By Mayank Kumar
A day after a statue of B.R. Ambedkar was vandalised in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district, Dalit groups protested strongly on Sunday (November 17, 2024), alleging that such attacks against the community’s icon are rampant across the State and demanding strict action against the culprits. Over the last two months, there have been five such attacks reported in the U.P.
“The incident of vandalising the statue of the chief architect of the Indian Constitution is highly condemnable,” said Deepak Gautam, an activist with the Bhim Army, a Dalit pressure group. “We asked the authorities to take cognizance and make sure such incident is not repeated in future. Some nefarious feudal elements have done such acts previously also, attacking the statues of Babasaheb, the symbol of our community, who gave equality through the Constitution. It is unacceptable,” he added.
‘Arrest accused, reinstall statue’
On the night of November 16, some miscreants vandalised the Ambedkar statue that had been installed at a school in Samrupur village in Gonda about 25 years ago. After the incident come to light, local residents, mostly hailing from the Dalit community, protested againts the attack, demanding the strictest possible action against the culprits.
The vandalism also sparked outrage on social media, with many users demanding that the State government arrest the accused and reinstall the statue.
The Opposition blamed the incident on the “politics of hate” practiced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has emboldened feudal elements in U.P. “The vandalism of Ambedkar’s statue has not happened for the first time. If you look back over the last two months, at least five such instances from different parts of the State have been reported in the public domain. If you look at the bigger picture, the feudal elements who are emboldened by the rise of the BJP and its politics of hate. They are doing it aiming to send a message to society that the symbol and self-respect of Dalits will be crushed. These incidents are part of a grand design,” claimed Congress national secretary Shahnawaz Alam.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com.