Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
On May 25, 2019, two days after sweeping back to power, Prime Minister Modi made a speech at the Central Hall of Parliament. He said, “We belong to those who voted for us and with those who consider us their enemy.” He spoke of minorities living in fear, but claimed that this fear is an imaginary creation of vote-bank politics. In his speech, he evoked the memory of Baba Saheb Ambedkar as the camera panned obligingly to the portrait of him hung in the historic hall. Modi said the new government must take it upon itself to win the faith of all minorities: “Sabka Vishwas”.
May 18, Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu: Abdullah, a 32-year-old auto driver was beaten to death for trying to defend a female passenger from an inebriated harasser. The police are calling it a “drunken scuffle”. Abdulah’s wife, Tashmin, insists that he was not drunk and would never be so when driving.
May 20, Padra Taluka, Gujarat: A Dalit couple were attacked by over 200 upper-caste men. His “offence”? Pravin Mackwana had made a Facebook post accusing the Gujarat government of not allowing Dalits to marry in temples.
May 22, Mumbai: Dr, Payal Tadvi, a postgraduate student of gynaecology at the National Topiwala Medical College, took her own life. She was hounded, bullied, called casteist slurs and denied essential training because she came from Tadvi Muslim Scheduled Tribe.
May 22, Seoni, Madhya Pradesh: Three Muslim youth, including one woman, beaten up on suspicion of carrying beef. They were made to shout “Jai Shree Ram”. Ram Sena leader Shubham Baghel is one of the accused. Eight people arrested, including the three victims of the violence.
May 22, Manekwada village, Gujarat: A 17-year-old Dalit, Rajesh Sondarva was hacked to death by those accused of his father’s murder. Nanjibhai Sondarva, an RTI activist, was killed a year ago for demanding transparency and asking for details about funds spent on the construction of a village road. The village sarpanch is among the accused.
May 25, Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh: A 14-year-old Dalit girl was gangraped, murdered and her body burnt in a brick kiln. The accused have been booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act. The girl’s father alleges that the police and the administration are colluding to hush up the incident.
May 25, Sakchi, Jharkhand: Jeetrai Hansda, an Adivasi professor, was arrested for a two-year-old Facebook post about his right to eat beef. The state is ruled by the BJP.
May 26, Begusarai, Bihar: Rajiv Yadav stopped Mohd. Qasim on the road and asked him his name. On realising he is a Muslim, he shot him and told him to go to Pakistan. Md. Qasim was injured, but survived. In the recently concluded general election, former Union Minister Giriraj Singh won the Begusarai seat.
May 26, Gurgaon, Haryana: A 25-year-old Muslim man wearing a skull-cap was stopped by a gang of youth and forced to shout “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. He was then asked to shout “Jai Shree Ram”. When he refused, he was beaten up.
May 26, Connaught Place, New Delhi: Well-known gynaecologist, Dr. Arun Gadre from Pune, was staying at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Jantar Mantar. He was in the city to deliver a lecture organised by the Indian Medical Association. A group of men stopped him near the Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place, where he’d gone for a walk. He was forced to shout “Jai Shree Ram”.
May 26, Singampalli village, Andhra Pradesh: Bikki Srinivas, a Dalit man, was chased, thrashed with sticks and murdered for stealing mangoes from the orchard of an upper-caste man. His body was taken to the local panchayat office and hanged from the ceiling to project that he had committed suicide.
May 27, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi: The incident occured in March, but came to light recently. Two Dalit research scholars and one from the ST community were forced to clean the toilets by a professor from the Home Science Department. The matter is being probed.
May 30, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi: Pratap Chandra Sarangi is the newly elected MP from Balasore, Odisha. He has gained huge popularity across the country for his “humble” background. Photos of the frail old man emerging from his bamboo hut have turned him into a hero for BJP supporters. Sarangi was the head the Bajrang Dal in Odisha in 1999 when Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons who were only 7 and 11 years of age were burnt alive in the vehicle they were sleeping in. They were in Manoharpur in Odisha at the time. The Bajrang Dal has been linked to the murders. Sarangi has several other cases pending against him for rioting, arson and damage to government property among others. He was sworn in to thunderous applause at the country’s seat of power. He will hold two Minister of State portfolios in the new government.
This list is sourced from news reports and is by no means complete.
