oppn parties Dalits Have The Right To Celebrate Watershed Moment in Their History

News Snippets

  • Sikh extremists attacked a cinema hall in London that was playing Kangana Ranaut's controversial film 'Emergency'
  • A Delhi court directed the investigating agencies to senstize officers to collect nail clippings, fingernail scrappings or finger swab in order to get DNA profile as direct evidence of sexual attack is often not present and might result in an offender going scot free
  • Uniform Civil Code rules cleared by state cabinet, likely to be implemented in the next 10 days
  • Supreme Court reiterates that there is no point in arresting the accused after the chargesheet has been filed and the investigation is complete
  • Kolkata court sentences Sanjoy Roy, the sole accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case, to life term. West Bengal government and CBI to appeal in HC for the death penalty
  • Supreme Court stays criminal defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for his remarks against home minister Amit Shah in Jharkhand during the AICC plenary session
  • Government reviews import basket to align it with the policies of the Trump administration
  • NCLT orders liquidation of GoAir airlines
  • Archery - Indian archers bagged 2 silver in Nimes Archery tournament in France
  • Stocks make impressive gain on Monday - Sensex adds 454 points to 77073 and Nifty 141 points to 23344
  • D Gukesh draws with Fabiano Caruana in the Tata Steel chess tournament in the Netherlands
  • Women's U-19 T20 WC - In a stunning game, debutants Nigeria beat New Zealand by 2 runs
  • Rohit Sharma to play under Ajinkye Rahane in Mumbai's Ranji match against J&K
  • Virat Kohli to play in Delhi's last group Ranji trophy match against Saurashtra. This will be his first Ranji match in 12 years
  • The toll in the Rajouri mystery illness case rose to 17 even as the Centre sent a team to study the situation
Calling the case not 'rarest of rare', a court in Kolkata sentenced Sanjay Roy, the only accused in the R G Kar rape-murder case to life in prison until death
oppn parties
Dalits Have The Right To Celebrate Watershed Moment in Their History

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2018-01-02 18:25:57

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
The battle of Bhima Koregaon finds little or no mention in mainstream history books but is folklore for the Dalits in Maharashtra. In the battle, less than 1000 soldiers of the Mahar Battalion in the British Army took on and beat a much larger army of the Peshwas. Mahar’s were a community that was treated as untouchables under the Peshwas. For them, it was not about foreign rulers beating an Indian ruler. For them, it was them beating the army of those who had oppressed their community for ages. It was celebration then and as Dalits continue to be oppressed today, it is celebration now on the occasion of 200 years of the battle.

But the upper castes will have none of it. To them, the Mahar’s sided with foreign rulers and were hence anti-national. So where is the cause of celebration? Peshwas were Brahmins. They severely oppressed and even brutalized the untouchables – as Dalits were known then. Hence, if the Mahars managed to put it across them in the battle, they were bound to celebrate. This is something the upper castes can never understand. For the oppressed, each victory, however small, is like a mountain climbed. The importance of that win and the celebrations can be gauged by the fact that despite it, the Dalits are still being oppressed, exploited, raped and killed, now both by the upper castes and the privileged among their own community.

Hence, the objections by the upper castes in Pune against the Dalits for celebrating the 200 years of Bhima Koregaon battle are out of place and mischievous. Each community has the right to celebrate what it considers watershed moments in its history. Even B R Ambedkar acknowledged the Bhima Koregaon battle as one. If the upper caste Rajput community can agitate against Padmavati (without even seeing the movie) for denigrating a Rajput queen, why are other upper castes so piqued when Dalits celebrate the defeat of those who oppressed them?