Is this the time to descend to such depths, to dissect caste calculations and vote bank arithmetic? We cannot be more depraved than this. Every life matters. Every daughter is inviolate. Be it a Dalit or a Muslim, a Thakur or a Jat, Brahmin or a Baniya.

When Nirbhaya was raped and murdered bestially during UPA rule, no one asked what caste she belonged to. The whole country rose in one voice against the brutal sexual assault on her. The BJP rightly joined the protests of students and the youth and held the UPA government to account and demanded that our cities be made safe. Maybe the BJP exploited the situation by dipping into the anger of the people and derived political mileage from the Nirbhaya episode and hastened the demise of the UPA regime. Congress, which is being accused of “politicising” the Hathras rape and murder may be doing the same.

Now, the boot is on the other foot. The Yogi government must be held responsible for the lawlessness in Uttar Pradesh. The writing is on the wall. UP is not safe for women. Any woman. Dalit women are bearing the brunt of it. The government’s own statistics reveal that UP has an unenviable record and tops the charts for crimes against Dalit women.

The latest National Crime Records Bureau figures show that in India, 88 women are raped every day, out of which 10 are Dalit women. UP holds the dubious record, laying claim to 14.7% of all crimes against women in the country. Yogi was handpicked to emancipate the state and free it of violence against women, unshackle its people from the grip of the Samajwadi Party and its hoodlums. Sadly, the state has simply passed from the hands of goons of one party into the arms of the thugs of the next party. This has been the fate of the people of UP over the last few decades, with no respite from atrocities, from social instability, conflict and strife.

Can this be the land of Tulsi Das’ Ramcharitmanas, considered widely the highest essence of our culture, that eulogises the noblest ideals and deeds of Rama, the very epitome of glorious Indian devotional poetry of universal love, where now terror reigns and rapists stalk the land and where women fear to tread outside their homes? Our mythology places women over men, gives them precedence as we worship and chant their names -- Radha-Krishna, Siya-Ram, Parvati-Parameshwara, who are invoked as the embodiment of Shakti, Durga and Kaali who ward off evil so that in flesh and blood, we may hold our daughters, sisters and mothers in awe and reverence. Tulsi Das wrote the epic poem in vernacular Awadh Hindi, shorn of high-flown poetic Sanskrit, synthesising it from many versions of Ramayana and stories from the Puranas so that the ethos of Sita and Ram could reach and suffuse the common people and ennoble them in their daily deeds and prayers.

It should be a people’s good fortune when a ‘Yogi’ becomes the ‘King’ of his state. For he is supposed to combine in himself the virtues of an ascetic and attributes of a just ruler who administers through Dharma, what Atal Behari Vajpayee eloquently called Raj Dharma. It will be a great misfortune if it were to be otherwise in UP, as has been the case so far.

(The writer is a soldier, farmer and entrepreneur)